Big Changes

I {Greta} bought a kiln a couple weeks ago! Yes, one of those dryer sized things that fires clay at temperatures starting at 1800 degrees. I also was offered a wheel two days ago, I just have to arrange for the pick up of said wheel. No, the kiln is not replacing either the heater or the oven in our apartment; nor is the wheel becoming a new side table. Daniel's parents have kindly offered to house both items for us.

Which brings us to the other big change. In August, I am leaving my art teaching job of three years to go into business on my own as a "real" artist! The bowl in the picture is one of the things I will be making to sell {and for the record: no subliminal message about nesting or adding a third little bird to our nest}. I will be selling online, at craft shows, and {if some networking works} at some retail stores! I am so excited!

Thrifted China

Greta found eight place settings of Mikasa Cameo Platinum at the thrift store. They didn't get any of their wedding china, so she was thrilled to find the pattern that had been their second choice.

Thank you, Gram!

New soap dispensers for our bathroom from Gram. Daniel picked green, and I picked yellow

Santa's Workshop Moved

Santa's workshop moved from the North Pole to take up residence in our dining room.

It all started with making a green pig (from the animated game, Angry Birds) stuffed animal for Luke. Proud of how well it turned out, I posted a picture on Facebook. Orders started pouring in. Daniel also did a little boasting at work, and returned home with not only an order for a green pig, but one for an apron and requests to know what else I might make; one co-worker (short on time but not on cash) would like to give as many handmade things this year as possible.

In addition to the assembly line of green fleece, I am making some other things for family and friends for Christmas. Fabric and craft supplies are slowly taking over the apartment; but I enjoy this process as I carefully think about each person and evaluate what they would like. December is going to be busy!

The Graduate

Greta has her BFA!

Bachelor of Fine Arts, that is. She graduated yesterday at 1:00 pm. She was one of approximately 40 students graduating from the College of the Arts, while 400 or so graduated from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.

She wore a tangle of honor cords around her neck, choosing the ones she was most proud of.

Receiving her diploma

David's on-campus job was working with the sound and film crew to record the ceremony and stream it live over the internet.

Oops. Oops. Oops.

Three kids, two events in under 18 hours.
Kid 1: a trip to the ER for a severe allergic reaction
Kid 2: a car accident (the other driver's fault; no one hurt).

Happy Wedding Day

The new Mr. and Mrs.

All the attendants with the newlyweds.

First dance.

Father-Daughter dance.

The wedding cake: Greta made the ceramic figurine as a cake topper, but it turned out to be too heavy for the cake. At the last moment we added hydrangeas as a topper and the ceramic piece became a table decoration.

A close-up view of the cake topper.

The groom's cake was a surprise for Daniel. We asked a friend to make it to fit the keyboard cover of a real piano. It was so realistic that most people thought it really was the keyboard.

Cutting the cake


The bride's bouquet.

The guests are ready and waiting for the newlyweds to run through the rice.

Daniel is carrying a handful of chocolate coins to toss back at the guests as they reach the car. Greta got this idea from watching Jane Austen movies.

To see more pictures of the wedding, go here.

Engagement

Daniel proposed to Greta Friday night, and she said yes!

Outside my bedroom door when I woke up this morning, there was a bouquet of red roses and a love note saying that Daniel had arranged for a massage at a spa. After teaching my art class, I had a wonderful looong massage, then browsed at some upscale shops nearby.

Since the school semester had finished yesterday, we were planning to have a celebratory dinner at our favorite restaurant. Once Daniel picked me up for the dinner, he got a phone call from a photographer friend saying he was stranded at school: his car had broken down, and no one else was around. So, we drove to KSU to rescue him from the art building. But instead of walking into the art building, we continued past it, towards a beautiful bridge that had been our special place on campus. At that point, I knew!! The whole stranded friend story was a ruse. But what a surprise!

The bridge and the path were lined with luminaries, lights were in the bushes, and red rose petals littered the stone path. After delivering his speech, Daniel dropped to one knee with the ring and proposed. We got pictures of the whole thing from that not-stranded-after-all photographer friend!

