Tumbleweeds!

Wow!  Last week was really busy!  Greg's mom came to visit for a couple of days, and we did lots of fun stuff.  And then a new client placed her first curriculum order (yay!), so I was working on getting that assembled when my printer completely died.  The cyan print head is dead.  Everything in my printouts that should be blue is printing out PINK!  It's pretty and girly, but not working for the lesson.  So now I'm researching a new printer that will take a bit of abuse.  Being a curriculum writer and distributor, I print a LOT.

But of course the cats didn't stop being adorable!

 I mailed off a curriculum binder to the new client (hooray!) and the Chandler Post Office always has this Christmas decoration in December (and apparently in the beginning of January, too!)  It's Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer made out of palm tree trimmings!  I'm going to make one for next year.  These bits of palm trunk are all over in the streets after a windy day.  I never thought to use them for something!

As I was leaving the second-hand bookstore last Thursday, look who I saw in the parking lot! (A scorpion!)

He had been stepped on, but he wasn't too sick to raise up his stinger at me when I got closer with the camera . . . Yikes!

 And last week was very windy.  Even in a suburban area, we get exciting TUMBLEWEEDS when it's windy!

I know the sound isn't great on that video because of the wind in the microphone, but I am trying to communicate that tumbleweeds are spiky weeds that grow everywhere, but without very deep roots.  When a strong wind comes up, they get blown right out of the ground and tumble down the street (or across the field).  They are really neat.  I don't know of very many places in the world that get these interesting plants!

Here's a close-up of one that got stuck.

And here are a bunch of them that piled up by the electrical box and got stuck to each other.

I have another exciting tumbleweed photo for you, but it will have to wait because it's on Greg's phone and he's at work . . . 

Hope your 2013 has been great so far!

-Christie