I had a long day of travel on Friday, and at the end of it I was back home in Portland. But being gone for a week means there’s still too much to do once you get back to home base. Once my parents picked me up from the airport and we picked up my daughter I was starving and because I’d been gone for a week I was also totally out of groceries. We stopped for some Chinese food near the grocery store and laughed as we ate and sipped our tea. I was tired. A little punchy. And I was really happy to see my daughter. And about the pork fried rice. At the end of our meal I cracked open a fortune cookie and smiled at the curious fortune.

“Focus in on the color yellow tomorrow for good luck!”

Yellow is not my color so it really struck a chord with me. The next day every where I went I noticed the color yellow. The bright sun. Flowers. Cars. The bumpy yellow coating on sidewalk corners. Yellow traffic lights. Crossing signs. Products in yellow packaging. Bananas. Pineapple yogurt. I even thought I should wear yellow clothing or jewelry but since I don’t have any I skipped that. Even at the craft store I focused on yellow. Looked at yellow sketchbooks and paper. Picked up a felting kit. Smiled at some cute erasers.

Pushing away the distraction of the color yellow I focused on the reason I was there, a new embroidery hoop. I looked at the wooden ones and then a yellow plastic hoop caught my eye so I pulled it off the rack, examining it. Turning it over and around in my hands. But you know, I don’t really like yellow all that much so I scooped up the purple hoop that had been behind it. I grabbed the few other items I needed and took them to the counter and, distracted by my kid’s impatience to get out of there so we could head over to Comic Con, paid the clerk for my purchases. When we stopped at home I set my bag full of craft store goodies on the side table and there it stayed until we got home that evening.

As I settled down on the sofa to unwind for the night I pulled out my new embroidery hoop  and as I started to check it out I realized it was missing the little nut that helps you tighten down the outside hoop.

Sigh.

Maybe I should cut the color yellow some slack because if I’d listened to my fortune cookie I’d be embroidering a tea towel instead of writing about a scrap of paper.

*Update: I totally went back and exchanged it for the yellow one…