Jean's cheesy highlighters and a cool fence

These two were hiding. I am 99% sure that they have not been posted. Obviously they were done by me for my February mailing. I'll spare you the details about what was going on in February - these are my neon highlighters. While they have been fun, I might be getting close to tossing them. I'm OK with the idea behind these two - layering loopy words can be lovely - but I need something better than ancient highlighters. Maybe I should build some kind of shrine in the back yard --- See below.

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While on my last trip to Chicago, my daughter and I walked the granddaughter to ballet and then we told the grandson that we would walk over to *that park with the tall climbing thing.* My daughter is a repeat offender at telling me that it will be *a couple blocks* and it ends up being 6 or 7 blocks. 

Many years ago - after one very difficult trip downtown where we kept adding on *a couple blocks* and we had my 80+ year old mother with us -- eventually I said, "FINE! We can go * a couple more blocks* - but we are taking a cab back to our car." When I got back to Des Moines, I printed out a map of downtown Chicago and numbered the blocks - we had walked 19 blocks ---- grrrrr. 

So here we were -- walking *a couple blocks* and she keeps looking at her phone and I finally catch on -- and say - "You have no idea where this park is, do you?" Sheepish look. I pull out my phone and see that we are parallel with Trader Joe's. That is much further than a couple blocks. Grrrr.

I assure her that at any point I can call an Uber if I feel like it -- and we proceed. I was so glad that I kept going because in the middle of all the brick and wrought iron and aluminum and whatever kind of fences you see everywhere in Chicago -- I discover an exquisite *found branch* fence. It was so worth the trip. 

I didn't take time to inspect the fence and see how things were held together. It looks like there might have been a sturdy center post within the grouping of smaller branches. Maybe something metal that would be easier to drive into the ground.

6 year old boy included for scale.