Count Down Fun! 1!

4:02 AM now, so I guess it's really Count Down Fun! 0!!!

No pictures tonight I'm afraid.  So you just have to imagine Sweet Sammy purring on my lap rubbing his face against my arms as I try to type.  "Dad?  Where's my cuddle?!?"

I just finished putting tonight's two production flasks into the ultrasound to devest overnight.  It's so late I'll just leave 'em running in a jar of water and pickle them in the morning.  As I've said before, you never know for sure until they come out of the pickle ~ but I do feel pretty good about them.

Why up so late casting???  It's Monday, so I made a fast store run and gassed up the car.  In the office working on the waxes I finished shooting last night by 11.  Ate a quick lunch before Pat left for her afternoon at Jeannie's.  And it took forever to get these last two trees sprued!  Which meant, you guessed it, I didn't get the flasks invested until 4:15 PM.  Which meant I couldn't begin the burnout cycle until 5:15 . . .

Why not just wait and do them in the morning?  There's no way I would be able to get them finished in time.

Why not just give up and move on?  There are lots of reasons.

Maybe because all of the work that went into the waxes up to that point would have been 'wasted' (until later that is)?  Because I'd said I was going to do it?  Because we wouldn't have the selection of work and price points that we want?  Because I'm stubborn?  Take your pick!

Some things, that we feel are important and worth while, came up awhile back and I got a later start on our production work than we had planned.  Basically I'm trying to do about three or four weeks of work in about ten or eleven days.  Most of our larger pendants have been works in progress for a couple of months now.  We have some of our production work, but not nearly enough to get us through the four days of the Guild Fair.

Pat got home earlier than usual tonight!  After she made us a nice dinner and we spent a little time together she got all of or earrings for the spinner rack on their cards and priced.  I'm glad she got to bed at a reasonable time ~ one of us has got to be functional!

Tomorrow, er, later today, I'll gather and load our display in the car first.  Then I'll sit down at the buffer.  Pat has some tricky repairs for Doug's and there are two more pieces she's hoping to find time to finish.  Wednesday morning we'll be at the Civic Center for Load In!  With luck we should have our booth set up and be back around noon ready to finish our work.

We both really love doing the Guild Fairs.  They're Fun.  It's incredibly stimulating to see everyones' amazing work.  It's really great to get to spend even a little bit of time with our friends, and to meet now people.  And frankly, being in the studio so much, it's wonderful to get to actually get peoples reaction to our work first hand.  It's a good feeling.

It's just the getting to the Fair that can be the hard part!

If it isn't finished before the Fair opens at 10 Thursday morning it isn't going to get finished!  We'll have what we'll have.  And it'll be fine!

If I can sustain my normal buffer pace I have, realistically, about 20 hours of grinding and buffing and ultrasounding to go.  Since I work in batches Pat will be oxidizing the pieces that need it as I finish them.  Then we'll do any final assembly, put on ear wires, and the pricing.  Oh, yeah,  I need to remember to photograph the new pendants and the three commissions we're delivering this weekend!  (I know there's something I'm forgetting!!!)

And then there's the regular minutiae of life ~ like laundry!  (My shower Sunday was loverly!)  And taking time to cuddle our loving cats.  So that's the quick rundown.

I'm sitting here past ready to go to bed trying to remember if I brushed my teeth . . .