I finally finished the tiny T-Rex. He was like, ten thousand times more challenging than the tiny Triceratops. To be perfectly honest, he is having a little trouble standing up on his own. I’m trying to figure out a clever way to permanently prop him up. In the meantime, this box will have to do. I posed him next to a peanut to give a sense of scale, but then it was pointed out to me that the peanut could easily be a lemon. So that was sort of a fail on my part, I guess. I would like some more tiny dinosaurs to work on now, please.

This evening Monika hosted a lip balm making party and it was quite enjoyable. Lip balm seems like a sensible craft to me because everyone has lips and needs a way to moisturize them. It’s a practical sort of project. We melted beeswax, which I just learned is one word, not two, along with some other things I don’t really remember like shea butter and peppermint oil and poured it into 50 little tubes to cool and harden. The biggest challenge we encountered was that the outside of the tubes got all greasy which made it hard to get our custom designed stickers to adhere. My sticker featured a rabbit and a birdy exclaiming “My lips feel positively balmy”. I believe this is a logo I will use again if I ever get into full time, professional lip balm production.

Anyhow, now I have 8 tubes of lip balm at my house so I figure I’m set for a while in that department.

Less than two weeks into 2012 and I have already conquered a challenging task! I assembled this tiny Triceratops. It was so fun!

Steps:

1. Find brightly-colored table, so pleasing photos can be taken of assembly process.
2. Spread out materials so project looks important and organized.
3. Punch out tiny pieces.
4. Stare at directions for 5 hours.
5. Moisten eyeballs.
6. Locate missing rib.
7. Gently wedge teeny pieces together.
8. Secure with a dab of glue.
9. Massage tiny Triceratops so his feet all touch the ground and his ribs are evenly spaced.
10. Find a place for tiny Triceratops to live.

If there were one of these tiny models for every animal on earth (or uh, in Heaven) I would definitely collect them all and start a tiny menagerie. Sadly, all I have is this guy and a as-yet-to-be-assembled T-Rex. I plan to do the T-Rex soon, but have to find another brightly-colored table or the pictures won’t come out well.

I asked each of my co-workers to draw a pigeon. Here are the results.

Something very exciting has happened! My friend Mary took some of my pigeon drawings and graphic designer-ized them so they look cuter. And have colors! NowI want to start a business and use this as my logo. I’m not sure what kind of business it would be though.

So last week I had my daily battle with myself where myself fights with myself over whether myself should do some exercise or not. Finally my pro-exercising self won, and I got up off the couch and got dressed. I had just strapped on my fanny pack and was ready to head out the door when I realized gee, I have no idea where my sneakers are. I looked all over the house but could not find them. I took this as a sign that the universe wanted me to stay home and watch TV.

Turns out my sneakers decided to extend their vacation to Nantucket.

Ruthie was nice enough to return my sneakers to me via mail. But when I opened the package I discovered it contained not only my shoes, but a small rock. I asked Ruthie if she had put the rock in there on purpose and she said no, he was definitely a stowaway.

So now I am faced with a conundrum. How do I view this situation? Do I take it that the rock always wanted to get off of Nantucket and see the world, and has now accomplished his goal? Or do I take it that the rock wound up in the package by mistake, and is desperately wanting to get back to his island paradise?

Not sure how to proceed. In the meantime, I have given the rock a face.

This past weekend I went to Nantucket with my sister, her husband, and a bunch of our cousins. It was pretty much the best place I have ever been. I chased some little birds down the beach. They did not want their photo taken. There were some seals in the water. I ate some apples from the orchard and some grapes from the uh…place where grapes grow. It’s hard to imagine that there could be a nicer place.