I have a rather surprising collection of things going on in my head.  Not the least of which is a truly epic headache which will not be coaxed out.  Yippee.  Yet none of the things in feel like coming out.

I believe that I can call this chair done.  This has been keeping me out of trouble for a few days.  I have two things to urethane now.  How fun.  Not.

And I need another chair.

My babies are both leaving tomorrow.  One is going to find Jesus at Assateague Island with her high school group.  The other is going to find massive spoilation with her grandparents.  And I have the pleasure of going back to higher education on Monday.  See me do dance of joy that my one entire lazy summer week is over.

I’m going to go curl up somewhere and read a book.

It’s before noon and I have been a busy girl.  So busy I deserve a nap. Ouch.  I either have a thorn in my hand or a scratch.  I’m going to look away from that.  Sorry.

Mowed the freaking grass again because apparently we’re camping out in the backyard tonight for staycation.  This is good actually.  Since the backyard camping is the kind where I can sneak out of the tent and back into civilization.  I’m sure LLO will say something biting and accurate, but I can live with that.

More exciting is my foray into gardening.  Ha.  @vexations (who has the nerve to be away right now) suggested that I could plant flowers in some kind of repurposed container and this has been my focus all week.  Turns out last year sometime my dad asked me if I wanted an old wheelbarrow to which I said yes because I always do.  So spouseman and I figured out last night how to put all the darn pieces back together.  That was entertaining. 

Yesterday afternoon we went plant shopping.  I got carried away.  This happens.  We both went completely “WOW” over a hibiscus.  I planted it in the wrong place probably and took a lousy pic, but I’m seeing all the possibility in this sucker.  Look at all those buds. 

Princess Buttercup helped me. Look at all those weeds.  Gah.  I still haven’t gotten around to the concoction @plantinthewindow suggested for weed killing.

I’m starting to feel like I might eventually conquer that freaking flowerbed (which I’m not showing because I haven’t yet).  I’ve been fighting with it for 12 years.  The thing grows man-eating weeds.  The only time it looks good is when the poppies are blooming (which got flattened by rain this year).  But I planted myrtle or periwinkle or whatever that is (which is not edible, so I can’t make jelly out of it.  I looked it up.) and that very fine stuff is spreading like crazy and helping me with weed control.  And now there’s a hibiscus.  So, yay, me.

I didn’t do a thing with the clematis explosion but here that is.

OK.  I’m going to be brave.  I rearranged all these plants a hundred times and I’m still not happy exactly.  But…my repurposed portable flower bed.  Odds are good that I’ll end up painting the barrow.

Wonder who I’ll copy next.

Littleloudone has been begging to pick strawberries for days.  I know exactly how much fun this is, so I could have done without the experience.  Really.  But when I had the nerve to cancel our plans to visit my p’s (because I’m sick and coincidentally trying to ruin her life), I decided to take her picking.  I figured I’m already miserable and it was raining and why not just have the full experience of doing something I really didn’t want to do while being wet and sick.  I’m just that great of a mom.  I swear it. Or perhaps I hoped she’d stop complaining about me.

You can see it was just a gorgeous day.  Strawberry plants as far as the eye can see.  Not so many strawberries.  There happens to be an LLO in that picture.  Somewhere.  Pretty sure anyhow.  She was thrilled.  She told me a hundred times that she was really good at this and that I’m not because I’m old and so on.  Happy kid.  Mom wished for alien abduction.

There were lots of other plants in the patch.  These were the prettiest.  The pricklies were the most dangerous.  I figure there must be a really good reason to have other plants in the beds.  It just seemed purposeful.  Aside from being pretty, these flowers were most excellent at retaining water.  We were quite drenched when we finally gave up.  (Many minutes after I was done.)  As we were leaving we saw a mom with 4 kids (at least 3 of them were way younger than LLO) and I felt pretty sorry for her.  It was still raining and the two littlest ones looked shell-shocked.  LLO put a daisy in my hair.  We both looked completely gorgeous.  Miss America worthy.

We picked about half what I wanted, but I was more than happy to pay the big bucks for the pre-picked ones.  We got home and eventually dried out.  LLO proceeded to show her appreciation by going back to the complaint of earlier in the day (the part where I’ve ruined her life by pretending to be sick and/or purposefully getting sick) and I wished for alien abduction.

The sun came out and life was good for a little while because I went outside leaving the little insane beasts of doom and destruction inside to fight with each other rather than me.  When it started raining again, I decided to finish the job I started the day doing.  Turning those berries into jam. 

I have no idea whether my yummy deliciousness will remain strawberry syrup or will actually jam together.  I don’t care.  It’s sugar and fruit and done.

Next up:  looking for a place to pick your own blueberries.  I remember there was a place on the way to the beach in Jersey.  I wouldn’t mind going to Jersey.

I’m going to avoid words today. Probably a good thing.  So have some pictures of what makes me happy.  Here’s a song to set the mood. LINK

I love the color I painted my living room.  This picture almost captures how bright it is.  It’s a fabulous color.  Makes winter bearable.  And I love my girlie paintings on it.  The pansy is mine.  The flower in the middle is LLO and Spawn did the other two.  The photo is them a couple Christmases ago and is sitting on top of my piano.

This is my project for next week (and I don’t mean cleaning up that weird piece of string.)  I’m going to paint the moulding and the risers that totally freaking awesome blue and probably put some designs on too.  I’ve liked that idea for a long time but have only seen it in sedate colors.  You have no idea how Easter egg fabulous that purple is. 

This is part of my kitchen.  The top collage is LLO, the bottom is Spawn.  Hmm.  I don’t like that frame anymore.

This is the other color in my kitchen.  It’s much bolder in person.  It’s periwinkle rather than so grayish.  Collage by LLO.

