"With such a large nose, do you smell better then the rest of us?" ~ Penelope

Sorry about not posting last night, the internet was out aaaagain! But we are back in order now!

Fridays starting at the crack of dawn are pretty exhausting.  I am not a morning person... this may be due to the fact that I stay up too late at night then am finally into my REM cycle when the alarm goes off.  Maybe, but I am trying to do better! Last night I slept for like 10 hours! 

Friday morning we went into the hot shop and got to look at our colorful bottles!!!! 

This is them in the ware cart after they have been taken from the annealer.  They were still warm this morning!

 More bottles on parade!

I like these two.  The one of the left went a little crazy but it still works for me.  

The one of the left has dark blue under some yellow spots all over.  

The one on the right has dark blue and green mixed at the top of the bottle.

 The left is violet colored and the one on the right is the dark blue.

The one on the left is dark blue and has the technique done to it where I put clear glass stripes on over it and the clear pushes the color away leaving clear stripes.  The one in the middle was done with colored stripes on clear glass.  And the one on the far fight is violet on the second gather of glass so it is not on the neck at all really.

We were all excited looking at our bottles so we went and got more colors to try and ended up with some of these:

 Yellow and green in the back, the front is a blue/white/green coarse mixture, teal powder, course green mix and more of the coarse yellow that we used the day before.

 This is Mia dipping her glass into a color next to the glory hole and our work bench.

The teal turned out to be the same color as my shirt when you did it really thickly! I hope these colors turn out really cool! We also broke out some pink after lunch! I tried to make a pink and green (go Sweet! It is Sweet Briar's Homecoming this weekend) bottle but I think it might look like mold when we pull it out... who knows!

We also went to the factory to watch some of the Orrefors Masters blow for one of the designers here named Lena Bergström.  They were blowing these ENORMOUS egg shaped pieces for an exhibition she is going to do in Holland I think.  She then gets the master cutters to cut them into odd shapes and sometimes cut cool designs into the them and calls them Planets.  You can see them on her website.  She was pretty nice but like many designers she was like "today I am blowing these shapes bla bla bla..."  and she doesn't even know how to blow glass, cut glass or anything other than design it! The Masters were really nice and friendly.  They worked hard and goofed off like normal people.  You saw them make silly mistakes (like try to open the glory hole with the wrong end of the stick) which made them seem a little more human not so different from the rest of us.  Watching them work is a mix between awe and inspiration that one day I will be that good and a little bit of depression when I think "I can't even control a tiny blob of glass, or cut a thin stripe...." and they do it on huge pieces with such ease and amazing skills.  I mean I guess that is why they are masters... The master cutters are really amazing too.  I heard that last year Lena was working the cutters so hard to make the perfect shape for her that he cut off his thumb! HOLY SHIT! It got sewn back on but is useless and he is still a glass cutter but now just does it with FOUR FINGERS!!! I couldn't imagine that!!!!!

After school I had a very healthy snack:

The internet was down so I sat around and tried to figure out what to do before we left for Nybro for grocery shopping and going RIDING!  I drank too much coffee and ended up cleaning.  I cleaned my tiny hobbit hole of a bedroom, the kitchen (where I cleverly hung a string, ok dental floss, up to hang the dish scrubby brushes because we have to have 3 out at all times for some reason and I was tired of them laying around on the counters) and picked some old apples for the horses, and some other things that I can't remember now all in the hour and fifteen minutes I had to waste before we left.  It was a very productive afternoon!  Then we went to Nybro where Kirsten and Anniina bought some random stuff at the sports store, we went grocery shopping and to Systembloget (the liquor store which I am still having a hard time saying correctly).  Then they dropped me off at the riding stable!!! 

Meet Poseidon:

 He was very sweet and a little shy but quickly warmed up to me after a few apples.  

I have no problem bribing a horse to like me ;)

 He looks bigger then he is... Maybe 15 hands but I read on his card that his father is the Stallion I Love You.  That got me excited for my jumping lesson this week!

I got into the ring and they 4 jumps set up, some on the diagonals and some on the long sides of the ring.  It looked like a mini course (probably the biggest you can get in this little indoor ring).  We warmed up and started trotting over a little jump.  I went last (as usual I am noticing) and I trot up to the jump thinking "sit back, move your body slowly, hands up, stay in the trot...."  all of a sudden Poseidon LEAPS into the air over this tiny jump and clears it with about 4 extra feet over the 2 foot jump! Luckily, Justin (my horse) has taught me to always grab mane and how to stay on over wild jumps because he was very good at getting me out of bad spots with a wild jump.  Pia (my teacher) laughed and said "oye oye oye" in a very Swedish way and said "I forgot to tell you sometimes he yumps really big!  Bra (good) Therrrrresa!"  Thanks for the early warning Pia! We continued to jump excessively high for the rest of the lesson but it was fun.  We did a little 6 jump course at the end and I only had to repeat one jump! Two people fell off in the lesson which I had forgotten how much that makes me nervous but more determined to do well myself.  I guess I had gotten spoiled riding with Parker and Theo!  At the end of the lesson Pia said that Poseidon was a really good jumper and could jump really high but was scared of everything and normally stops at jumps.  (yay us! no stops in my lesson!)  She kind of laughed and said "I guess sometimes good parents aren't enough for good brains!"  But I really enjoyed him and learned that here they don't cluck to make horses go faster but make a popping noise and when they want to slow down the go "thhhbbbbbbbt" with their lips.  It felt a little silly going around and in the corners going "thbbbbbbbt" but it worked!

I said goodnight to Poseidon and gave him several more little apples and I hope I get to ride him again soon! He was lots of fun and so sweet once he warms up to you... and is adorable when he begs for more apples!

Then I went home, ate a frozen pizza and watched Penelope all alone! It was lovely :)  I have been with people so much recently it was nice to have some alone time.  I loved the soundtrack of Penelope and noticed that Sigur Ros even had a song on there!!  You should really watch it if you get a chance.