Should you ever find yourself with leftover royal frosting, go ahead an squish it through your fingers. It’s life changing and fun too!!

Kitchen sink artwork!  See, you can find creativity when you clean up!

Dinner!  A theta shaped onion ring was hiding amongst our other onion rings.  It was extra delicious, but I first immortalized it on film before I consumed it.

Sea creature cookies!  Iced!

This eventually became a chocolate cake.  I upgraded to a lovely apple green KitchenAid stand mixer (named Fiona, in case you were curious) a few years ago (my buddy worked at a kitchen store and got me a crazy good deal on it).  My mom’s hand-me-down hand mixer has been sitting in a cabinet for a long while.  I decided to give the hand mixer some exercise yesterday, but luckily turned it on a far distance away from this bowl.  Dead bugs started flying out of it.  Yucks!  The cake, minus the dead bugs, was quite tasty!  Groovy!

Pie, Strawberry Rhubarb.  A star!

I was in a small park on Thursday preparing for the lab I will teach next week.  It’s the kind of park that has a dilapidated shack in the parking lot that left me thinking, “OK, this is exactly the place where one of those serial killer shows would start”.  The parking lot itself was surrounded by trees, so the actual park was hidden.  Once I journeyed through the trees down a rock strewn path, ducking to avoid walking into branches, I realized that the park was much bigger than the parking lot led me to believe.  It was lovely, with a boulder lined stream that gurgled, just to the right of the path I was traveling down.

In case you are wondering – we will be contemplating the boulders in lab next week, but I digress.

We recently have been having a string of wet, rainy days, so the path we traveled down changed intermittently – from muddy silt that caked the tread of my hiking boots t0 firm gravel.  The rain had also encouraged the blood-sucking mosquitos to, well do just that, suck blood.  Mine mostly, because mosquitos seem to be drawn to me like I have just taken a bath in sugar water.  They were black with small, white stripes – interesting – but I had no problem whacking the ones that landed on me into mosquito smush.  They also had no problem biting me.  I still itch.

We took a path into the woods up a hill to contemplate more boulders.  Gripping stuff.  I was still thinking to myself “this is how the serial killer shows always start” as I wandered farther.  Every once in a while, the muddy path would lead to an elevated bridge that was raised off the ground 1-2 feet, constructed to avoid large tree roots or rocks.  The bridge, made of wood planks, must be nice when dry but were treacherous and deadly in their wet, post rain state.  Each plank was caked with a little bit of woodsy moss scum just for added slip.  I believe ice would be less slippery.  There were no railings to prevent you from falling off the bridge onto the rocks or tree roots below.  Up hill was frightening, but I was scared out of my wits when we were headed back down again (the path ended in some nice persons yard meaning we needed to retrace our steps back downhill).  When we came upon the bridge, I took tiny small steps and hummed quietly to distract myself.  It worked.  I lived.

But I felt the need to warn some fellow hikers as they made their way up the hill.  ”Be careful, the bridges are very slippery”.  I think they appreciated this warning.

On our way back to the car, we took one more gander at the stream.  As I was dodging the low lying branches, I noticed a tree leaf seemingly dancing in the wind.  It wasn’t attached to any tree but just hung there in mid-air.  Squinting, I noticed the stem of the leaf was stuck on a single spiderweb.  I stood there, transfixed, for a minute or two.  It was magical.

Yes indeed, it is raining again today.  Like, “Flood warning has been posted” hard.  The constant sound of rain drops on our roof hard.  Is your office roof leaking? hard.  But on my way into the office this morning in the midst of rain (in rainbow attire – with my rediscovered blue rain boots, kermit green rain jacket, and red umbrella), I spied a squirrel in the branches of a tree.  And in his mouth he had an acorn.  I paused and looked at him, and he looked back at me, I smiled and continued on my way.

Isn’t it incredible how small half bubbles seemingly appear from nowhere when a raindrop (sometimes) meets a puddle?  How they float around in that puddle until – pop – they disappear entirely.

My rain boots went missing a few weeks ago.  It was one of those weeks… rain, followed by rain, followed by more rain.  That happens sometimes.

But I didn’t notice their absence until I needed them again last week.  ”Where have they gone?” I thought to myself?  I attempted to re-trace their (and by extension – MY) steps.

My mother was convinced they were in some corner of my apartment.  Or under a pile of clothes.  Things generally like to hide under piles.  But she was incorrect.  If you know my mother,  you know she is a master or finding things.  She says it’s a mom thing.  But I was sad, because she can find anything – even if she is a state away.

I was sure they weren’t in my apartment because I had just spent a good chunk of time cleaning ever inch of it.  So every pile was washed and folded, every book was put away, every corner was vacuumed.  No rain boots.  No rain boots anywhere.

I thought I might have absentmindedly left them in my office.  I convinced myself that they were there.  Under my desk or in the corner.  Maybe even in one of my desk drawers (although I was certain I’d never put them in there – but I would check anyway, just to be certain).  But they weren’t in my office no matter how hard I wished them to be there, and I was sad again.

I was beginning to think they were gone forever.

I scoured the internet looking for a pair or rain boots as cool as my “old” ones.  I looked in the bookstore at my undergraduate college when I was there for volunteer weekend.  But no rain boots that I found came even remotely close to my perfect old ones.  And I was sad again.

I told all my friends the story of my boots that had seemingly vanished off the face of the earth.  OK, I exaggerate.  I think I told three or four of them.

Nonetheless, I missed my boots.

Finally, one last glimmer of hope – I asked the student worker at the gym at school “Is there a place were lost things go??”   I was directed to the front of the building.  ”We send all items we find to the front desk.”

There was such hope in my downward facing dog that morning thinking my boots may indeed be resting comfortably at the front desk.

After yoga class – I excitedly walked down the long hallway to the front desk.  There was a woman at the front desk who was on the phone, but somebody else offered to help me.  ”I’m looking for a pair of rain boots,” and I was directed to garbage can in a small closet.  I peered into the garbage can fully expecting to see my boots but they weren’t there.

And I was sad yet again.

By this time, the other lady (who had been on the phone) asked me what I was looking for.  ”I’m looking for my blue rain boots,” I responded.  She paused, got up, and started walking back down the hall saying, “I think I have an idea”.  She led me to the big red “Donate your shoes to Africa” bin.  I peered over the edge and like magic, there they were – taped together with blue electrical tape.  It’s like I had gotten a puppy for Christmas.

“Thank you so much,” I said.  ”They have dinosaurs on them, and I am really quite fond of them.”

They DO have dinosaurs on them, and that is why I love them.  Little T-Rex’s and Stegosaurs’s.  They are also blue which is my favorite color. And I got them at the L.L.Bean store in the kids department when I was visiting with my mutual best friend Liz.  I have small feet… small, child-sized feet, and I love my tiny feet (my college roommate and best friend Samara says I have size negative six and a half feet – even though they are really sized positive six and a half – [or size five when I shop in the kids department]).  And each boot has two small n-shaped handles on either side of it which makes shlepping them from point A to point B that much easier.  And I am really happy because they found their way back to me again!

The dinosaurs are back on my feet!

And here is a closeup of the T-rex.  RAWR.

P.S. In case you are wondering, I fully intend to donate 4 pairs of shoes to the Sneakers for Africa bin.  I’ve been meaning to do this for moths, but I always forget them at home.