"Hurry up and wait." ~ Pappa, the horse show Dad

Here is a picture of the stuff I made yesterday (still no matchbook sorry):

 Candle holder, rose and wine glass!!!

 The rose turned out pretty cool.  It is all clear but is picking up the blue from my jacket.

 This is normal size wine glass with an added stem and then added foot.

 You can tell that it is 3 pieces because of the crease at the top and bottom of the stem.  

Today I worked in the morning with Maja in the hot shop on making things with cool stripe patterns.  I made a cool one with stripes going both directions and I think it will look like a fishnet pattern! Hopefully.  Then I helped Maja attach blown handles (as in hollow handles) and then make some kind of odd bowls.  It felt like I keep doing things wrong for her today... but it was also because she kept having these ideas to do stuff that I don't know how to do... or haven't done in FOREVER.  Like the blown handles, the second year Nordic students learned that last week, or a colored rim on a piece which I haven't done in over a year I think.  We have been working together a whole lot recently and maybe it is a little too much.  I think it might be time to scale back the working together time.

In the afternoon I worked with Vegard and we got to make wineglasses with a glory hole! We decided to practice pulling a stem from the cup.  This is done by blowing the cup part into a mold with a little extra space at the bottom where you end up with extra glass (like those schnapps glasses that we put the foot on a few weeks ago).  Then you heat up that extra solid glass in the glory hole and stretch it into a stem, ta-da! This makes it so you don't have that seam at the top of the stem, and results in the stem always being in the middle of the cup.  Very convenient if you have a glory hole.  I want to learn to open up the wineglasses next! Anyway, I saved a few good ones today so there should be lots of glass pictures for tomorrow.

After school I checked the mail and saw this big fat package in the box and rolled my eyes thinking it was ANOTHER package for Kresten or Nils.  They are always getting stuff it seems but NO!!!! It was a V-day package from Jenny (best friend in NYC)!!!!!   

 I am not sure if she sent the same thing to Valerie (our other best friend in Colorado) but this is it:

 It is a frog where you add water and the frog melts away to a prince!  I did it this evening and documented the whole thing... which took FOREVER even though I tried to shake it to speed up the process (it said it would take a few minutes not an hour), but I won't put it up until Valerie has done hers.  Maybe this weekend?

Other good news is my burn is healing up VERY nicely :)  Since I didn't get any cream at the Apotek I have continued using my fancy face lotion on it and it is healing up very well.  I still wear a bandage in the hot shop to keep the dirt out and to protect it when it opens up from using my hand, which it still does daily.  The burn originally went from the crease on the left knuckle to that pink line towards the right.  This is right after an application of lotion so you can't see most of the pink skin but I think it is going to be OK!!

This evening I didn't go to the gym or riding or anything so I decided to cook something that would maybe take some time.  I made homemade Mac-n-Cheese (loosely based on this recipe)!  I couldn't find cheddar at the grocery store so I made it with gouda (which made it very white) and here in Sweden the macaroni noodles are smaller then in the states.  It was really good and made a TON! I had it with a nice salad so I felt healthy.  Jennifer (older sis) used to say the cheese all over and in the noodles reminded her of cholesterol/fat filling the arteries and stopping your blood.  Which has kind of stuck with me and made me feel a little like a fat ass eating it... but its so good!  I even made some for Rosanne (she requested Kraft from The States) since she now likes Mac-n-Cheese too :)

Tomorrow it is hot shop all day then the late night jumping lesson!! I am going to try to go to bed early.. which often results in me sitting in my bed eating candy... but hopefully today will result in extra sleep!

PS: Sam, my love - keep an eye out for the mailman tomorrow *wink, wink, nudge, nudge*