shrinky dinkin' and sensory gardenin'

i had an absolute blast, from start to finish, with this stupid garden project. i am the "landscape coordinator," or some frou-frou title like that, for sophie's school and i've spent the past month transforming a much-neglected courtyard into a sensory garden for the kids. granted, i think most of the people at her school were just happy i didn't ask them to help, but i totally appreciate the fact that they gave me free reign with the space and just let me do whatever the hell i felt like doing.

this weekend i decided the garden itself was through so i spent all day saturday making these lovelies (and crying over the hawkeyes loss to wisconsin--31-30. SO CLOSE!!!).

i had almost forgotten how fun shrinky dinks are!

still here; still no paris pix

i suck, i know. i'm taking a bit more time off to try and pull myself together and snap out of my iowa-induced funk (even i'm not interested in reading what i'm writing at the moment). actually, it's not all iowa-induced: my glorious renters, michelle and rich, are moving out of my glorious house in new mexico to move to glorious (?) idaho. which means we now finally have to sell it...and i am seriously displeased.

wish me luck.

yep, i'm still alive...

...and i have lots to relate (eventually). rich and i took a much-needed break and went to munich and paris by ourselves--as in no kids--and spent a whopping 11 days together! we've been back for a couple of weeks; i'm still trying to reconcile the fact that i left europe willingly to come back to iowa (but i did miss the critters who call me mom). many, many pics to come--i'm still trying to get my house in order so i can sit down for two seconds in a row to edit the images. in the meantime, self-portraiture plus an eiffel tower (and rich):