Sun. Day.

Bear with me, this has so far been kind of a photo intensive day.

First, here is fabulous omiyage from Lewie's owners, Kelly First and Kevin, who were off running around France like mad folks while Lewie and I chilled in the backyard with his rubber chicken and yellow frisbee collection.



That is a tube of Signal toothpaste for Dave's increasingly international toothpaste collection. (No joke, he's got toothpaste from India, Japan, Russia, and now France.) Under the toothpaste is a set of colored pencils for me (I'm assuming). Then there's a bottle of lemon-flavored olive oil and a small pile of rock-ish things Kelly collected on the beach.



Here's a closeup of the rock-ish things. These are easily my most favorite of the omiyage. I love love love rocks and rock-like things. One of my own favorite possessions is a teeny-tiny bit of coral from the Great Barrier Reef that I collected while I was on Lizard Island.



This is more omiyage, a notebook from Le Shop (sp?). On the back of the notebook are tables de multiplication, addition, division, and subtraction. (That sounds better if you read it with a snooty French accent, by the way.) And on top of the notebooks are some twigs.



If you chew on these twigs they're like toothbrushes. No joke. The French rely on them, I think, which is probably why their teeth are so janky. I'll stick to my Sonicare toothbrush, thank you, and keep these as a novelty item. (Just kidding. Those are Dave's omiyage. He'll use them, too.)

This next stuff is not omiyage.



Those are my new swim towels. I've been trying to incorporate more color into my existence, so I bought these two towels from Target. The larger towel is hot pink with striped butterflies on it, as you can see. The smaller towel is a shade less hysterical than hunter's orange.

And this next thing is the reason why 90% of Americans are going to hell.



Yes, that is Mac & Cheese in a can. I bought it for Dave as a joke, but I'm hellishly curious as to what canned mac & cheese tastes like, so I can't wait for him to open it. (I found it at Walgreens while I was there the other day. I'm loathe to admit it, but my lunch that day was this can's evil twin: Chef Boyardee mini ravioli.)

And today we worked on The Garden, too:



This is our little chaotic container garden, in progress.



There's some varieties of amaranth in the foreground. They're such strange and colorful little flowers. They are my favorite new addition to our little Eden.



There David is watering his newly transplanted strawberries. He bought the strawberries in the hopes that the fruit will attract some photogenic insects.

And this is my latest non-gardening project in progress, "tin" butterflies.



I don't know if you're familiar with traditional Mexican and New Mexican tinwork, but this is my low-rent version, butterflies made from disposable aluminum baking pans and colored with permanent markers. You can see two butterflies in progress at the bottom of the photo (a smaller one on top of a larger one). I'll try to post some photos of some finished pieces soon.

Oh, and this last photo is just for fun.



That is not photoshopped. That is me holding up a cinnamon tostada in front of Dave's computer monitor. See, while I work on craftzy type things, I like to watch (or at least listen to) movies. Today I was taking a break from working, so I munched on a cinnamon tostada from the bakery and watched part of Real Genius starring Val Kilmer (who has fallen asleep over his books in this scene). Real Genius is one of my favorite movies. I like it, yes, because Val Kilmer used to be kind of a babe (though now he's just a bloated blow-hard who wants to run for governor of my home state), and it's chock full of geeks and nerds of the type I used to be. (Yes, I was a nerd in high school--and in middle school, too, come to think of it. And, sadly, probably in elementary school as well.)

Here is a scene from Real Genius, which was directed by Martha Coolidge (who also directed Valley Girl):