More Snow!

It started snowing yesterday at noon and it hasn't stopped yet. It's coming down so lightly. Last night it seemed like the whole state was covered in a giant slushy. I wanted to squirt cherry syrup all over the ground and slurp it up. Jamie and I went for a long midnight walk over to the ISU cross training course. It is one of our favorite places to walk. The course goes through a pastoral wooded space; it's hilly and there are bridges, and pleasant little alcoves with benches. There were no footprints at all except little bunny tracks crisscrossing the path. We had a snowball fight and we tried to build a snowman but we'd left our gloves at home so we didn't stick to it for very long. The sky was thick with snow and reflected light. There was almost no space for the snow to fall. It was like the snow cloud was a mile deep and resting right on the ground; resting right on us and on Ames. It was so bright that I felt like I was watching a night scene from one of those old westerns back when they shot during the day and just put a gray filter over the camera lens. We almost cast shadows. The bug repellent streetlights filled the sky and the ground with a yellow-pink glow. It felt dreamlike. The word I kept repeating to myself was "ethereal."

Today I got ready for work, was right on time, not a minute to lose, and walked out of the house to see our car under two inches of snow. Luckily it hadn't frozen yet so it was easy to sweep off with a broom but I was late to work anyway. (When I got to work I found out that I hadn't even been on the schedule today so it all turned out all right.) Jamie shoveled the snow off of our sidewalk. Tonight I went out to Lowe's and bought a larger snow shovel and an ice scraper. The roads were a mess. All of us drivers were going 25-30mph, skidding at every red light and spinning our wheels at every green one. There were no mishaps and everyone seems very patient and understanding. I see the salt trucks going around now.
-Heather
PS: I'm thinking of subtitling this blog; "It's really really cold up here."

SNOW!!!

Guess what everybody? The first real snowfall is here! It's so fluffy and crunchy and white! It snowed for the better part of the day today and accumulated to a full inch. It snowed once two weeks ago but the ground was too warm for the snow to stick. I sat in the house eating soup watching the snow fall in the wind at about a 45 degree angle. Today I had things to do! So Jamie and I got to drive around in the weather, slipping a little when we took each corner. Everyone went about 25 miles per hour so we were all very save despite the many opportunities of dings and fender benders. The wind was not harsh this time so it was fun to be outside surrounded by fluffy precipitation. Some of the snowflakes were as large as a nickle! One fell into my ear.



It's been a long time since I posted and a lot of great stuff has happened so I'll briefly try to fill you in. The last post was about installing a show in the Octagon Gallery. Since then I've been offered and have accepted an additional job as the Octagon's Ceramics Studio Manager. The studio is in the basement where the Octagon holds year round clay classes. It pays very little but the experience is invaluable and on top of that, I get my own huge studio space! I'm also teaching a teapot workshop in the Spring! CASA had its annual Fall open house last weekend (I have moved from a Shared Clay space to a semi-private studio space; I'm keeping my space there because it is such a resource of experience and talent), and this weekend I was hosted by a downtown business during ArtWalk (businesses let artists display work in their store for the afternoon). I unloaded a kiln for the event this morning:


and here is my table at ArtWalk:

(And I actually have sold a few pieces at these events! Yay!)

So that's what's been happening. I'm starting to feel at home at the Octagon and at CASA, and we've been getting together with Jamie's co-workers every couple of weeks. I will always be an outsider in Iowa because I drawwwl and say things like "Ya'll," "fixin' to" and "it's a quarter-to" instead of "it's a quarter-till," but it's starting to feel like we can make it up here - for a few years, anyway.

-Heather