Seven Quick Takes Friday

-1- 

I signed up for a fruit and vegetable co-op! This is great news because it will force me to prepare and eat some vegetables. Even funnier than the image of me preparing and eating vegetables is the image of me arriving at the co-op pick-up place at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday morning with my tousled hair and laundry basket. The whole thing seems oddly like a punishment of some sort.

-2-

The Edel Gathering! How did I not know about this? Clearly I've head my head buried in the sand. Dangit. Jennifer Fulweiler and Hallie Lord put together this fabulous idea and it happens next weekend. Best. Idea. Ever. It was sold out before I even knew it existed, but NEXT TIME! I'll be there! And I'm bringing 240 of my closest friends!

-3-

Puzzle love - I love puzzles the way I love sugar and, perhaps, tequila. It's a love that has to be controlled. My parents gave me a Barnes & Noble gift card for my birthday and days later this loveliness arrived at my doorstep:

The thousand pieces aren't the challenge. The challenge is not letting the puzzle consume all my time to the detriment of my marriage and mothering. I've been texting a puzzle-loving, long-distance friend and we started new puzzles on the same day. She wrote: "I'm glad I have a puzzle buddy. Sometimes I think it's just me and cat-loving grannies that like puzzles." This gave me an image of myself at age 91 - sitting at a table, working on a puzzle and drinking tequila. I'm not sure if that's utterly depressing or something to look forward to with all my might.

-4-

I'm pleased to report that my curriculum decisions for next year have been made! Next comes the ordering of the materials - wheeee! (recalling grade-school book order joy). Inevitably, this is followed by implementation of the materials. (Sigh.) Why can't the implementation maintain the level of excitement that the choosing and ordering does? Well, maybe I've made SUCH good choices this year it will go swimmingly.

-5-

I'm coming out of a bleak week. Simply, a rough combo of circumstance and mood. And in the middle of it I read about a friend having a theme song. I considered what my theme song would be and came up with "Shake it Out" by Florence and the Machine. Full lyrics here, but the highlights:

And I'm damned if I do and I'm damned if I don't

So here's to drinks in the dark at the end of my road

And I'm ready to suffer and I'm ready to hope

The song does a good job of fluctuating between despair and new resolve. My moods do the same thing. I also love how she says, "I like to keep my issues drawn." 

-6-

Half marathon coming up! Whaaaaat?!? My m.o. is to sign up for a race while I'm on a high from a previous race and then months go by and I forget and then something jars me and the dread sets in. But that's why I sign up, because if I didn't have something on the horizon I would curl up and melt into a slothful glob. It's two months away at this point. Gotta up those miles!

-7-

Our backyard project is under way again - after a brief, ten-month hiatus. We removed some flagstone from an old patio, replaced it with rock, and then let the unwanted flagstone sit around gathering spiderwebs for nearly a year. Well, this week a friend came and took the flagstone so now we have no excuse not to get to work! Here's what I've done so far: pulled some weeds by the pool and set out these kinda-pathetic pots to try to get a feel for what I want by our palm tree.

I gravely dislike the look of three empty pots sitting by the pool, and they are light years away from the look I'm hoping to achieve - but who wants to bet they sit there for ten months?



Read the inspiration for this post, and many other great ones over at Conversion Diary!