The Lost Month

Random Picture of the Day

That's right, "Lost Month" not "last" month. For the first time in years I was drop dead sick. Aches, pains, barf and no food, the whole nine yards. I had to visit the Doctor twice. Now while I normally don't mind not going to work, but nearly four weeks of Maury was getting to be too much. I was starting to enjoy Steve Wilkos too. I watched a lot of BBC America. I missed food, but losing eight pounds was a strange side benefit.

If that wasn't enough I had to switch my Health Plan in the middle of all this. As of the first of July I hadn't gotten my new cards or information. I started bugging the contact person at work about it. "I'll email and check", "You're all signed up. Call and get your subscriber number". The card finally came. Wha? It says I'm in an HMO. I signed up for the PPO. Contacted Lady again. "Oh. We found that last week and corrected it". Hmmm...like when I contacted you the week before? Swiftly received new cards but the Blue Shield website is still in error (you are not active, we have no information). I finally contacted their Webdesk, "We'll fix it. Might take a week or two, check it later".

So after all the the fun experiences with Blue Shield (and they are pleasent enough on the phone), I had to get my RX benefits fixed too. RX is separate with this plan and administered by another company. I called them. I found out there is another Margaret Olson who works for the State of Alaska. That was the only one they could find. So off to contact the Lady again. "I contacted them. There was some sort of error. It's fixed now." Great! Now I can get some meds for the flu. Hazzah! I wonder if anyone else at work had this much trouble?

The positive of all this: I had two days I felt good enough to cast some dogs and the new mare. Maybe next month I'll feel like glazing.

Casting

I did some casting this weekend. My newest horse mold was something of a success. I did manage to get a horse out of it without the troubles I expected. I am happy about that. I did have a few minor issues but nothing a little patience won't cure. I have a real problem with time. I don't have enough of it. So I tend to rush my castings out of their molds rather than wait for them to come out on their own. I think this one is going to need patience to set up in it's own time.

Some other things that came out of the molds this weekend:

Jett the Corgi

Here's a preview of my latest dog, Jett the Corgi. It's not finished in this picture but you get the idea. I had a friend who really wanted a ceramic Corgi. She sent many pictures of her long suffering dog, including the one where she dressed the dog in a school bus costume. This one actually started life as a sitting sculpture. It just wasn't working for me that way. So I put it aside for a long time, wondering what I could do with it. When I started working on it again, I just went and mushed it, trying to figure it out. It finally told me what it wanted to look like. It's got a "You got a goodie?" look or maybe "Go for a walk?", as if he's about to hop up for a closer look. It will be awhile before I can get to molding him. I think this one will be fun to glaze. He's got big eyes, unlike the beady eyed Bull Terriers I usually do.

Hmmm...

So, I'm trying out the blogger thing to see if it's better than using iWeb and my own site host for this blog stuff. Not sure I like it but anyway what do you think of my pictures? I have a new camera. I managed to get a good deal on a Sony a300 when Circuit City went out of business. It takes so much better pictures than my old Nikon Coolpix 800. I'm still wanting a macro lens for it but the kit lens does fine for now I think. That's a Breyer Stablemate in the photo above and one of my ceramic Bull Terriers below.