Zzzzzip!

Time over the last few weeks has vanished into the vast black hole of the past.With so much to do this winter, I feel as though I am losing the battle of time management. We’re working for a few days now for Ursula, cleaning up and painting the interior of their new place. I’m hoping they get it rented and that Ursula will have plenty of work for us this summer. The income is nice, but it leaves that much less time to get the things done that I need to do here before the summer landscaping season starts again.

I’m also getting very frustrated working on articles for the ceramics magazines. They’re asking for specifications with the photos that I’m having trouble verifying (not answering or returning e-mails and phone calls) which seem to be very odd to everyone I talk to and on Photoshop forums.

So I feel like I’m in a sort of limbo that has the sensations of the world passing into the black hole of time past when it is, at least in my present state of mind, actually me that is being sucked in as the rest of the world continues its normal pattern of near-stasis.

We’re in the middle of a big storm that is actually being big on the ‘being nasty’ part, but not on the ‘giving us plenty of snow’ part. The wind is blowing, sucking the heat out of the apartment and studio and drifting the snow, and the temperatures are getting lower. And yes, you’ve got it right, I certainly would prefer putting more wood on the fire now than sweltering in summer heat.

We had a fun adventure on Tuesday as we headed to town for work: the car died about ten miles from home on the way to Bozeman. We were hiking home, but a man driving a well-drilling truck (who happened to be the guy who came to replace our well pump three or four years ago) picked us up and brought us home. We decided it was the battery and drove back to replace it. It got us to town, then just before entering the busiest intersection we drive through to get to Ursula’s, the car died again. It turned out to be the alternator. It’s doing okay for now, got us to Butte yesterday to deliver pots headed to Nevada, so we’re breathing lightly and hoping nothing else goes wrong with the car for awhile.

But I’m already sure that this year is going to be a better year.

Or, perhaps more realistically, I’m determined it will be a better year.

Winter is beautiful, isn’t it?

But then, in Montana so is spring, summer and fall.