Pottery is hard.

 My first blog post was in March 2008. Excuse my massive ego, but how awesome am I? So okay, I don't write all the time, and mostly it's about movies and books and TV, with one unfortunate positive post about Celebrity Apprentice, but that's 13 years, yo. I'm proud of that.

So now that I have a new laptop and don't just have my iPhone, I will make a real attempt to write more, hopefully about something interesting. Ooh here's one.

I've been watching The Great Pottery Throwdown on HBO Max, and I love that show. I mean, anytime British people are baking or crafting, I'm here for it. But I don't know anything about pottery, so I was weary about this show. I mean, I tried the one where the people make knives and swords, and I tried the one about glass blowing, and neither of those worked for me. But there was something about watching people make ceramics on a pottery wheel that was really nice to watch.

So of course, what's next? I think I want to try pottery. So I try and convince my husband (who actually knows how to make ceramics) that we need a pottery wheel and a kiln and a raku thing and everything. And he was like, "Okay, maybe we should try hand sculpting first to see if you even like touching clay." Which of course is a fair point, so I bought some air dry kids clay, because I'm a baby.

And then it sat on a shelf for over a month.

Then I decided to try it out, and let me tell you what I now know for sure = pottery is hard. Real hard.

Even in the hand building challenges on the show I would think maybe mine wouldn't be that pretty, but I can shape an animal or a person and it would look pretty good. Please see exhibits A, B, and C. And no, they were not done on the first try. And yes, there was the throwing of clay.

The turtle to the right was first. I thought it would be sooooo easy and the walls sort of collapsed because clay is much more malleable than it seems on TV. I know, duh. But it is.

Then I thought, okay seriously, I can't even make a bowl? So I made that thing to the left that is sort of a bowl with insanely thick walls. At least it stood up, but it started to buckle from the weight of the thing.

Third, I started watching my husband, and he rolled out the clay first before doing anything, and that seemed like a good idea, so I rolled it up and back and made a rose. I was the most proud of that one.