Iguanas, bushes, and bees

This was exactly the kind of Monday morning I needed: I had a full pot of coffee, the day was gray and cool, and my youngest slept in until almost 10am, allowing me to have 1 1/2 blissful hours of quiet all to myself. So very grateful.

This weekend I met up with my friend Alla (of Prairie Sunshine Yoga) and her daughter, my goddaughter Ksenia, for a delicious dinner at West Town Tavern, followed by crepes and coffee at The Iguana Cafe (with a real iguana!). The “European-style cafe” has a diverse crowd (which makes for great people-watching) and awesome crepes.

Sunday we spent shopping for bushes and trees for the front lawn, and then planting. The kid were (mostly) cooperative. Fuzzy photo taken on the laptop before we left to go shopping:

It felt so good to dig in the dirt, to begin to reshape the landscape around Casa del Lobos! Of course the shrubs are small and still overpowered by the house, but that’s part of the fun of it–watching everything grow over time. I haven’t really minded leaving any of the homes we previously  lived in, but I have always missed the flowers, bushes, and trees.
And speaking of nature, I found a bee in the girls’ closet today.
A bee! In the closet.
The door was shut; the closet is on the second floor; and we haven’t had the windows in their room or closet (yes, there are windows in the closet) open yet this Spring. It’s another Casa del Lobos mystery, like the hole in the basement.
I’m a bit concerned about a potential hive up in the attic, but I also choose to take it as a good omen: bees figure prominently in the book I’m working on at the moment. So I caught this little bee and set him free outside.
If he was sent by my muse, I get the hint. I’m going to hurry up and finish editing this book.

Published by Valya

Valya Dudycz Lupescu has been making magic with food and words for more than 20 years, incorporating folklore from her Ukrainian heritage with practices that honor the Earth. She’s a writer, content developer, instructor, and mother of three teenagers. Valya is the author of MOTHER CHRISTMAS, THE SILENCE OF TREES, and the founding editor of CONCLAVE: A Journal of Character. Along with Stephen H. Segal, she is the co-author of FORKING GOOD: An Unofficial Cookbook for Fans of The Good Place and GEEK PARENTING: What Joffrey, Jor-El, Maleficent, and the McFlys Teach Us about Raising a Family (Quirk Books), and co-founder of the Wyrd Words storytelling laboratory. Valya earned her MFA in Writing from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her poetry and prose have been published in anthologies and magazines that include, The Year's Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Kenyon Review, Culture, Gargoyle Magazine, Gone Lawn, Strange Horizons, Mythic Delirium. You can find her on Twitter @valya and on Mastodon.social @valya

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