mizuko and miscellany

I was about to just write a post that said meh! I don't have time for this. And it would be true. But... I'm sticking with it. Not even going to try to catch up, but I will say that Christmas was great. We sported watery sniffling noses, but had good spirits and great times. Etsy worked well for me until the shipping cut off date, when all the sales mysteriously dwindled to a thumping screeching halt. Insert sound of wind and scuttling tumbleweeds here.

I had a fantastic success with my first Etsy Mud Team challenge by winning the valentine's vase challenge. I was relatively kerflummoxed by it, but really really pleased. It was based on a papercut valentine I did for Ian years ago, when I had a job with a LOT of down time. This year, I made him the only existing super large valentine's mug, with some hot chocolate to go inside.

The rest of 2009 has been, um, how shall I put this? Oh yeah, crap. Going into the personal here, which I normally try not to do, but has to do with pottery so I'm going forward. We found out that we were expecting a new little one in January, much to our excitement. Then, much to our distress, we lost the little one at 6 weeks. We had lost a baby before Wren at 6 weeks as well, so it wasn't out of our realm of experience, but still very hard. I tried to find something to help me wrap my head around the whole thing and ended up finding something online about mizuko, which are little statues that parents in Japan place at shrines to memorialize unborn children. Now, I don't subscribe to the rest of this thinking, and actually find buddhist thought that these children have to do penance in the underworld for the pain that they have caused their parents very disturbing. However, I liked the idea of a little memorial and set to making two of my own, a kind of healing process in it's own right. I took great care with the throwing and painting, and would have felt a great relief when I unloaded them from their final firing had I not had another great kick in the pants from mother nature. Actually, on the day I unloaded them.

I had just finished a class with Michaela and wanted to finish throwing a set of plates for us to use. Yes, I have never made myself dishes because anything I take enough time to handpaint, I need to sell. But I finally found a glaze and clay body combination that rocked me, so I set to it. To those who do not know me well, I am not a mad glaze chemist. Hate trying new colors. Hate mixing them up and hoping they turn out right. Hate the whole guessing game. This is a huge step for me. Anywhoo... I digress. As I was throwing, I started to feel strange. My back hurt, and it felt like the pain was going straight through to the front. I just felt really off, so I threw eight as fast as I could and went inside. Well, things went downhill from there, with the pain getting worse. I called my doctor who thought it was a kidney stone and told me to take some painkillers and see him on Monday morning. I had a really rough night, with the pain not letting up and even going into my chest, then awoke to another positive pregnancy test. I called my girl doctor, really freaking out and she told me that the pain was probably unrelated and to see her on Monday morning. Hmm... I sense a theme. I digested that for about and hour, then took myself to an urgent care, where the doctor told me to come back on Monday morning. Just kidding. He wouldn't touch me. He sent me directly to the hospital. So, I got my mom to come up to take care of Wren and drove to the hospital. After a bunch of tests, they found that I was bleeding internally and rushed me to surgery. I had an ectopic pregnancy which had ruptured and pretty much shredded my left fallopian tube. This week has been healing and trying to get a grip on everything that happened. I feel much better, even went out and loaded the kiln and threw today. Which made me wonder if something about throwing, the way I was using my muscles and such, contributed to the rupture. Well, I suppose it doesn't matter. Right now, I'm off to make another mizuko.