KIW & TLP Painted Rocks, 2020

This blog is for photos of rocks that we (KIW and TLP) have painted and left outside for people to find. If anyone's actually wondering about one of our rocks, they might find it pictured here.

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I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream!

Did screaming get you anything as a kid?  Not me.  Well, other than being sent to my room to cool down, nothing.  I certainly didn’t get more ice cream by screaming for it!  In fact, if the ice cream truck happened to come to my neighborhood in those days, my mom would remind me that we had perfectly good home-made frozen orange juice popsicles available in the freezer at no cost. Yum!  Yeah, right, not yum when compared with actual ice cream.  The silver lining there though, is that now, as an adult, on a diet, I can appreciate having a little bit more discipline because I didn’t always get everything I wanted, even if I learned how to ask nicely.

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This was supposed to be...

...the Toyota Racing Development logo or something like that, from a sticker that I saw on a vehicle in my neighborhood.  The next time I walked by that vehicle, I realized I was way off.  Oh well!  The rock was perfect for what I painted.

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If There’s a Song About Basketball...

...I can’t remember it right now.  But I think TLP did a great job painting this one.  It won’t bounce, but it looks pretty legit!

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What is it? What is it? Open it!

Well duh, it’s just a rock.  But - my birthday was about 10 days ago, and I just got a really cool birthday present today from TLP!  Some things are worth the wait, but I’m not going to tell what he got for me.

Happy birthday to anyone else out there who IS actually celebrating a birthday today!  I hope you received everything you wanted, or at least that you had a really wonderful day.

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Smoke on the Water, Fire in the Sky

The song that inspired that headline was actually written about a true story, of which Frank Zappa was a part.  According to Wikipedia, of course!

For the water-themed rock, TLP added some iridescence by using a glittery blue nail polish that I recently bought.  I thought it’d look cool on my nails, but nail polish with glitter is always so much more difficult to remove, that it might be relegated to rock-painting usage from now on.  This rock kinda makes me think of being on a Caribbean cruise, which, for all we know, may not be possible again for several years after the pandemic.

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Say I’m the Only Bee in your Bonnet

That’s a line from “Birdhouse in your Soul” by They Might Be Giants.  Remember them?  (Ever hear of them?)  I don’t think this painting by TLP is actually a bee, but that was the only song that popped into my head for a headline.  He did an awesome job painting this one, anyway!  Speaking of insects, last time TLP and I were in New England, we experienced an abundance of mosquitoes, and returned to the west coast with itchy red spots that weren’t chicken pox.  There just are a lot fewer annoying insects out west.  Yay!

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Start Spreading the News...

My sweetie and I were going to go to New York City back in April of 2020, and, well... our plans got changed.  Someday we’ll get over there; the pandemic has to be in the rearview mirror first.  I spent a year in college in Manhattan; TLP hasn’t been there.

I left this rock on a mountain in Idaho; I wonder how many Idahoan hikers will pass by it before someone throws it down the hill?  I guess I just figure that people who choose to live in rural areas aren’t especially fond of big cities, but maybe I’m over-generalizing.

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Starry, Starry Night

Stars in a vortex and a trio of starfish for this evening’s post.  Sorry that the top photo isn’t 100% in focus!  My sweetie and I recently spent a weekend in a place far from the bright lights of the city, where we could see many more stars than we can usually see in the sky near home.  It was beautiful.  We thought that being so far from a big city, it would also be a quiet place, but that didn’t work out as planned since the nearest neighbors were having an at-home wedding, complete with live band (and loud stereo system for when the band packed up and left).  Ah well, it was a lot quieter and more peaceful the night after.

We recently visited a beach where we found at least a dozen little red starfish, which inspired the starfish rocks.  The starfish at the beach were gently tossed back into the ocean so they wouldn’t dry out; we didn’t keep them.  Hopefully that was the right course of action; I’m not a marine biologist so I don’t know.  OK, that’s enough rambling for one evening!

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The Ants Go Marching One By One...

TLP kept singing that song as I painted this rock.  As you can see, I don’t like ants.  I especially don’t like the tiny ones because sometimes you don’t see them right away, but once you do, you keep seeing more and more of them and realize that they travel in large numbers.  Ewww!  Of course I realize that they have their place in the food chain and some creature somewhere would suffer if there were no ants in the world.  OK, as long as they stay outside, where it can actually be entertaining to see them scurrying around carrying whatever they’re collecting for their nest.

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Face the Face

This one took some effort for TLP to assemble.  First, painting all the parts of the face.  Then finding a flat, face-shaped rock, which involved carrying said rock for several miles on a hike at the coast.  Then finding some glue that would hold all the rocks in place on the face.  This project was planted in the woods a few weeks ago; we gotta go back soon and see if Stone Face is still out there...

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The Spirit of Radio... 

...or the Ghost of Christmas Past?  OK, I’m having trouble coming up with a good song title for this cute little ghost’s post!  TLP painted this one.  A simple design, but it suits this rock perfectly so I love it.

I won’t be surprised if I start seeing Halloween decor in the hardware store very soon, although with the pandemic, I wonder what will happen to trick-or-treating.

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Seeing Spots!

A red, white and blue rock and a jaguar rock for today’s post.  Sometimes it’s fun to just paint a pattern on a rock, rather than making it look like anything in particular.

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An Apple a Day...

...won’t keep the doctor away if there’s a worm in each apple!  Here’s a ripe, shiny apple from TLP.

Special thanks to a neighbor of ours who recently invited folks on nextdoor.com to pick apples from a tree that was ripe on her property.  We got a sack of apples and I made no-sugar-added apple butter, a fun and tasty project.  Gotta love free fruit; there’s a lot of it available up here in the northern hemisphere this time of year, but I say the free stuff is only fair game if (1) it’s on your property, or (2) the legitimate owner offers it to you, or (3) they doesn’t harvest it themselves and you can reach it without setting foot on their property.  My opinion, anyway.

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Das Wandern ist das Muellers Lust

The headline here is the name of a German folk tune about hiking, obviously the theme of this rock.  I haven’t put this one out on a trail yet and I might not ever do so, because of its sentimental value.  My mom always loved hiking, but she really started tackling the White Mountains of New Hampshire when she was in her 60′s, and she especially loved Mount Washington.  (I learned later on that there’s a taller Mount Washington in Oregon!)  My mom’s life ended recently at age 89, and I’ll always fondly remember her love of the outdoors.  When I was a kid, if I went along with her on a hike (I didn’t usually have much choice), it didn’t matter how much I complained, I understood that I was going to finish that hike, like it or not.  I think that kind of experience helps me nowadays - even if I’m getting tired and achy, I can keep going and complete the hike that I set out to do.

If only I had also inherited my mom’s ability to deal with heights and steep spots...

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Our Lips are Sealed

TLP started out painting a pair of red lips on this rock, and ended up with a large red bug.  An imaginary red bug is better than a bed bug any day, even if it started life as a smooch.  (There’s a sentence that wouldn’t make much sense out of context.)  Clearly I don’t have a particularly deep or clever message to impart today!

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You’re Number One!

This post has a thumbs-up for all the essential workers who continue to put themselves out there among the public, day after day: in healthcare and public safety, producing/packaging/preparing/selling food and other necessities, and electrical utility workers, just to name the first few that came to mind.  Thank you for all you do!

Someday we’ll get to attend sporting events again, and wave those goofy foam “[your favorite team name here] - #1″ glove things.

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A Nickel for Your Thoughts

With inflation, knowing someone else’s thoughts is much more expensive these days, not just a penny anymore.  Given the 5X cost increase, you really gotta consider how badly you wanna know what someone else is thinking, right?!?