Pounding Sand

With all the excitement of going out of town for our anniversary, I forgot that Charlie was coming this week, today in fact. And he showed up early. And he mowed the front yard first, which was why I didn't know he was here right away. He mowed so that the leaves blew to the right of his mower, and so he moved all the leaves toward the front ditch. But I was distracted for a bit, and then he was mowing the back yard and the leaves were gone. When I brought him his check, I asked about the leaves in the front yard and he said I didn't need to know, that he had taken care of them. Well, I did not see them in any neighbors yard, nor in the street, so I don't know what he did. He said the grass wouldn't need mowing any more but he could keep coming to take up the leaves. He did a nice job, but the leaves drop so fast that by tomorrow you'll never know he was here. So I told him no. I went back to my e-mail and he finished up and left. When I finished, I went outside and collected 11 bricks, and scrubbed them as best I could. Then I spray-painted them black, mostly. I put some in the greenhouse, and some around the tomato plants. I ripped out a lot of dead morning glory vines from the fence. I raked up the leaves inside the fence. I trimmed the four 0'clocks severely so that the oxalis underneath could flourish. I took a break to listen to several short audios and did some meditation to rest my eyes. I have had a headache all day and it just won't leave. I glued the last two Sunday school projects so they are ready to return this week. Then I turned my attention to creating this week's project which is to re-create the bottle of blue water that Shannon gave me. There is sand in the bottom, then blue water, then a light oil, and finally some floating fish. I did not have sand, so I pounded some mortar chips into dust and poured that into the bottle. I didn't have any blue food coloring for the water, so I used it clear. I tried a few drops of blue paint, but it did nothing. Then I poured in some olive oil. But it was too dark. When I shook up the bottle, it just looked like dirty water. Some of the mortar sand actually floats, so it doesn't fall back to the bottom. This is so not good. Chris came home for supper. I had already sampled last night's chicken so I wasn't hungry. I went to church for choir practice, intending to be early to get some sand from the church closet. But for whatever reason, I arrived at precisely 7. Practice lasted for an hour. My phone rang during practice. It was William and I promised to call him back. After singing, I grabbed a bag of sand (hopefully it works better than ground-up mortar), and sat in my car to call William. He told me my Oldsmobile had been in a small accident. After the call, I drove to Hobby Lobby to check for food coloring. But they close at 8. I gave the manager my best pouty face, but he was unmoved. So I went to Target. All they had was gel colors, and even then, not the deep blue I needed. So on to plan B, a gallon of blue bug juice. Couldn't find any. So I went home empty-handed. Chris was playing a game on his laptop. I had left some frozen blueberries in a dish to thaw before I went out. Now I crushed them and poured the juice into my water bottle for coloring. The results were a little disappointing. Waiting for Chris to finish his game, I went into the dining room to write up my blog for later. I read through a few more e-mails, and then watched the latest episode of The Quilt Show which was delivered to my inbox several days ago. Chris still isn't ready to watch TV and it is almost 11. I wish he would just say 'no TV tonight' so I could stop waiting for him. I am going to bed.