Going on a voyage today.  Strawberries for jam and hoping to find a cheap couch at the resale shop.  I’ll probably also work on my chair some more.  Also need to find another adirondak because I have an idea for the next one.  See.  I can be purposeful and calm and boring.

bluemooncat enormous thing fiction because one word list wasn’t enough 15. Orion, carrot, disaster, fickle, spider, grave, turtle doves 34.yeast, snapping turtle, oxygen, hammer, Iceland, casino, blister

A pair of turtle doves, cooing and making dove-eyes at each other, living in a nest of perfection with small ones gathered about.  Life is perfect.  Tim sings perfect songs.  Tiff makes a perfect nest.  The little ones are happy and loved and well cared for.  Life is perfect.

Then one day, Tim puts a brand on Tiff.  Tim’s girl.  And the brand is a blister on the feet of Tiff.  The brand is yeast in a bowl of warm water, bubbling and adding oxygen to the discontent. Nothing is ever perfect.  And the façade is cracked.  A spider crawls into the crack and lays a million eggs.  The spider eggs hatch and open up a casino selling keno tickets.  If the numbers match, the hammer will crack the walls further.  As if a million spiders cannot break whatever stands in their way. 

Disaster. The brand is just words.  And it’s a figurative brand anyhow.  The burn is all in Tiff’s fickle head.  And Tim has no idea of his grave error.  He just knows that the happy family has moved to Iceland and that Tiff is listening to sad songs. 

In the nearby lake a snapping turtle pecks angrily at stones.  Blue gills swim willy-nilly nibbling on bits of balled up bread thrown by happy children. On the bank, wild carrots bloom randomly.  There aren’t blue gills in Iceland.  Because Tiff has flown into the sky to be the center star in Orion’s belt.

In other news, I’ve lost my little mind.  Also, I sat next to the preacher’s wife at an interesting wedding reception last night. We discussed the predominance of visibly tattooed bodies and how I’m one visit away from being part of the cool crowd.  We shall see, boys and girls.  We shall see.

21 boring things.  3 are lies.  The rest are not.  Thank goodness Granny tagged me or I might never have posted again.

1. I played on the swings today.

2. My first voice recital was last year.

3. I used to make (and alter) dresses for weddings.

4. Spouseman and I have been together more than half of our lives.

5. I secretly love the old version of Clash of the Titans because it is so bad.

6. I walked in a fountain in the middle of winter when I was in college (and I wasn’t drunk.)

7. I don’t like chocolate.

8. I got a ride home for one Thanksgiving break in an 18 wheeler.

9. My favorite color is pink.

10. I started reading 50 Shades of Grey today. 

11. I broke my flute on a marching band trip.

12. I’m addicted to games.  Pretty much all kinds.  (Facebook is sucking the life out of me right now.)

13. I played hookie in high school exactly once.

14. I threw a water balloon out of a window in a bad part of the city during a mission trip and the men/boys it hit found us in the church and scared the bejeebers outta me.

15. I look for big bumps in the road and say “whee” when i find a good one.

16. I was excited and proud when I voted for Reagan, but I don’t think I have been since.

17. I have a sweet tooth.  Big time.

18. My children are quiet and well-behaved.

19. I’ve been to the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania.

20. I found out the hard way what “rustic” means in campgrounds.

21. LLO barfed at her uncle’s wedding.

I live somewhere pretty too.  Go figure.  This is one of the mountains somewhere nearby.  It could be Mt. Nittany.  I really have no clue. In any case, I was hanging out today at the local marsh preserve thing for some creek conservancy shindig.  I know a lot about it.  As you can see.

I was playing with my usual summer gig- the art studio where I teach summer camps.  Sometimes the studio gets invited to do children’s activities at these shindigs.  An opportunity for me to be outside, usually listening to live music of some sort, and hanging out with the small people.  Often little small people.  I keep forgetting how much I like little small people.  I mean the preschool crowd.  They are adorable.  Littleloudone was supposed to be my assistant, but instead she spent the day in the creek catching fish.  That was ok.  Until she found out that I was getting paid and she had had the opportunity to share in that bounty.  Ha, sucker.  But she had fun and I had fun and life is good.

I think these thistle things are cool.  How funny is it that I’m thinking of you people (and pictures) when I’m living my life these days.

I believe this is skunk cabbage.  I didn’t sniff it to find out.  Because it is well-named stuff.

I think this is crown vetch. That may not be true.  I usually only see it from the side of the road.  Do you know about crown vetch?  Because I think it was invented here to be a ground cover and it’s completely invasive.  But still, if this is it, it’s pretty.  Because it’s purple.

I took this picture to find out what kind of plant this is, but I can’t tell from the pic.  It looks silver in the sun. 

It was bluegrass all day long.  Banjos and string bass.  How fun is that?  And it took me at least an hour to figure out where you have to have a fiddle in the band.  One of the bands could play in Texas.   I’m a little sleepy.  Just in case I’m not making any sense.

http://pallidpen.xanga.com/763445543/writing-prompt-6-scarred/

“There can be only one!” the Kurgan growls as the blade cuts deep into the already diseased neck of a frightened mother.  His blade slices and mangles and takes out what she needs.  Her terror is masked by the kiss of sweet sleep. The anesthesia wears off, her head remains, the pain excruciating. His wicked blade cut flesh and muscle and her naïve belief in immortality.  But still she IS the only one.  The disease is gone, perhaps forever.  All that remains is a nearly invisible badge of victory against death’s onslaught.  She sees it and raises an invisible sword in defiance.

While looking for the writer thing that @murisopsis (hope I got close on that spelling) won, I found this prompt instead.  So there we go.  I really need to watch Highlander again sometime soon.