Julia Edwards' portrait bust during a moment of repose.

I tried to ignore it, but I couldn't; it's pretty sweet. By Bri Truong.

Typical: I get up at 4:30 am, look out, see a couple inches of snow on the ground, rain pouring down, and the main streets plowed clear. Since it looks like it's going to be a slush-fest, I decide to bus it rather than try riding my bike down and up steep windy roads. By 5am there's no news of school delay, so I head out. The bus drops me at Bothell Way and 68th Ave NE, and from there it's faster for me to run than wait for another bus, so I do. The street crews have thoughtfully plowed all the snow/slush onto the sidewalks, so I'm hurdling drifts and wading through lakes, trying to avoid 10-foot-high slush-tsunamis from speeding garbage trucks, and running in my hiking boots - all the way up Simonds Rd to school. The gate's open, there's a couple cars there, so I go into my room . . . and the phone rings. It's Lisa, telling me school's closed for the day.

Thought #1: Seriously? All the snow was on the sidewalks - the cars had it easy!

Thought #2: Woo-hoo!

Best day ever. I put on music, drank hot cocoa, caught up on grading, finished trimming a couple pieces, and unloaded a kiln. And guess what was in that kiln?

Emily Anderson's puffer fish! (I think its name should be 'Snowball'.

If you haven't browsed through the student gallery lately, here's a sampling of some of the other good things created lately.

by Sami Stratis

I'm in the process of moving this website to my own server (basically a squirrel in a cardboard box), so expect some nuttiness until the squirrel is trained better. I'm hoping I can teach it a few new tricks.

Today, Santa's elves went to school and fired a bisque kiln, so we're set to finish some work for the holidays. I'll be in Monday - Wednesday next week to fire the cone 10 and raku kilns, and you are more than welcome to come in, bring friends and family any time, and join the fun. I've got plenty o' clay.

Mon 12/20: 9am - 3pm. The last bisque kiln will be unloaded, and I will be loading the cone 10. If you get your work glazed it will likely get in.

by Emily Anderson.

Snow! Even Emily's puffer fish is excited. But the puffer fish is EVEN MORE EXCITED than you are, because it knows what other great things are in the works. Just wait!

(I know what you are asking yourself - "Is that puffer fish really as big as my head?" It is BIGGER than your head. Just wait till it's glazed and finished.)

From our first cone 10 and raku kiln firings of the year:

by Bri Truong

by Nick Danna

by Trenton Hudkins

I had to resist putting a bunch of exclamation points after that title. We haven't gotten any ceramics work through a final firing yet, so while you wait, enjoy this comic that Kristine Lee dashed off at the end of last year. Just click on the cover to read the rest.

This was the view from my tent for a couple days during a relaxing week of backpacking in the Cascades. Sunny days, starry nights (except for one lightning storm), scrambling up to wild beautiful places, and a bunch of friendly mosquitoes for company - ahh.

I've been catching up on some Northwest fun. My brother Dan came out from North Carolina at the first of the month, and the next day we headed out gray and early to hike up Mailbox Peak. It was steep, wet, muddy and completely socked in - good leg-thrashing times.

The next day Lisa and I headed up to Lopez Island for the 4th of July and a vacation. I did the 5k fun run on the 4th and placed 6th overall (my legs were still thrashed, and I haven't run in a couple years). We watched the parade, then had the annual family picnic with great food and cold breezy gray weather. It was so cold no one wanted to go back to the village to see the fireworks that night, so Lisa, her sister and I went up to the nearby church and sat in the graveyard, where we had a great, (but still freezing) view over a flooded pasture all to ourselves. If you just counted the living.