Artistic Family Members

 

https://jackgoolsbyclay.carbonmade.com/projects/5859345

 

 I am about the least skilled person with my hands.  That doesn't bother me since I am freakin awesome with the comedy but I do always wish I could do anything besides comb my hair, wipe my butt, and feed myself with my hands.  On the other hand, I have family members that are amazing with what they can do with their hands and one of them is my Uncle Jack who grew up in New Orleans and went to school for pottery.  I have always loved my uncle's pots, bowls, and mugs.  Not because he is family but the earthy colors he uses in the glazes are just exactly my favorite colors.  He and I have similar tastes in art so that is probably why he does so much stuff that I really enjoy.  The only part of his work that I am not the biggest fan of is probably the gargoyles he does, but faces and stuff like that always scare me.  I don't like dolls either, I think it was the movie Poltergeist that scared me out of that stuff.  Above is a picture I took of my Uncle while visiting the family in Richmond, VA.  He is standing in front of his local art exhibition.

 

https://jackgoolsbyclay.carbonmade.com/projects/5859345

 

One think my Uncle and my entire family are horrible at is marketing and promoting ourselves and talents.  He makes the most amazing coffee mugs and beer steins ever and has recently started selling them at the local coffee shop where he offers a free cup of coffee with every coffee cup purchased for a limited time.  The owner of the shop loves his coffee cups so much that my Uncle has been asked to do more at the store and they share in the proceeds, like a win-win situation.  Over the Christmas season he sent me the awesome covered pot you see in the picture above with a batch of home made pralines (I freakin love pralines).  I loved the covered pot so much that I want my diabetes laden ashes put in it when I die it is so cool.  I love the greens, tan and touch of blue mixed in on the pot.  I told him that he really needs to find a person who can do the marketing of his pottery and promote his work so that he can get more of this amazing stuff into peoples hands.  Everyone who has coffee at my place asks me where I got my coffee cups from because they are not only beautiful but also comfortable in your hands.  So this week I got a surprise email from my Uncle that had a link to his first website where he is selling his ware and showcasing his works. 

So if you all don't mind please visit my Uncle's website https://jackgoolsbyclay.carbonmade.com/ and maybe even shoot him an email: jackgoolsby@me.com because he didn't put a lot of his famous coffee mugs and steins on the website and mention that you want one of his secret diabetes friendly coffee mugs that were featured on the diabetic campers blog and he told me that you would also get 1 dollar off a 10 dollar coffee mug for a limited time.

2015 year of diabetes review

 

So here we are another year where I have let you down by barely posting on my blog.  I am probably a little late to do a year in review but hey, its my blog right?  I had the best year of my life so far as I can remember.  It all started with the Little Rock marathon in March with one of my best buddies, then The Oklahoma city memorial marathon in April (which the year before I kinda had like heart issues and had to quit around mile 16 due to how much I enjoyed life over death).  There was the tour de cure in June.  August I rode in the hotter than hell 100 mile bike ride.  September I participated in the Plano balloon festival half marathon and  my first 70.3 distance triathlon.  We did the capital to coast 226 relay run in October with a great gaggle of fellow diabetics.  Then I visited my uncle and his family in Richmond, VA during the month of November and did the Richmond marathon and did a sprint triathlon with a coworker.

I think the year wasn't so great because I participated in so many events but because I felt so great and so many people helped me to accomplish these things.  It's like my good buddies Don and Jeff and their little bit of poking each other all the time.  Don three years ago or so was harassing Jeff that even though Jeff is a great cyclist he couldn't keep up with Don when it came to running.  So after years of harassing, Jeff started running to prove to Don that he could run as well.  So now Jeff runs and runs like the wind.  Then Don started to harass Jeff that he couldn't swim as good as he can.  Then you can guess it, Jeff started swimming last month with Don.  Now they are harassing me to join them in the 2017 Houston full distance iron man.  There is something about pushing someone with positive timely support.  Don never gave up on trying to get Jeff to run with us over the years and Jeff finally gave in and we took him out with us and showed him the joy of running.  Not the negative leaving someone or making fun of them way.  Plus there is not the "we have to get ready by this date for this specific event" we know that life starts at the beginning and lasts until we are worm food so getting in shape just for a moment of our lives is the wrong way to look at it.  We should think about keeping our goals: fun, realistic, attainable, measurable, and timely.  Then it is something that is embedded into your life and you want to do it not because you have diabetes and you have to do it.  So getting so many participation medals for traveling to see family and running a marathon, or being with one of your best friends as they complete their first marathon or calming a coworker as they rock their first sprint triathlon, and hanging out in the middle of the night in a random Texas gas station talking about life with one of my favorite diabetic buddies Mason while waiting for our next leg of the capital to coast relay are the things that made last year great.  I like getting so many participation medals because it means that I am staying healthy, training with some of the greatest people in my life, and pushing myself to do things I never thought I could ever do.