That One Time When I made a Clay Mug in Florida

For some insane reason, we made the decision to buy a house in Florida a few years ago. We reasoned that for what it would cost here in LA, we could live like kings in West Palm Beach Florida; plus we would be living closer to my little brother.

Well, that's not really what this post is about, but suffice it to say that I absolutely hated it there, and now I'm back in sunny yet not so crazy humid Southern California.

When we first got to Palm Beach, there was a delay in receiving our shipment with all of our stuff, so I went to hang out with my sis for a while who lived near Tampa at the time. She took us over to a friend's house, where I ended up doing something completely new to me.

I made this thing:

As you might have guessed if you follow me, the A is for Amanda. So this friend of my sister's has a whole pottery making area on her back patio. I had never tried before, so I thought, what the hell! I must admit, if you are high strung, this activity is quite calming.

Oh, by the way. I didn't respect the Florida sun, so this happened to my white self earlier that day:

My sissified pale skin was not happy about being baked in the sun like a lobster. But anyway, I digress. My sister's friend was nice enough to give me an apron and sit me down with a lump of clay and some basic instructions.

So that was me after about 5 attempts. I magically fast forwarded so that you wouldn't have to see those disasters. It also helps that no one took any pictures because they were making things too! (Thank God)

I worked on the clay for a while until I thought it looked like something that I could reasonably drink out of. Check me out pretending that I have some kind of a clue as to wtf I am doing.

This is what Shrek would look like making pottery

If you didn't know any better you might think I do this all the time. I mean, if you really didn't know any better. The last step in the shaping process was to sculpt some sort of a handle. For some reason this took me longer than actually forming the mug. Don't ask why, I can't answer that.

It was always either too big or too thick. Too short or too heavy. I finally managed to make something reasonable that would pass for a mug handle. I don't know why I'm questioning my own native language right now, but is that called a handle? Sounds weird to me right now. Oh well, whatever.

So this is what it looked like when it was completely finished, before firing:

I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but the weight of the handle is starting to make the cup droop. We messed with it a little and it actually ended up coming out alright! I'm proud of myself in the same way an F student is when he gets a C. But it's all good! I had a great time. I would recommend trying it out to anyone who could use a little stress relief. It's quite therapeutic!

It also helped deal with my rage after receiving the shipment of my bike:

So essentially, the truck arrived the next day with my shipment and everything looked fine. However, when I took my bike off of the truck, it had an extra 15 miles on it than when I left it. I had marked down the mileage before they picked it up, just in case something like this happened. Basically, the mover, while sweating quite profusely, claimed that it was normal for the bikes to have some extra miles on them because they have to move them from one location to another. But, um 15 miles?

Apart from that, I had signed an agreement that the bike would never leave from truck that it was loaded onto until it arrived at my house. Well, anyway I will save this for another story. Besides, I need to sleep tonight and just thinking about these bozos gets me wound up.

It must be time to work some more clay!