15 Mugs, Plus a Few

It's early, but not too early, to be preparing for Mug Season. This, you may recall, is an April fundraiser by the Central Maine Clay Artists group, my muddy buddies. Coffee shops around central Maine carry our mugs for sale (at the low, low price of $18) and offer a free cup of coffee to patrons who purchase them. Half of the price reimburses the artists, and half goes to support local arts education programs.

Because it is such a low, low price, I use this event to indulge my rare impulse to make simpler mugs*, with little or no stamping or slip trailing or sprigs; few curliques or geegaws of any kind. It's good and refreshing and but spurs me on to even more elaborate geegaws when I have finished.

Speaking of curliques and geegaws, have you seen my stairs? I may or may not be finished with that project, but either way lived up to my mantra: Why do when you can overdo?

On a gloomier note, as of yesterday, a new item has been added to my weekly to-do list: a job search. Right this second I am not super intense about it, but I need to get an idea what's out there, because it seems Congress and the incoming administration are moving forward with their plan to strip self-employed people of our health insurance. I'd be less worried about this if they had any plan at all to replace it, but so far all they've offered is Health Savings Accounts, which is just saving your own money to pay your medical bills. When my father had cancer, his bills would have been well over a million dollars, except that he had insurance. HSAs are tax-free, so they'll be super helpful for the sort of person who has hundreds of thousands of dollars to put away for a rainy day. I don't know about you guys but I was thrilled when my savings reached one thousand, striving as hard as I could. So an HSA is not gonna be much help to me. An office gig might be in my future.

I feel sort of guilty about this, because it seems like, if it comes to it, I'll be taking someone else's job - maybe someone who doesn't have the skills to create their own job, like I do. I hate that: in order for me to be okay, I might have to push someone else down. But I'm not sure what else to do. Don't know if God listens to doubting heathens but I'm praying just in case, that someone in charge gets ahold of some wisdom.

A bit of wisdom never comes amiss.

Ugh, didn't mean to be a downer (thinking of changing the name of the blog to Lori's Pottery & Depression!) For today the sun is shining, I'm at my wheel, it's a good world where good things can still happen.

*Batteries are dead in my camera - will post photos later, after the mugs get handles.