the kiln wars of '08

sorry folks, no jedi can save us this time. there's nothing obi-wan or yoda can do to protect us from...

(insert 'gasps' and 'shrieks of terror')

so here's the deal, ever since...oh, let's say the beginning 2008...we've had major issues with our two faithful (...ly failing) kilns. a few months ago, both broke down at the same time, leaving us kilnless and a little behind on getting things done for about half a week. thankfully the problem was remedied before too long.

since then they've been going out one at a time...off and on...back and forth...but always leaving us with one working kiln UNTIL (right there, when i said, "until" i pictured an over excited science teacher explaining an equation to a classroom of bored high schoolers who all jump awake when he says "UNTIL...the ether mixes with the hydrogen creating a molecular explosion!" or something like that. kind of like this guy...)

about two weeks ago both kilns went completely kaput. well, one went a little sooner but i kept forgetting to call the kiln guy so buy the time he came both kilns were dead and would stay dead for a full WEEK until he was able to get the appropriate parts!

'lovely!' i said, 'what a brilliant concept! a pottery shop with no way to fire pottery! hallelujah! this will revolutionize the pottery industry'...either that or revolutionize my career path, if you know what i mean.

so for a week, one of the busiest since we opened by the way, we had no working kiln. finally the beloved day of renewal came when our kiln man fixed whatever needed to be fixed and went on his merry way. UNTIL...friday when one of the kilns broke down again. yeah, i know! ridiculous!

so yesterday he fixed whatever needed to be fixed, this time with a paper clip...hmmm, does something seem a little fishy here? i don't know, maybe the guy's mcgyver

well, while he was here the new kiln, the one we ordered when the other two weren't working, came. 'yey!' thought i, 'a helping hand to get the kiln inside!' apparently his hands were not enough...

since this post is already getting ridiculously long i'll cut to the chase:

1. the trucker didn't have the right equipment to get the kiln off the truck, so the nice big burly men from our neighboring stores had to come lend a hand to the poor helpless girl and the old kiln fixer man

2. once the kiln was off the truck it wouldn't fit through the door, you know, because we got a bigger kiln that could hold more pottery and would run more efficiently. smart, right?

3. two hours later, thanks to my super hero brother-in-law, our kiln guy, who by this time looked like this:

and his brother-in-law (this was definitely a family affair) all the hinges and handles were off the kiln, the weather strips were off the door, and the kiln was safely inside (taking up half the back room, might i add)

now we just have to get the other kilns unloaded and move this one in place, so mr kiln man can come back and hook it up. i don't know if that was as exhausting for you to read as it was for me to tell, but...

tired am i!

oi, oi and oi!

so my big sis, jami, is wanting to hear some good stories from her friends about how their children embarrass them. well, i have no children, but i have been embarrassed by many. however, my favorite embarrassing little kid story happened when i went swimming with my little cousin. (some of you may already be cringing...and with good reason) she was probably about 6 and i was around 13...now, for those of you who don't know, i had mom hips even back then...ugh! (no offense to the majority of mothers that read this blog...but you know what i mean, right?) there's something a little unnerving about maturing fully at age 12 and then not changing AT ALL for the next 12 years and counting.

anyway, back to the point of the story.

we were playing chicken off the diving board with our other cousins, and both of us were standing in line when she looked at me with this really perplexed expression...
(are you ready for this?)

cassie: leslie?
me: yeah?
cassie: is your swimming suit too small or are your legs just fat?
(SHABAM!!! i mean come on! are you serious?!)
me with a look of shock mixed with 'yeah, i know': my legs are just fat. (thwarted by a six year old)

funny thing was, it didn't really bother me. it actually made me laugh really hard...while i was nervously looking around to make sure no one heard what we were talking about.

she's almost 18 now and i wonder if she even remembers saying that...probably not. oh, but i remember! boy, do i ever!

моя семья и друзья, yes another post about ukraine...whoopie!

i felt the urge to share some pictures of my dearest friends in ukraine. oh how i love you all! let me count the ways:

sveta is my li'l sis who i met 4 years ago when she was 14 and just beginning her walk with Christ. now at 18 she is living at the transition home, studying fashion merchandising at a tech school and is growing into quite a Godly woman. her face is one i picture and miss on a regular basis when i'm here in the states. i crazy love this kiddo!

