fair trade

Never miss the chance to make the virtual real.

Crossing over from cyberspace to face-to-face

can be extraordinary.

Last weekend, Katherine Van Schoonhoven and I
 did just that. We met near Boulder, 

shared a good meal in a restaurant with our husbands,
and continued a conversation we had already carried on
 for three years on our blogs.
It was like meeting an old friend for the first time.

Katherine generously surprised me with a sketchbook,
like those she fills with the wonderful drawings
 you can see on her blog.
As icing on the cake, she also included three cool pens.

I had also gotten her a little gift,
a fair-trade organic Chocolove
 73% cocoa chocolate bar with currants & almonds.
Yum!

Sadly, I ate it before she ever got here.

My apologies, Katherine.

Hey, I got you some virtual daffodils.
:0]

much too much

If the world was made of chocolate

but a river ran through it,

it would still be too much chocolate.

chocolates

It took a lot of chocolate to paint this.

Photographing it drove me nuts.

Personally, I don't like chocolate and nuts,

so I figured I better just close the box.

chocolate moose

optimism

Two days ago, I was sure I smelled a gardenia.

I was sitting in traffic at the time, so it was obviously an aromatic hallucination.

Tail pipes notwithstanding, I was possessed by the fragrance.

Though the climate here will surely kill it,

I bought a gardenia plant today.

It's like chocolate; sometimes, you just gotta have it.