i'm in

Love is something you don't always rush into. Sometimes you're in it before you even realize, and sometimes you know it's coming long before it arrives in verbal form.

It's fun because it's something easy to give, and difficult, too. It's hard to say and easy to shout, intricate in design and topographically confusing. I've been in wrong love, and then just when I really wasn't looking, I found the right one.

Today I'm feeling introspective about all of the loves we feel. For the little ones, the big ones, the funny ones, the far away ones. For the sad ones, the very soft ones, the loud ones, and the tricky ones. Some love is so short, so bright, it leaves you like a spark. These are sometimes the hardest, but also the most beautiful. We can't always hold on, and sometimes it's the letting go that takes longest.

All the loving going on around me makes me feel a little more than a lot lucky. I feel swept away and caught up, and it's been almost 5 years. When the swirling mess of life catches us up, and things seem like they couldn't get any more topsy turvy, I get a love note or a kiss.

From this guy.

(photo courtesy of Elese Moran)

Harmonia Axyridis

Lady bugs are pretty little things. They are round and gentle, and it always seems like good luck when they land on someone. I'm pretty sure someone told me it was good luck once, and I believed them. I like lucky things happening to me, and if that means a round little beetle with bright red wings and little black spots is lucky, fine.

As it happens, I came across a website called the Lost Ladybug Project. Apparently ladybugs are disappearing from their native territories, and people are wondering why. They're also encouraging kids and ladybug enthusiasts to take photos and help the Project find out where the ladybugs have gone.

I'm pretty sure they've all moved into our house.

This may sound a little surprising, and you might be thinking to yourself, "Um, I don't think I want to read this anymore, this girl is a little bit nuts."

But I'm a little bit serious, too.

I have come across approximately thirty ladybugs in our house. I think they might be the Harmonia Axyridis, but it's hard to tell (I'm not really a ladybug expert). I have begun to read a little bit about them, because it's almost like I'm too lucky.

Lady bugs keep the plant-eating bug population low. They have even been introduced from Asia into areas where nasty plant-eaters were destroying crops. They are disappearing, some of them so rare that they haven't been spotted more than a couple of times in the last 10 years (in areas where they used to be abundant).

If you're like me, you'll start spotting them everywhere you go (on your curtains, in the bedroom, on the couch, in the window sill...), and also out walking, perhaps on some pretty wheatgrass. And if you want to be part of the Ladybug Project, you'll take a photo or two and send it in so they can start tracking where the ladybugs have gone.

Who knows, you may get lucky.