First the good:

I came home from work this afternoon and there was one of those big Tyvek post-office envelopes stuffed in my mailbox.

I pulled it out and looked at the return address and wondered, "What could I have ordered that comes from San Mateo, California?"

And I thought again: "What could I have ordered that I don't remember?"

Then I looked at the name and I realized:

My Pay It Forward gift had arrived!!!!!

So I ran inside, and even before going out to spend the 45 minutes working in my garden I had planned on doing, I had to open the package and see what it was.

It was something truly wonderful. I bet it is the most awesome of awesome gifts sent in this whole exchange.

It is a messenger bag - just the right size for carrying books and journals back and forth to school.



And it has GNOMES on it.


That's what makes it so awesome.

Christa (Periodic Mumbling) sent it to me.

I also like that she used my self-imposed nickname on the card she included.



(She also included some very good Heath-bar-like toffee).

So, thank you, Christa! It was a surprise (both the item and when it came) and it's something I really like and will use.

I'm still working on mine. Alas, they won't be as impressive as the gnome bag. I'm about halfway done with the second of three projects; the third one will probably be the quickest. And then I can send them off and feel that I have fulfilled my part of the swap.

Also, something not so good.

I baked a sweet potato for dinner tonight. Because they do sometimes tend to split and drip, I like to put them in a pan in the oven.

I took the potato out, put it in a bowl. The Pyrex pie dish I had had it in was still very hot, and so I took it over to set in my (metal) sink to cool down before I washed it.

Unfortunately, I didn't have the sink tap totally turned off.



This is what happens when cold water touches hot Pyrex that's been used for a few years.

The good news was that I was across the kitchen when I heard it crack and shatter. (No pieces "jumped" out of the sink, anyway).

I don't feel TOO bad about it - it's not like it was something my grandmother gave me or one I had picked up somewhere on my travels. It's not irreplaceable. (And I have to go to wal-mart tomorrow anyway and I am pretty sure they carry these, so I can replace it - and I plan to do that tomorrow, before I forget and then some time in the future agree to make a pie for something on short notice and then find I have no pie pan).

Also, I was able to use the Tyvek envelope from Christa's gift (so it's sort of being re-used) to gather up the fragments so they wouldn't poke through the trash bag.

I briefly thought of saving them with the thought of some day trying to make a mosaic that would incorporate them, but seeing as I have fabric I bought in 1996 intending to make a quilt out of "right then," I don't think saving the bits is such a great idea.