Toe Rings, Secret Bookmarks, Love Whispers

Smurf's friend, the Guinea Pig Mama, gave me a little box of jewelry...including a toe ring. I cannot tell you for how long I have longed for a toe ring. I have looked enviously at the toe rings adorning the dainty, pedicured feet of other women stylishly displayed in cute summer sandals. And most of the time my own feet were shod in five dollar walmart sneakers which I wore till they fell apart with the blue gel insert wrapped around my heel for the extra cushion. And I would just gaze longingly at toe rings, sandals, and painted feet. Last summer, the Jedi and I had a brief falling out. I, being a woman through and through, consoled myself by going out and buy a thirty dollar pair of croc sandals. (The crocs were able to support my heels without any pain, where most sandals, even expensive ones were to flat and thin for me to wear for a day.) I kept my toenails painted for most of the summer too. And now, now I have a toe ring too. No one but other women will understand how significant this is for me. I got to wear my toe ring for the first time yesterday. I was like a woman with a new engagement ring, I had to keep looking at it.

Also yesterday, we went to the library. I usually grab a book or two from the children's fiction department. Yesterday, I pulled the book Willow Run off the shelf. I opened it to flip through the pages, and found a beautiful, hand colored, Egyptian bookmark in the book. In retrospect, I should have turned the bookmark in at the circulation desk. I left it in the book, so that whoever forgot it could come back to get it. But I thought to myself, how neat would it be to intentionally leave a little bookmark in a book I especially enjoyed for the next reader to find? I won't, because I'm sure I won't get around to it, but just the thought is interesting. It wouldn't have to be an expensive, or an elaborate bookmark. Just something printed from the computer and colored in with pencils would work. A secret bookmark agent.

Lastly, this morning, the Jedi woke me up with kisses. He wrapped his arms around me and held me for a while and whispered lovely thoughts in my ear. Among those whisperings was that he was created for me, created to love me, and that I was deserving of love. I'm still trying to absorb that.

Day 9 of I Can't Grow Grass

Last Tuesday it was beautiful. I drafted my child labor force and went out to the back yard, which had literally received no attention at all last year. We cleaned out last years dead stalks, raked up fallen leaves, collected sand box toys and threw out broken sand box toys. I dug under the corner of the butterfly garden that had gone to weeds. I transplanted the purple coneflowers and and the sedum autumn joy and some of the daylilies into the corner and around the border of the garden. The island bed that they had occupied became the new strawberry patch, and we dug up the strawberry plants and moved them there. We made a neat stepping stone path between the two. Where the strawberry patch was, we pulled out the sundial markers and turned over the soil. We scattered grass seed and laid some of the dead stalks and grasses over the seed to keep the birds away. It rained nicely on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. By yesterday, it hadn't rained in a couple of days, and I wanted the seeds to do well, so I dragged the hose out of the garage, hooked it up, soaked my feet, and gently watered the area. This is day 9. Still no signs of new grass. Now, in my defense, I have no idea how old the grass seed was, but still, I'd think *some* of it would sprout.

Why do plants hate me, when I love them so much? well, ok, I neglect them pitifully in August, but I love them in the spring time. By August I'm jaded. And yet every spring, I'm full of hope.

Monday night at dinner, I put three green beans on Sweetling's plate. She asked why I did that when I know she doesn't like green beans. I told her I was an eternal optimist. We had a brief discussion about what that phrase meant. The Jedi piped in with that I expect the best possible, regardless of whether or not it lined up at all with reality. Under his breath he muttered that it was a wonder I didn't vote as a liberal.

Aperture Easter

Yes, it's been eons since I've posted. But, two things are going to contribute to me being more regular with this blog, again. One, I've quit my rp site. Mom had a herniated disk in her back, she was in pain, couldn't walk or do much of anything for herself, and needed three trips to the er, four trips to the chiropractor, one trip to the family doctor, three trips to the specialist, and one trip to outpatient surgery (for an epidural cortisone shot done under fluroscopy), plus multiple, multiple trips to the pharmacy and a never ending stream of phone calls to set up all these appointments. In my free time, I had no brain cells left for writing an rp. So, no rps means more time for the Me to write in her blog. And two, I've quit my rp site.

On to the topic of this post. Each Easter we decorate our eggs a bit differently. This Easter, I cheated a bit and did a tried and true method, that I thought Little Guy could do easily. I sat on the living room floor and cut little tiny squares, rectangles and triangles of tissue paper. I put said pieces in a divided vegetable tray, sorting them by color to make a beautiful wheel of pretties. It being Easter, I did not include any brown or black, just lovely, uplifting colors. I set up the kitchen for the art project (because in my house, even Easter eggs become an art project.) I cut little cardboard circles from paper towel tubes to be stands for the eggs, so that each little masterpiece had its own easel. Then I gave the children paintbrushes and a few drops of water in a milk jug lid. One is to arrange the pieces of tissue paper, gently brush the mosaic with water, and then allow to dry. The dye from the wet tissue paper seeps into the eggshell, staining it with a lovely pattern of color.

We had each done several eggs (ok, the kids did several eggs, I was on my second), when Sweetling asked...do we have any black? I told her of course not. We had Easter colors. Bright, vibrant, beautiful symbols of the Resurrection. She said she needed black because she was going to make her egg look like the shooting robots from Portal. Black tissue paper then had to join our collection. Little Guy proceeded to make a "bad guy" egg named "Master Egg". The Jedi busted a gut laughing.