Chacos & Pottery

Today Elly and I spent our Thursday together at the Ceramics Annex that is in the Stumptown Art Studio. SAS is a non-profit art center, and they have "Paint Your Own Pottery" as a continuous fundraiser. You can go in and choose one of their plain white pottery pieces...they have everything. Figurines, tea pots, wine decanters, mugs, margarita glasses, plates, platters, light switch covers, beer steins, serving and mixing bowls... Then you go grab a tile that serves as your palette, pick your colors and go sit at a table, each with its own pot of brushes. When you are finished you leave it with them for a week so they can glaze and fire it. Each piece is a different price, and all the funds go to support the studio. The studio holds classes for adults and kids. I had never done anything with pottery, and it was amazingly enjoyable. I painted a gravy boat and Elly painted a cowboy boot. The studio also has walk-in glass fusing. Here you take bits of glass and can make tiles, plates, pendants, candle-holders, wine stoppers, and more by arranging the different colors and then firing it through a kiln, which melts the glass together. I want to try that next time!

This morning I met with Nadine. Bless her! She is one of the neatest women I know. I am so glad I have her in my life as a mentor and friend. Today we just basically talked. A little bit about everything. We talked about the house on Skyles Lake owned by Rick Hubble. I called him yesterday and talked with him about the house. He owns a house that isn't finished yet, but he isn't using it for anything. I've talked to Dad, Mom, Sandy, Keith Haas, Nadine and a couple other people about maybe leasing and using it for ministry. It could serve as a base for Athelas. We can house people there, host events and dinners. It could be used as a meeting place. We could rent it out. It's all just really exciting. Rick lives in Salt Lake, but is coming up here to Whitefish this weekend, so hopefully we can meet with him.

Yesterday I went to City Brew and spent some time just working on stuff. I looked on the internet for the Alaskan Icefield Expeditions website. AIE is based on the Mendenhall glacier in Juneau, and the Denver glacier in Skagway. They helicopter guests off of a cruise ship and bring them on dog sled tours on the glaciers. Anyway, a bunch of people who work there came to the ranch and told Mom and Dad all about their company. They are hiring for next summer. I also looked on the Youth Encounter website about their community based teams. They have their Captive Free teams that travel around and do events, but the community based teams I think are essentially trained the same way, but they stay in a community for up to a year, and work with the local church. I think that would be wonderful for our church. There are a lot of ministries that they can be involved in. There's Athelas, Potter's Field, Trinity Camp, Dickey Lake Camp, Hungry Horse Camp, and so many other ministries. They can work with Chad and Nadine and do things at the Edge. I just there is so much they could be used for. It would be really neat!
While I was out, I finally mailed my Chaco sandals to get repaired. The soles started peeling and I hadn't even had them a year! So hopefully I'll get them back soon. I noticed they were peeling back in July, but I had to wear them out to the end of the Chaco weather season before I could mail them in. Haha. Now that its cold and October, I figured I'd waited long enough.

Yesterday I also worked on my design project. It's not going very well, however. I really don't know what else to do. I'll write about that later.

I'm going to go wash out the paint I got in my hair at the pottery place. I am blue!