The garden store near our house advertised that they had ladybugs for sale on their roadside sign, and I practically squealed the tires of our old Saturn in my rush to acquire some for our garden. They package them some 1800 per bag, and once released, they’ll happily set up shop in our backyard and munch aphids and other pests so we can reduce/eliminate the pesticides we’d otherwise use AND reduce the number of times I shout “GET OFFA MY CROPS” and scare the everliving daylights out of the neighbors. The only downside is that so many were crawling on my arms and legs and even in my hair that hours later I’m imagining every little tickle is an insect crawling on me. How long until I start slapping myself due to imaginary infestation? Place your bets!

It’s my birthday! Now that I’m old and boring and can’t seem to put a party together to save my life, let’s look back at some of the better birthday parties I’ve had:

Mellzah’s Midnight Carnival

Redneck Fabulous

Buffetitties/Boobieffet

Mad Scientists of the Future

I just now realized there was never a post about Sparkle Party, my 30th, where we did it up in Vegas, and apparently there never will be because I’ve somehow misplaced the photos. Rest assured, everyone was eye-searingly sparkilicious.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to go shake a cane and yell at teenagers and I am not even joking.

In Oregon, there is a mine where the general public can prospect for the state’s official gemstone, the Oregon Sunstone. Although a number of stones from other places are called sunstones, Oregon claims it is the only proven location where you can find red labradorite, a plagioclase feldspar. These stones have an optical effect when turned due to reflections of the red copper inclusions inside.

Although we haven’t been able to make it down to Spectrum Mine ourselves for free (or fee, in the more ore-rich areas) digging, we were able to order a bucket of ore to the house and play prospector in the backyard.

To separate the sunstones from the crap, we used a grocery basket that we temporarily liberated from (and later returned to) a nearby Fred Meyer. We used the highly scientific method of pouring a bunch of ore in the basket, wetting it, swishing it around, and picking through it for bits that glimmered in the sun, alternating between who did the wetting/swishing and who did the picking since we only had one basket.

We actually got a surprising amount of sunstones in our bucket of ore, the photo below shows only a small handful of the stones we found. We haven’t really done anything with them yet, they’re just sitting in a bowl in the gallery o’ minerals in our living room, but eventually we’re going to try and rock tumble a few of them to see how pretty they are when polished. If it’s awesomely pretty, we may end up making a trip to Spectrum Mines ourselves to dig out more. Thanks in advance for the baskets, Fred Meyer.