It’s Saturday morning and the sun is shining and the birds are singing out the window… but I do still have to go to work today. It’s not all bad because I will only have to work until 2:00pm, but it still makes it hard to plan a fun day if I can’t start until then. I really want to go for a super long bike ride, but both of the bikes that I own aren’t really made for long distance. One of them is a giant “cruiser”, and it’s all about looks. If I had known that when I got it, I probably would have traded it in for a decent light-weight bike immediately. My other bike is a tiny bike with kick brakes and no gear shifts (which I love about it) but the circumference of the wheels makes it impossible to go very fast. I use it for riding relatively fast on forest trails with low hanging branches and sharp turns. I need a long distance bike so I can just take off for an entire day riding 30 miles to who knows where. I guess I could still try some sort of adventure today. My little bike is great for going uphill… maybe I will try riding up the canyon (it’s 7 miles, all uphill and rather steep). I used to do that at least twice every summer.

Today is different than most days. I chose to drink out of a white manufactured mug instead of one of my own creations. I think it’s a sign that I need to make some lighter-colored mugs or something… or maybe I just need a change. I did bring materials from the studio back with me the other day. Maybe I can go on a bike ride and then work on a few new ideas I had… or vice-versa. I thought of making some tall bottles with a lot of texture on the surface… maybe I will need to make some stamps or find a textured paddle. I thought about using different shoes as texture paddles 🙂 I might still try that idea out. I brought my slips back, so I can make red and white work and I can make my salt-clay work with black and white slips… I haven’t done much hand-building since last semester.

As far as the home-brewing goes, I haven’t made much progress on the beer because my wheat refuses to sprout. I need to buy a different kind, and I was thinking of getting barley to try it the normal way (although I really do love wheat beer). Until my wheat decides to sprout or I buy barley, I was thinking of making an alternative kind of beer… using molasses (like a cane beer) for the malt and then using the cooking water steamed rice (concentrated with the rice starch) as the starch, and maybe hopping it with something like dandelion root or just the smallest amount of hops. Either that, or I could use something that isn’t necessarily bitter but will still offset the sweetness. Anyway, once I brew the perfect glass of beer, I will definitely post a beautiful photo of me drinking it 😉