After dinner at Cafe Lily, the server brought a cake with a sparkler. Seeing my ring, the whole restaurant clapped and cheered for us.

Greta the Art Teacher

Every Friday I co-teach Art History to 15 late elementary school homeschool kids. Every Friday morning, I bounce out of bed eager to hear what hilarious things those kids come up with.

The girls are at the age where everything has to be perfect (the boys either don't care yet, or will never care). The art they come up with is so cute, too! Libby and I alternate between showing them how to make it better, and convincing them that it looks good the way they have it. "Miss Greta, are you just saying that? I know you don't mean it when your voice gets all squeaky."

The art games we play often contain shouting matches; especially, when playing Art Jeopardy, one little boy got so excited he would shout out [correct] answers at every opportunity: even if it wasn't his team's turn. He won the opposing team (known as the Needle Tools) 500 points doing that! His team mates were not too happy with him!

Back to School

School started on Monday morning, bright and early. Greta is glad to be a senior; only 24 credits left until graduation! Her fall semester classes are Statistics, Advanced Sculpture, Advanced Ceramics, and Printmaking II. She will be teaching a few art classes at Out of the Box, and she is on the Student Government Exec Board.

David is glad to no longer be a freshman. This fall he is taking Business Law, Financial Accounting, Criminal Justice, Application Development, and Operating Systems Security. He is continuing to drive for Napa about 30 hours a week, and he is secretary for Student Government.

School's Over

Finals were over in early in May, then Greta immediately started May Term. She took Pych. That's over now too, but final grades aren't posted yet. Here are the results of her spring semester's work in Advanced Ceramics:

David finished his Freshman year by getting a delivery job at Napa Auto Parts. He says it's rather boring, but he likes the paycheck.

He also played his pipes at one of the four graduation ceremonies at school. No one knew he would be playing, so he got a few surprised looks. This weekend he's off in CA playing his bagpipes in cousin Danica's wedding. I can't wait to hear all about it. (And maybe add a picture.)

Secretary David

Yesterday afternoon, I was invited to attend the last regular Student Government Association meeting for the semester to see David sworn in as Executive Secretary. He ran unopposed, as did the entire slate of officers. (That's the new Treasurer being sworn in next to him.)

Greta decided not to run for the fall, so she is rolling off. But she plans to stay involved as an executive page or something. Her friend Daniel is now President.

Greta's New Job

I have a new job, starting in the fall! I will be a ceramics teacher at a small art place that is designed to supplement a homeschool education. They had been looking for someone with a BFA in ceramics (I am one year away from that!), understands homeschool families (I was homeschooled k-12), and is a Christian. Though their studio space is small, it is very sophisticated, and rivals even KSU's art department for supplies and equipment. I will be thrilled to be working with children again (I will probably have classes with children of all ages up through middle school. I won't be able to teach high school until I have my degree), but I am nervous about creating lesson plans and actually teaching a group! But I definitely know that God provided this job for me, and He will supply the wisdom and grace needed.

Charity Ball

I was asked to be a princess on the court of a Mardis Gras charity ball. My father got to escort me down the aisle (dressed in a costume), to the foot of the dias where I curstied to the king of the ball, then took my seat on a throne.

After the court was assembled, the Queen of the ball (who was the former president of my university) declared that she wished the princesses to have a special moment with their fathers; dancing.

After some "entertainment" the court paraded around the ballroom, dancing to "When the Saints Go Marching In".

The night culminated in dinner and dancing. Daniel and I wowed the whole room with our swing dancing.

Life Casting

First I life-cast Daniel's face for a ceramics project

Then it was my turn!

What Happened???

You should have seen my eye yesterday: even more colorful! I had some nice shades of royal blue also.

