Dancing Bear Falls Off the Ball

A while ago I got a call from a friend asking if I'd gotten an email she'd sent. Asking, because I hadn't answered it.

Well. I would describe myself as "not very organized" at the best of times. Sometimes, I have just enough energy to do the things that must be done, and none left over.

"Things that must be done" comprise a much shorter list than commercials would have you believe. On my personal list are things like breathe (so important! hold your breath and watch the second hand to find out how important), eat, drink, and sleep, and personal hygiene.

Blogging and email kinda falls off that list when things get tight.

So let's see, what have I been doing since the 6th of May?

I spent the last two weeks as Parent-in-Chief, while my husband went down to Arkansas for a hazardous material certifier school.

I took some pictures of apple blossom.I've read that my particular camera tends to blow out white highlights, and I have that problem in full sun. These shots were taken under a typical Michigan bright overcast sky. No blown out highlights here - I guess that's something to be grateful for!I took a picture of the deer tracks following the loop path that I mow at the south end of our lot.I caught the baby beech leaves just unfolding.

Over the course of the two weeks my husband was gone, I mowed the dratted grass twice, and then it rained the next day both times, causing the grass to instantly grow some more.

My lace group, whose meetings I have been missing very often and very much (they overlap with work), had a trunk show again. Since Kathy (Kirchner, link here) said she would open the sales room at 4pm, I drove up for the sale. I had a great time talking to my lace-making friends. Boy, have I missed these meetings.

Although I don't often get to attend meetings, not having the time means I do have the money to spend. So I bought two books: first, Knitted Lace Designs of Herbert Niebling, which is the brand-new Lacis translation of Eva Maria Leszner's Gestrickte Spitzendecken, and Sonja Esbensen's Kunststrick II.

I bought a pair of the Sew-Mate tatting shuttles, one green and one purple.

And (did you guess?) more thread, including more of the Valdani pearl cotton I love so much.

Saturday the child and I went to the Binder Park zoo down near Battle Creek, Michigan. This was supposed to be with his Cub Scout troop, but we didn't manage to link up with them.

Besides the great fun of spending his allowance in the gift shop, here was his absolute favorite part of the zoo: feeding the giraffes in the Wild Africa exhibit.Giraffes, ostriches, zebras, and several other species are free to roam in this large open area. Three of the giraffes came to the giraffe-head-height overlook where we could buy giraffe biscuits to feed them. This guy was the tallest of the three, and if you've ever succumbed to pleading puppy eyes, you know the exact feeling when we ran out of biscuits!

For me, my favorite part was after I drove home from the zoo, my husband was finally home. Right now he and our son are at the movies, and I am finally all alone in the house. Writing my first blog post in a week and a half.