"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom." ~ Thomas Carlyle

I am so tired I can barely walk... or stand or chew... Good thing my bed is very near by because I think I might just fall in that direction and hope I make it.  I have completed 5 days of The Shred, 5 days of blowing glass hardcore and 2 days of intense riding lessons.  It has been a glorious week but a very FULL week!

Sorry I missed yesterday... I was so tired I didn't think I could type... also my only hope of making it through Friday was to sleep as much as absolutely possible.  I figured you guys would understand :)

Here are some pictures from Wednesday's glass:

 A little of the bubbly anyone?  (you have to say it like Dean Martin would to a lady... makes it way cooler!)

 And, here is a an all clear graal blank.  It is a clear base bubble which I then put a clear bubble on inside out over it!  Way more exciting with color I promise!

Yesterday I blew glass all day in the factory with Vegard.  We continued to work on the graal pieces.  We tried some colors but had a hard time maintaining an even coat of color on the top layer.  We ended up with a few that looked like this one on the left.  

But I hope they are usable in some way... might be cool to play on the color graduation across the piece?  I did manage to make one really good one which is dark pupley/pink over white!  I have no idea what to do with those colors but I am sure I can come up with something!

After school I took a short nap, woke up, did my day 4 of The Shred.  Day 4 was not so bad, not only was I not nearly as sore but I had more energy then I had before at the end of the work out.  Then I went to my riding lesson! We did another kind of crazy jumper course! I rode Lady who was not in as bad of a mood as usual... maybe she is learning that Thursday night lessons are fun?  We jumped around 90cm which I think is just under 3 feet.  It was fun and hard, lots of turns and tight corners and Lady was going super fast! I think she would have liked to leave whole strides out in the two lines we had (which is very fast).  

I came home and crawled promptly into bed, well, I talked to Sam first which always makes me happy and sleep better :)  Then I got up super early on Friday and started all again!

In the morning we blew more graal pieces. I was ready to do something else, for one I was tired and also I was tired of doing the same thing over and over.  But, Vegard had been struggling with making the overlay bubble so he wanted to practice on that.  We blew three piece in clear where he did the overlay bubble as the assistant and I worked as the gaffer (boss blower) which was hard because my job is a lot more intense.  Today Marianne was back, she is the second year Nordic teacher and is usually the graal teacher around here.  We were a little concerned she would be frustrated with us for starting the graal so early or not getting her to show it to us.  But she seemed to go right along with it and was fine.  Of course the one she saw me do first was my first one ALL WEEK which got bubbles between the color layers which is what you absolutely don't want to happen! oops, oh well.  We finished the morning with me doing a really good one with an orange base and a blue overlay bubble.  I am kind of thinking of carving in coral in the bottom and then maybe some orange fish in the top part.  I will see how it looks Monday!

In the afternoon I went to the cold shop for some less physical work.  Vegard went to go grocery shopping while the kids were in school.  He has two little boys with Sigrid but she is currently away studying and he says it is torture shopping with two little kids.  I started cutting the pieces out for my Tiffany piece:

 This is where I cut the glass with hand held glass cutters.  I also used a round one but its not pictured.

 There are 20 + triangles and 30 + half circles.  I had to make a few extra just in case (those are the + it is a 20 sided piece with extra sticky-outy bits).

 On Monday morning I will assemble all the pieces and make a this:

 Except out of glass of course!

This evening I had a dressage lesson on Hilma.  I have never ridden her and all I knew about her was that she kicks... a lot.  She is super sweet and wants to be sweet all the time but doesn't like to go, stop, be on contact or have anyone touch her stomach.  She is also TINY compared to the other horses I have been riding which was kind of fun.  Here she, looking deceptively cute:

Now, I am off to lay in bed and watch Beauty and The Beast and sleep all day tomorrow.  Well, as Sam said,  except the 30 minutes I am awake to do day 6 of The Shred.