Photos and Text Have Nothing To Do With One Another

 The Scripps Aquarium contains fish. No lie.

It's been a craft morning around here. All week, my throat hurt. Sharply, dully, in that weird crackling sort of way - it hurt all week.  Tea, lozenges, making faces all failed to help. Last night I broke down and embraced the Old School. I gargled with hot salt water. It was, as Iain would have said four years ago, "Lexsuxting."

 The bay between La Jolla and UCSD. 

But this morning my throat felt better. Still a little crackly at times, but better. So I took myself off to Michael's for a bit of shopping.

 Playing with the water flow toy at the Aquarium. Note the Snoopy sticker from his visit to the dentist.

Next weekend Iain celebrates his sixth birthday. We need gift bags for his guests. Last year I learned (too late) that a craft store is the mecca of gift-bag stuff. So off I went. On a Saturday morning.

But, in the end, it was fine. I found bags, tissue paper, swirly straws, colored pencils, decorative notepads, festive sequins and confetti, stickers, and little tubes of glitter. Yes, I am giving away glitter. Because parenting is about sharing the pain. 

Posing inside the mouth of a great white shark: priceless. 

Once home, I arranged my mis en place, unfolded 30 bags and filled them up. Task #1 for the birthday party: done. Next stop: order 5 dozen donuts.

After that, my craft glands went into overdrive. Iain's longest-standing teacher - the woman who supervises his extended day program - will leave at the end of this year. Iain would have moved into a different division of his school, anyway. So we need to say goodbye. Together, we made her a long bead necklace.

Then Iain used leftover glitter and sequins to make a thank-you note for a gift he received last week. It says, "I like tools." Effusive, I know.

And now, sparkling with glitter, no doubt with beads hidden in the folds of my jeans, I'm considering what to do next. Quilting? Perhaps.