nastya is my new li'l sis who i just had the opportunity to meet this year. she's sixteen and so far has not opened her heart to Jesus, but i sense that there is still a softness to her spirit. i just pray that God will penetrate her fears, her (no doubt)pain, her history and show her how He, and only He, can use all the crap that satan's throw at her for great great GREAT good. my sweet nastya, i love you!
vanya is my super studly pal. he gave me a book of ukrainian folk songs and taught me one that we sang together. there's a video of this lovely event and when i get it i'll post it so you can all partake and be blessed. in the past year vanya has committed his life the Christ, been baptized in a local church and is a living testament of God's awesome ability to turn lives around. yey, vanya!

the rest of the pics are of my fellow americans who were able to enjoy ukraine's many blessings, #1 (at least in david's mind) being the hotel's complimentary juice in the lobby. hurray for free juice!
just some of this year's team members being their charming selves.
what a stellar group! so refined...
and of course, i must not fail to mention my fellow gramm house kids on the trip. this is where mom and barb and barb say, "awww!"

HELP!!! (red is for anger)

i'm just going to say it...

I'M SERIOUSLY ANNOYED!!!!

there! hah! i said it and i'm not going to take it back!

i know that as someone who works in retail i am supposedly trained to grin and bare anything. well...it's not true. i cannot grin and bare it. i will not grin and bare it anymore.

here's the deal. there's no real reason why i'm so annoyed right now other than the fact that i find every child that enters this building incredibly irritating.

how many times can you ask the same question that i answered five minutes ago before you asked it?

how many times will you interrupt me with a question that i would answer if you'd just chill out for a second.

how many meaningless questions can you ask about everything under the sun that i could not care less about?

how many times can you say "like like like like like what do you like like like like do with like like like like like..." (that one just happened. and i sat here in mid 'anger' post, smiled and answered patiently, while secretly giving her evilly evil eyes!)

how many times can you ask "where do i put this?" only to hear me once again say, "leave EVERYTHING at the table. I WILL TAKE CARE OF ALL OF IT!" (that one just happened too, only without all the caps.)

oh goody two adults finally came into the store without children! let there be praise and thanksgiving!

the good news is that i will be leaving tomorrow and not coming back again till wednesday! yippeee! get me away from these people!

the bad, the ugly, and the ocheen ocheen good!

we did this little relay race while at the orphanage in ukraine.

the basic idea was to dress up like this:crawl through this: and end up over there:
where you would proceed to strip off the ugly ladies' clothing and hand it to the next person who'd crawl back through to the next person and so on..


well who should be one of the lucky partakers of this blessed event but yours truly! i thought to myself, "hey, a challenge that i can actually do!" as apposed to the one where you had to cross monkey bars and then do a pull up to try to eat candy that was attached to the bars. i know! there was no way!


i'm not the fastest gal in the world, but still, i thought i could manage. so i waited my turn to make my team proud.


here's where a small problem arose. the elastic wasted floral skit that i was supposed to put on in lightning speed didn't seem to be terribly fond of the idea of fitting over my hips! i stopped for a second, while alena said in her sweet, desperate, heavily accented voice, "please leslie! hurry!", prayed a quick prayer and "oh thank you, Jesus!" with a swift and forceful tug the skirt was fitted nicely around my waste.


the hard part was over(so i thought). i quickly threw the rest of the articles on and dove through the opening in the trash bag tunnel. at this point i felt a sharp pain in my back and heard a multitude of ukrainian gasps follow me, but i didn't look back, nor did i stop to find out what was wrong. i laughed in the face of adversity and quickened my pace to the child waiting at the other end of the tunnel. (thankfully, the skirt came off quicker than it went on!)

so once i had the chance to stop, watch my teammates finish the relay (we won, by the way) i realized that the sharp pain i felt earlier was intensifying quite nicely. a little later i found my mom and showed her my back so i could find out if it was really anything to worry about(the sight of which she gasped in horror).


so here's what happened. i'm going to need some audience participation in order for you to visualize this fully. everyone, take your hand and make it into a fist. now, take a pen or pencil, anything straight like that will work. hold the pen/pencil flat against your pointer finger knuckle (keep your hand in a fist!) and strum it down your knuckles almost like you would on one of those wood blocks. if you do this right it should make a kind of a clicking noise. okay, now imagine that your knuckles where vertebrae (jami, since your on the computer i'm going to safely assume your sitting down...that's good) and the pen is a metal bar and that the human the the vertebrae are a attached to is going at great speed while scraping her vertebrae on the metal bar. sounds fun, doesn't it.


later when i looked at my back, thinking all i would see was scrapes, instead i saw three circles where there was no skin(where each vertebrae scraped). yeah, the best part was that all week people would come up to me and pat me on my lower back! whatever happened to patting on the UPPER back. you know, on the shoulders! doesn't that seem more normal anyway?

but alas, as much as that was bad, this...

and this...

and this...and this...
was ocheen ocheen good!