First Time Potter: The Finished Products

Tah-Dah! Here is the bottle from my previous post as well as a few of my other favorites:

1) Here is the finished bottle. At the last minute of glazing I thought it would be fun to poor some blue into it. I'm glad I did. I like the subtle blue tint at the mouth of the bottle. I also really like the interaction of the shiny bottom glaze and the mat white top.

2) This was one of the first successful bowls I made. It's actually pretty even and centered! I did a double glaze on this one, doing a dark glaze with a white glaze over it. It's hard to see the resulting iridescent sheen in this picture, but it's there (a little).


3) I have a lot of chopsticks (as you can see) so I thought it would be fun to make something to keep them in. I did not take seriously enough the instructors warning that pottery shrinks in the firing process. So my chopstick vase is a little small. I like it none the less. I also wanted to make a spoon rest for my kitchen, so naturally I thought the two should match. I think overall, the glaze has more depth on the spoon rest than the chopstick vase, but they still make a nice pair for my kitchen counter.
Overall, I came home with about 15 pieces of pottery. Some are great, some are ok, and a couple are just terrible. The class was challenging and fun, I can't wait to take another one and hopefully bring home a few more stellar pieces.

First Time Potter: The Bottle Saga

When I took the pottery class this spring, I mostly just wanted to have fun. But true to my nature, I found myself looking for a challenge. Though the class had little structure, the teacher did demonstrations every now and then. One such demonstration was how to make a bottle. You make a cylinder, which is a great thing to practice, and then you bring in the top. That was the easy two steps according to the teacher, anyway. I thought it looked like fun, so I set out to make my own bottle. My attempts produced a number of bowls and vases, but I could not get my cylinder tight enough and tall enough to bring in the bottle neck. Finally, after a good couple weeks of work, I made my first bottle.

Here it is in all the phases of pottery making!

First you throw it (make it on the wheel)....

Then you bisque fire it (fire at a low temperature)...

Then you glaze it...And lastly, you fire it again! But you'll have to wait for the next post to see the final product.

Best Laid Plans

Since last April, I had planned to run the George Washington Parkway Classic. Since September, I had been building up my base runs. Since January, I had been timing my runs and training my pace... But not all plans work out.

In mid-March I started working full time again. This meant no more running in the afternoons. The adjustment to the full work week and running in the mornings was more than I had anticipated. After a long and tiring first week, I started to reevaluate my 10 mile race plan. From there it all unraveled. A long story short, today was the race and I was not in it. Instead I took this week off running and spent time with family after my fiance's grandmother passed away.

This morning I took a peaceful 4 mile run through farmland. It was much nicer than a crowded race course, after all.

Yoga+ Running= Yes!

I've been running for years, but I just started doing yoga this past summer. I guess I was a little skeptical of yoga because people only say amazing things about it. I just didn't believe any one thing could really be that great. I'm not about to tell you that yoga changed my life, but it definitely changed my running. Here is how:

Mind set- Right off the bat, I started thinking more about the intentions I had for each of my runs. This has helped me stay motivated.

Posture- I never thought about my posture while running until after I started yoga. Maybe other runners think about this all the time, but not me. Keeping my shoulders back and thinking about what part of my body I'm "leading" with has reduced cramps and helped me push more easily through hills.

Speed- The craziest part is, any time I run after doing yoga, I am a lot faster. I honestly feel lighter on my feet. Very strange, but I'm not going to knock it!

So... Yoga + running= fast runs, with fewer cramps, stronger hill running, and a better mind set= Yes!

Decoupage: A New Frontier

I have always loved to collage. It's one of those arts and crafts activities that is so easy, but can turn out looking really good. You've just got to find the right balance of images and textures.

Recently, I decided to take my collaging to the next level and I got some decoupage glue. The cool part about decoupage is that you can collage onto anything. Glass, cardboard, wood- it all works!


The idea of this box was born from an abundance of bridal magazines and bobby pins. I cut out my favorite flowers from the magazines and used them to decorate this small box. Now I have a pretty container for the pins (which were previously all over the house) and I put those magazines to good use!

I also have lots of cooking magazines, so keep your eyes open for vegetable covered picture frames and other fun creations.

Peanut Butter and Banana Biscuits (aka the Butterless Biscuits)

This biscuit recipe has been in my repertoire for a long time and has taken many forms. I first made it with my friends D and S over a Thanksgiving break. It's great because it's easy and adaptable. After making plain biscuits, I used the same recipe to make sweet potato biscuits, banana biscuits, and lemon poppy seed biscuits. I could go on and on. I always billed them as "healthy" because the recipe calls for yogurt or puree instead of buttermilk or cream, but the stick of butter was always nagging me.

Today I present you with the Butterless Biscuits! I am sorry it's neither vegan nor gluten free, I will have to work on that. But they are a whole lot healthier than any other biscuit I've made. The trick is to use fat free Greek yogurt so you have high protein but less fat. After doing the tallies, the biscuits are officially much lower in fat and calories than their butter filled counter parts and much higher in protein (see the info at the bottom). What's more, they still taste like biscuits. The banana and peanut butter are very subtle.

To make these biscuits even more fun, use different fruit or vegetable purees instead of the banana or try using flavored yogurts. You can also cut back on the yogurt and add more of whatever flavoring you like. I hesitate to completely take out the yogurt though, since the enzymes found in dairy help with the rising. I have made some very flat biscuits in my day, believe me. Anyway, here's the recipe, go to town, and let me know what you think!


Peanut Butter and Banana Biscuits

2 cups flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
6 oz fat free Greek Yogurt
1 medium banana, mashed
1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
water

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

In a medium size bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add the yogurt, banana, and peanut butter. Mix and then knead the dough. Add a tablespoon of water at a time as needed until the dough is pliable but not sticky. If you add too much water, just throw in a little extra flour.

On a floured surface, roll the dough out to 3/4 of an inch thick and use a glass to cut out circles. Place the biscuits on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. The biscuits should be golden and a little brown on the bottom. Cool on a wire rack and eat.

Makes 12 biscuits

114 Calories, 3g fat, 1g dietary fiber, 3g sugar, 5g protein

Running with Music

When it comes to running with music, I go through phases. For a while I couldn't get through a run without a good beat keeping me going. When I trained for my first race, though, I was told I couldn't listen to music during the race. Apparently its a safety thing. So I weaned myself off the iPod and found others ways to motivate and entertain myself. When I showed up at the race everyone had their headphones on! Apparently, the rule only matter if you expect to win the race (clearly, not me!).

So now I'm left with the question: music or no music? On one hand my quiet runs are relaxing and give me time to think. On the other hand, the music helps pump me up and keep me entertained. For my most recent 8 mile run, I tried using music as a mid-run pick-me-up. At mile 5 I put in the earbuds and listened to some Red Hot Chili Peppers and Cake. It seemed to help me keep me going, but I didn't see any big change in my average pace.

Do you listen to music while running or working out? Does it help? What do you listen to?