What to climb, what to climb...?

Fiona keeps telling us she wants to go climb a tree. The odd thing is, we can't find any good climbing trees around here. Apple trees would be perfect. Most citrus trees are great ('cept for the thorns) but just about all we have around here are maples. The mulberry tree in the front yard might be good, but the lowest branch is six feet off the ground. Not so good for someone in the three-foot-something range.

Fortunately, that's what uncles are for. (Daddies aren't off the hook, not by a long shot. But when having your head sat on is a daily phenomenon, you sometimes forget to inject some creativity into the situation.) So the impression has stuck: Uncle = Jungle Gym.

Personally, I think Paul brings that on himself...

The shot I did get

"Have you gotten that one perfect shot yet?"

Well, maybe. But it wouldn't hurt to shoot a few more...

Every now and then, I get a shot I'm completely happy with. This is one of them. No cropping, no touch-up, nothing. Just the pure joy of the moment.

Thank God for Digital Cameras

As I'm sitting here, downloading photos off my camera, it occurs to me how grateful I am for the relative cheapness of digital photography. Take the month of May, for example. Had I taken the same number of photos on film and had them all processed and printed, my film-and-developing budget would have exceeded my mortgage payment.

I live a well-documented life.

They said it couldn't be done...

Just so you know, you can do shading on a Magnadoodle. You just have to hold the magnetic stylus at a very low angle.

And now, on to my third impossible thing before breakfast...

The books go marching one by one, hurrah! Hurrah!

Finally, after far too much time, the books have started marching out to our very patient customers — and a few of the other ones, as well. :-) Thank God for people who keep asking, for lo, they do help us to get things done.

Anything fragile, liquid or perishable? Nope, all books...

Neal the Longsuffering, and Justin the Cheerful hold up one of the new covers. Things had actually been going badly at the moment — the metallic inks weren't getting along with the black ink — but they smiled anyway. And so did I. It came out OK in the end.

We were supposed to have a book collating party tonight at the youth center at our church, but only one person showed up, and it wasn't someone with a key. It was an odd contrast to last time they helped us out, when some 16 or so teenagers helped us assemble 800 books in just a few hours. Maybe we misunderstood when we were supposed to be there... who knows. We haven't figured out yet what happened.

Hey, that looks better!

For some time now, I've been looking at the weathered, peeling paint on my house and shed, and dreading the day I'd have to do something about it. Well, that day came, but I had help. Professional help, no less, in the form of Joel and Paul, who both work for Matthew's Painting Company. Joel rented a pressure washer for the weekend, and came over to do our house first. (Joel is trying to sell his own house, and, now that he's graduated from seminary, move somewhere and go be a pastor. If you want a new pastor...)

The first order of the day was to bleach the whole house. This is necessary to kill off any mold or mildew that's living on the house and would ruin the paint, I'm told. So I went ahead of Joel, using a "spray ranger" that mixes the bleach and water to get an even mix. Then Joel came behind me with the power washer, to rinse off the bleach and remove anything loose. (Loose items can include outdoor thermometers, peony bushes, fingers... gotta be careful with this thing!)

Paul takes a turn with the pressure washer on the shed. You couldn't see this with the naked eye — it just looked like a fog coming out the tip — but the camera caught the rotating nozzle here. Apparently, the idea with this tip is to have an extremely high pressure stream, but rotate it so fast that it won't do (much) damage.

Joel's wearing shorts. Can you tell? Apparently a lot of the stuff that comes off the wall comes straight back at the person holding the wand.

Joel let me try it out on the shed, where the paint was the worst. I laughed out loud as the old, peeling paint practically leaped off the wood. It was enormously satisfying, especially since I knew how long it would have taken by hand with a scraper.

(I've since gotten my water bill. It was 5,000 gallons higher than normal. Small price to pay...)

Later, once the flood waters had abated, and the wood was dry again, Paul came over and showed me how to finish preparing the wood. There was still some work to be done with a scraper and wire brush, but it wasn't anywhere near as bad as I had imagined.

We finished up the trim on the house on Saturday, and we'll be tackling the shed soon.

And then Jesus said, "Ribbit."

During the school year, we go to a small group Bible study, and drop Fiona and Aiden off at the church gym for activities there. At the end of the year, they had a "Fun Fair" with activities for both parents and children to enjoy together, and awards for things like best attendance.

While we were there sitting together on the floor during the presentations, Fiona got out the foam cross she had decorated at one of the stations, and some plastic animals she had won in a game. "Look!" she said, hopping an armadillo up to the middle of the cross, "here's a cross for this frog to die on!"

Yeah.

What do you say then?

On the bright side, the message is getting through, although not quite in the form I would had hoped for!

Stippling

Stippling. It's one of the words on Andy's List of Words that are Fun to Say. It's also on Andy's list of things that are fun to do. Take, for instance, this catalog cover, which will be going to press in a week or so:

Now, would you like a closer look at that winged sphinx?

This is a bit smaller than the actual size of the page. You can always click on the image to see all those dots up close.

Basically, for this last week, I've spent the very last part of my working day making little dots with a Micron pen. It's been such fun. I've been giggling to myself all day: I get paid to stipple!