Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee

My slacks are ironed, my nails are polished, tomorrow’s lunch is set aside and I’m going to try to go to bed early and hope I don’t have bad dreams like I do every year before the first day of school. (I always worry that there will be a crowd of students in the office whose schedules are off, or some such nonsense). Some of our teachers have told me that they, too, have worrying dreams the night before school starts.

Our office is finally ready for opening day and I even hung a couple of my hummingbird prints that I had framed, the black & white ones I like so much. They make me happy (and I hope the children like them).

This weekend I was stung by a European working hornet, and those sure are big suckers. They’re camping out in the old lilac bush right by where I sit to take my photographs. They weren’t there the day before, and as I was setting up my little table and my chair, they came out to investigate me, then several of them began swarming above me – and I took off running toward the house - but not fast enough.

I was lucky to only get stung once. I’m sure they were defending their nest and my chair was pretty close to it. And today my arm is itching like crazy . . .





We also bought a new car this weekend – a 2013 Subaru Outback. We kept the Honda Element because we do need a second car after all, but the Element is a 2003 and we figured it was about time. I am falling in love with the Subaru, but climbing into the Element this afternoon to run an errand felt like coming home to a dear old friend. It’s going to take a long time before the Subaru feels like that but I’m looking forward to getting to know it a lot better.

The accompanying photograph isn’t all that and a bag of chips, but I enjoyed playing with it while waiting for my nail polish to dry. I took it last weekend and thought it was sweet that the little chickadee was actually inside the old birdcage that’s hanging in the yard. I waited until he perched on the rail to take the photo.

Hope you all have a good week ahead ~ until tomorrow, then.


As for the post title - gotta love Ali.