Saturday, I woke up early to go with Daniel and his family on a falconry hunt in the south of the state. Yes, just like the Medieval Ages. Except now only trained and licenced falconers can keep birds. After hiking in fourteen degree weather for several hours and only seeing one (large) wood rat being taken down by a hawk, I was standing on a ridge a couple yards away, watching the rest of the group trying to scare a squirrel into the open. Suddenly a big dark thing was hurtling towards my face [probably a large chunk of wood. We never actually found the object, but if it were a rock, it would have broken my glasses]. I barely got my eyes clsoed before tears were streaming down my face as I groaned. Fortunately, Daniel's uncle, who is an ER doctor, was on the trip with us. After an initial exam of my eye, he drove me to the nearest hospital.

Even thouugh there was quite a line, I was seen in less then ten minutes. To see if there was any tear of the cornea, they put some dye in my eye, and then shone a black light on it. Daniel said my eye was glowing a floresent green, especially arround the rim of it! They refered us to a nearby optomologist who just happened to be in his office at the time. After many eye drops and bright lights in my eyes, he pronounced that I had Traumatic Iritis. Basically, my eyeball is bruised and the muscle strained, but there is not scratch or punture to the lens. My pupil has a hard time constricting as normal, and gets misshappen causing blurred and whitish vision. I am on two types of eye drops to help: dilation drops to lessen the strain, and steriods to control the inflamation.

Update from Greta

Finals are over, so now I can tell the world about some of my news.

I had mentioned that I was nominated for homecoming about a month ago: the next week I was hard at work campaigning to win Homecoming Princess, while organizing SGA's involvement in homecoming. I handed out candy, fliers and movie posters; made announcements in classes; recruited facebook friends; made alliances with other student groups who had people running for homecoming, just no princess; and talked the gamers, the smokers, and the art students into voting for me. Once they all heard I was running against sorority girls, they flocked to the polls to vote for me. Its not that I have anything against sorority girls: but I was willing to use the truth to my advantage. In between campaigning, I ran a carnival booth with pin the beak on the owl; decorated an owl cake; and designed a float for the parade (and dressed up like the mascot to ride on the float). The week culminated in a beautiful dance in a ballroom, where the homecoming court winners were announced. I was the runner up to the princess!

A few weeks ago, I was chosen, along with 58 other students, to be inducted into another honor society: Who's Who Among American Colleges and Universities. My university has over twenty thousand students enrolled. Visiting family got to come to the ceremony with me; I had the largest cheering section there! The president of the University gave a speech and then we filed past to receive a framed certificate. Much picture-taking ensued.

Foundry Class Pour

Parents were invited to go to school today to watch the metal pour in the Art building. Here is Greta, to the left of the red hot metal bucket, pouring liquid bronze into her sculpture mold. Just before this, the students poured the aluminum sculptures in the cans in the foreground. It's quite a procedure to watch, and they all handled it very professionally.

It was about 32 degrees on this patio today. Mom froze while photographing it, but the students were all bundled up in heavy leather chaps, jackets, and gloves. I'm anxious to see the sculpture once it's released from it's cage.

Homecoming Princess?

I just found out I am a finalist for homecoming princess at KSU! This means I am one of five Junior girls on the court. At KSU, we don't just pick a king and a queen, we have representation from each class. And I, being a junior, would win the title of Princess if I won.

I had to go through an short interview after turning in my application. The questions seemed like beauty pageant questions, ranging from "Why did you choose to come to this school?" to "I see you are very involved on campus. What motivates you?" And my favorite, "Why would you best represent the school?"

I tried very hard to be calm and poised, knowing I would be judged on that, though I was nervously shaking before they called my name. But as soon as I started talking about God and my faith in Christ, I thought It's over. They're never going to pick me. However, I now get to campaign, and I am really excited to have this new experience!

Mom's note: David was nominated from Student Govt too, but he declined the nomination. I thought it would be funny if brother and sister were on the court together!

Glass Etching

A customer came into the bookstore one day, looking for some nice mugs to give as groomsmen gifts. We did not have what she wanted, so my co-workers and I started suggesting some alternatives. She really wanted them personalized, too. I started naming some ways that she could do it herself, when she looked at me and asked, "Would you do it if I paid you?"