For those who know me well, you’ll know that today was a double whammy. In a church AND wearing long pants!!! Yikes. Celebrating the marriage of Camden & Kristin… second son of my best friends from college!

Fun to see the huge Grandstand being built down on the east end of Navy Pier in preparation for this weekend’s America’s Cup World Series boat racing! The first time EVER on fresh water!!! Blue skies, brisk winds and great scaffolding silhouettes.

Today was the Grand Opening of the new Centennial Wheel at Navy Pier.
Celebrating “The First Ride” with all the pomp & circumstance it deserves.
Including a speech by Mayor Rahm Emmanuel and a group of adorable school kids with perfect school attendance to get it started. A quick “flip of the switch” and there were fireworks, kabuki steamers and a large rotating Ferris Wheel!!!

I was lucky enough to be invited to for the Big Event!!!
Huge thanks to my friends at Navy Pier for the invitation… Jen, Jared, Erika, Sue, etc.

And for the record… I was on the very first ride of  “The First Ride”
… ahead of all those other people! First one at the head of the queue I might add.

The view from above is pretty amazing too. This new Ferris Wheel is larger than the previous one… so the view seems that much larger too! Unfortunately the clouds had moved in… but still cool to see the Chicago Skyline and rest of Navy Pier from above.

With souvenir cookies at the end.

And a pretty cool view from inside the adjacent Crystal Gardens.

My taxes are now done for another year… with a full two hours to spare!!! Loved the three-day deadline extension this year… obviously it just gave me more time to procrastinate, huh?!!! And at this point, I would be THRILLED with the $20.

Tomorrow may be “taxing” for some… but it is also a great opportunity to help those less fortunate. Tomorrow evening is the EMPTY BOWLS fundraising event at Lillstreet Art Center. Come buy a handmade bowl, get it filled with soup and feel good as the proceeds go to benefit First Slice Pie Café and its efforts in serving nearly 4,000 meals each month to Chicago’s hungry. Make every day less “taxing” for those in need… and YOU keep the bowl!!!

Click here for more information – EMPTY BOWLS at Lillstreet Art Center.

A beautiful morning for a brisk 8K run through downtown Chicago. Chilly with a bit of a breeze, but with the right layers it was quite nice for me and 23,500 of my fellow runners. What a difference a day makes… can you even imagine if the run was during yesterday’s crazy blizzard conditions?!

The toughest part is deciding what clothes to wear… and how many layers you can take off and pack away into Gear Check. The morning is cold. The breeze is chilling. You know you’re going to warm up when you start running. But you also know you have at least a half hour to stand out there and wait. At this point, Tracy and I were pretty sure we had made the right decisions.

Here’s the view of the Starting Line as we wait for our turn to start. I was in the second wave, Corral G… which means we had plenty of time to wait.

My friend Kristin was doing her first “official” run… we’ve been “training” at Spin Class together. So it was fun to see her there in my same Corral. We ran the last half of the race together which was a lot of fun. She did a GREAT job today!!!

And THIS is what you get when you ask someone to take your picture at the Finish Line… apparently the nice lady had extremely large thumbs?!!!

Such a difference a day makes… clear skies and NO SNOW!!!

Some of the Shamrock Shuffle “swag” back at my lace…. some sweatier than others!!!

On my way home, I stopped off at Ann Sather’s for some I-deserve-these  “reward” cinnamon rolls!!! Always fun when you know you’ve already burned off those calories!!!

A sneak peek at the new Ferris Wheel being built at Navy Pier.
It’s coming together nicely… opening Memorial Day Weekend.

By now everyone should have gotten their latest copy of POTTERY MAKING ILLUSTRATED. So here’s the challenge… send me a Selfie of you and your magazine!!! I’d love to see how far this magazine has traveled. Send your Selfie to gary@firewhenreadypottery.com. Thanks in advance… and let the games begin!!!

By now I’m sure you’ve figured out that I was recently published in POTTERY MAKING ILLUSTRATED. I was lucky enough to get the full center spread in the March/April issue. Pretty exciting… my first time in their magazine!

Huge thanks to the fine folks at POTTERY MAKING ILLUSTRATED for recruiting me for their publication. It has been such a fun project for me to work on, and to share my work with a wider audience. Hopefully the magazine with inspire some people to throw some clay on THEIR walls… and then send me some photos of the result!!!

Click here to go to the POTTERY MAKING ILLUSTRATED website.
It’s full of wonderful tips, techniques & tricks for potters of all experience levels. Great ideas being shared by a lot of gifted & giving potters. It’s a great online resource for potters of all levels.

Or you can click here to go to MY article in the magazine!
Because you know this little blog is really all about ME after all… tee-hee.

Or you can just read my article here... so many options…

Originally published in Pottery Making Illustrated, Mar/Apr, 2016. http://potterymaking.org. Copyright, The American Ceramic Society. Reprinted with permission.

One of my biggest fans with the latest issue of POTTERY MAKING ILLUSTRATED. Looks like she’s found something fun to add to her “pottery wish list.” Methinks I might need to be making more of these textured wall pillows?! And quick…