checking in (the lusty month of may)

Well, I bought some ceramic and glass paints, a couple of different kinds. I splurged on three fancy paint-pens for glass, with which I plan to adorn glass vases as wedding gifts. I got fooled in the store by another type that said "dishwasher-safe," which was for either ceramic or glass and which required no baking. It was cheap, too, and came in a set of several decent colors. Could I really personalize dishes this way? If so, why doesn't everyone know about this? I should have known it was too good to be true. When I looked more closely at home, I saw the warnings about carcinogens and birth defects. Hmm. Perhaps I'll not use it to paint plates.

I know that food-safe ceramic paints exist. I haven't looked very hard yet, but now I'm not sure if anything fitting that description can be found outside the world of paint-your-own pottery places or home kilns. Very disappointing! I will keep looking, however, and let you all know. In the meantime, I'll paint some vases. That will be fun. I'm aiming for quality, though, not crafts-y. I don't want to give something away that I wouldn't love and be proud to to own. So wish me luck!

I'm happy to report that the painful seasonal transition time appears to be behind me. My beauty-tolerance capacity is way up, just in time for a stretch of sunny and warm, get-out-yer-tank-tops summery beauties this week. Trees and flowers are bursting everywhere like time-elapsed fireworks, and things are starting to become lush. Shade has returned to the road, and it looks momentarily out of place. A billion birds are chattering and singing praises out back. And the heady smell is almost too much for me - I actually get dizzy sometimes out walking, because I inhale too deeply and too often. I love May so much it hurts a little.

My practices are all going great. My synchronicities lately have all been too powerful, too personal, and too deeply spiritually oriented to find a comfortable home here on my blog, but, well, it's going on. And musically, fifteen minutes has begun to stretch more often into twenty and thirty and forty-five. I may not be writing yet, but I'm singing, improvising, playing harmonically challenging songs off the top of my head by ear, and generally finding my groove. The love is back.

The Ob I spoke with last week was very supportive, as was the friendly nurse who checked me in and could see no call for doubt, who said three or four times, "Oh that's so exciting." I now have a sort of plan, a timeline for adding this and that medical strategy if it comes to it. (Just a couple. Not the works. Too many babies in the world already in need of a family and of love, love, love. Perhaps one of them is ours? That would be okay, too.) But more important, when I left the office I felt youthful, dewy and burstingly fertile. And I must say, May is an awfully nice time to be trying to conceive!

It's been a good week.