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Some may have been perplexed by the "yaoi" element in last night's South Park episode but it's turns out that Trey Parker and Matt Stone were just ripping the lid off a long existing shocking secret about Craig and Tweek. Here's the startling truth!

I thought I'd unbury this ancient painting from the archive section on my website for this week's Illustration Friday. This painting is from many, many years ago, but seemed fairly appropriate for today's topic:
It's even doubly appropriate, since as it happens, I'm currently working on a companion piece to this illustration which I hope to finish soon.

Thank God it's Monday.

I never thought I see myself saying, thinking or writing that. I usually long for the weekend. I spend my weekdays in my office slaving at the computer, storytelling, and I really enjoy turning my brain off on Friday. However this weekend...yeesh.

It all started Saturday afternoon.

Actually, to tell this story properly, I have to give you a little backstory. I'll try to keep it short because, well, I don't want to lose my reader. Nevertheless, setting and history is important. Here it is: We live in Oklahoma. Oklahoma has snakes. Lots of snakes. Poisonous snakes. Scary snakes.

My background: I grew up in Indianapolis. Hardly any snakes. In fact, at the Indiana Dunes near Michigan City, IN, they hand out a pamphlet on What to do when you see the elusive, Indian rattlesnake (this is a real animal): 1) Determine your location, preferably via GPS; 2) Call the local park hotline and let them know where the snake is; 3) try not to scare said snake.
Reaction by Oklahomans to above description about what to do when you see a rattler in Indiana: Bursts of uncontrollable laughter.

Husband's background: He grew up in Germany. No snakes. Well, okay, there is this one thing that's like a snake that lives in Germany, but it's more like a lizard, slow, sweet, entirely harmless.

End of backstory.

It all started Saturday afternoon. The family had just finished our first heavy yardwork day in the flowerbeds. My husband and I were sitting on the front steps, nursing our sore muscles and drinking a beer. My kids were instantly bored.

Kids: "We're bored."
Me: "Go see your friends."
Kids: "Nobody's around."
Me: "Play with each other."
Kids: Glares and pained expressions.
Husband: "You can go to the creek."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!!"
Me: Refrain from killing husbad. I hate the creek. Houses that back up to it and that have pools regularly have water moccasins. Don't get me wrong. I went creek stomping as a kid, but I never saw a snake in a creek until I moved to Oklahoma, and they've all be water moccasins.
Me: Not wanting to scare children witless but maybe dissuade husband. "They have to take a phone in case something happens." (Important: our kids don't have cell phones).
Husband: Unperturbed. "They can take your phone."
Me: Refrain from walloping husband on head with beer bottle. There is, after all, still beer in it. "It was your idea. Give them your phone."
Husband: Fatal error number 1. "Okay."
Me: Fatal error number 2. "Fine."
Kids: "YEAY!!!!"
Kids take off to creek with dire upon-pain-of-death warning that they are not to lose said phone or go into creek with phone. Kids swear up and down on each other's lives they will follow this one little rule.
Fatal error number 3. We believe them.

7:15 kids lose phone...in creek.

We of course don't know this until Sunday morning after spending hours at the creek both before and after dark wading through water, rushes, tall grasses - with all the water moccasins and God knows what else - looking for said phone. I found it the next morning as I'm having my daughter retrace her steps, step for step, along the bank and then jumping from rock to rock in the middle of the creek (she's 10, she could have known better, I think). It was lying in the middle of the creek bed still shorting out.

Needless to say, the creek is now off-limits until adulthood for them (secretly, I'm relieved. No more snakes). We are paying for our stupidity by having to buy my husband a second phone (it was an iPhone, the lost one). My kids had the scare of their lives because they had to tell us they lost the phone. The oldest, the one who actually lost it, is grounded from technology of all sorts until her birthday, her 18th birthday (okay, not really, just her upcoming one in May). They both spent Sunday grounded, which means I had to stay home and finally got a chance to relax. And I've learned how to extract water from a phone. There's this nifty little trick that involves a plastic bag, phone and rice (or coffee beans), and/or a dryer with a drying rack you can put in the middle of it. Didn't work, but hey, I could share nifty information.

What a weekend. Thank God it's Monday (TGIM).

Okay, I thought I'd post the evolution of the creekbed, though it is not yet 100% it is closer to being done.

You can click through any photos to the larger pics or the full album.

This is what we started with.
 

Way too much cement for our liking.
 

Took out the driveway and replaced it with lovely pavers.
 

Took out the lawn.
 

Replaced the fence around the courtyard and started on the creek. It's not deep enough yet.
Note the two drain pipes sticking up - they are the end of the downspouts which have been run under the courtyard and then underground so that the rainwater will go to the creek.
 

Looking deeper.
 

With the rocks. But somehow when we placed the rocks, we spread too far and it ended up looking more like a drain ditch. Plus we had no boulders. I went looking on craigslist for rocks.
 
 
Saturday we spent all day reshaping the creekbed and placing the boulders.

What a difference! There is still more to do. The big rock at the top of the creek needs to go a bit more in the ground, as much as it can. There's a pipe sleeve under there for my solar wires so it can't go too deep. I'll add some dirt around the front of it and then of course we need more plants!


Here, for side by side comparisions.
 

Tired now. But happy.