Okay, so I know I’m “supposed” to be working on the latest addition to “The Ghouls Collection” for next weekend at ART IN THE BARN. But somehow these pumpkins just keep popping up?!!! Not too shabby since I just threw these guys yesterday, huh?!

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Last night while I was soda firing, a few of these little cuties “sprouted” in my studio.
Still need a bit of underglaze colors and a firing before showing up next weekend
at ART IN THE BARN!!! Saturday, September 28th & Sunday, September 29th
on the grounds of Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital in Barrington, Illinois.

With the soda kiln filled & firing, I can finally focus on my next task at hand…
making my annual Halloween Ghouls for next weekend’s ART IN THE BARN.
Sure, I night be running a bit late, but I seem to thrive under a good deadline!
Here we go… gotta get my ghoul on!!!

Celebrating the Fourth of July with my annual road trip down to Central Illinois to visit great friends in the little town of Chenoa. The town does a great job hosting a very Norman Rockwell-ish small town celebration… parade, house decorating, corn dogs, lemon shake-ups, cotton candy & SPECTACULAR fireworks! A wonderful “escape” to get away from everything going on these days!

A crazy-cool tree I found with these wacky spikes popping out everywhere!!!

And then the EXCITEMENT started!!!

And yes, Chenoa is definitely stepping up their game…
and here’s their ONE traffic light… which is actually just a blinking red stop sign light!

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After my bike ride, I packed it up and headed out to the suburbs for Easter with the family…
a bit “untraditional” with fresh handmade guacamole & fajita dinner at a Mexican restaurant…

Followed by a wonderful Easter Egg cake handmade by my niece Taylor!
With an extra special surprise peanut-buttercream frosting inside!
Good thing I pedaled “a few” miles before feasting all day!

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What a wonderful way to kick-off my Easter than with an AMAZING bike ride
with my best pedaling partner Chrissy-Chick!!!

We had a beautiful morning ride through the woods on the North Branch & Green Bay Trails, around the Skokie lagoons, into the Chicago Botanic Garden and more!!! Incredible weather, great riding and over thirty deer sightings along the way!!! So much fun… maybe the best Easter ever?!!! And to think a week ago we had a huge snowstorm!!! Spring in Chicago!!!

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With a little shamrock greenery on my living room window sill.

Sometimes it’s too easy… or too tempting… when it’s Pi(e)Day and you’re at the studio… knowing that the First Slice Pie Café is right downstairs… and they’re offering special deals when you buy TWO slices of pie. So how could I not participate in the celebration? Tough choices… but I ended up with Cherry and Peach-Blueberry.

MARCH 6th – NATIONAL OREO COOKIE DAY!!!

It would be wrong to NOT celebrate a national holiday, right!?
Well we would never dare…

Instead, we celebrated National Oreo Cookie Day with LOTS of them in class
last Wednesday night! Two of my students brought a whole selection of cookies…
and I brought the milk!!!

And to top it all off, we also had “OREOs” from Cuba!
Patti & Jon were there for a biking vacation, and they brought back treats for me….
the closest thing they could find to OREO’s while in Cuba!

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MORE EXCITING NEWS… I just saw that two of my students did a little shopping
on their way into my pottery class tonight. Looks like a party in the making…
we’ll just change the name of our class to the OREO THROWDOWN!!!

Looks like we’re off to a great start in celebrating NATIONAL OREO COOKIE DAY!!!