"One touch of nature makes
the whole world kin."
~~Shakespeare's Troilus And Cressida
Hi there!
Hard to believe May is just around the corner!
Here's hoping the week ahead brings you all sunshine and
beauty!
God bless,
Jenni
So this past week has brought us
Earth Day and Arbor Day. It occurred to me that
it's a lil ironic for the Dyelanders to celebrate Earth
Day considering it's not part of Earth.
Nonetheless, they're all very much attached to their
homes on Earth and who wouldn't want to keep Dyeland
beautiful? Plus, JenniAnn hails from Nebraska
which is the birthplace of Arbor Day so I'm gonna guess
that one doesn't go unnoticed in Dyeland, either.
Thus, I present...
Top
Ten Ways Dyelanders and Friends Are Celebrating Earth
Day and Arbor Day
10. Inspired by the DuBois family, Andrew decides it'd
be nice to plant a tree every time someone is born, enters
their group, marries, or goes Home. In no time at all,
the Forbidden
Forest will morph into the Friendly Forest. (As
soon as yours truly feels like editing the map.)
9. Emma and Peter offer discounted tickets to a
performance at St. Genesius' to all patrons who show off
something they upcycled.
8. Thanks to Maryam's example, some of the Friends
start making handkerchiefs for True Light and Phoenix Inn
guests which should limit tissue waste along with just being
a nice, heartfelt token.
7. Kylie and Clay will give out potted asters as
favors at their upcoming wedding which will mean every guest
has the opportunity to provide food and shelter to lovely
butterflies.
6. Monica
will begin handing out seed packets to whomever among her
food truck customers would like some.
5. Though
Belle has moved onto solid foods, she's left a ton of baby
food jars in her wake. JenniAnn will be morphing them
into everything from candles to magnets to snow
globes. (Seriously... baby food jars are one of the
absolute best things to reuse. My sister is over
twenty five and we're still using her old baby food jars.)
4. Andrew
is leading seminars on how to build bat houses. While
the furry lil guys may not be everyone's cup of tea, bats
are of great benefit to the environment given they eat
harmful insects and thus minimize the need for
pesticides. Methinks Randall will be buying
several.
3. Adam
will continue to use his special skills to keep people fed
with various "like substances." Though his process is
top secret, he says it's completely without carbon
emissions!
2. Rather
than purchasing fertilizer filled with chemicals and
packaged in a plastic bag, the gang at Willowveil tends
their gardens and lawn with homemade fertilizer... courtesy
of Mary, Silly, and Yonah.
1. Each
and everyone of them will be taking time out from the hustle
and bustle of the day to thank God for giving them two
beautiful worlds to enjoy and care for.
Green Ideas for John Dye Fans
While I, unfortunately, don't have the
crafting time that I used to, I do have some ideas on
how us JABBers can harness our fannishness into earthy
goodness. Here goes...
1. If you're like me, occasionally you need to
print Dyeland stories because of wanting to avoid the
screen due to a headache or whatnot. After you're
finished, you may never touch that printed copy
again. So... Turn the paper into
beads! Cut it into thin strips then wrap a lil bit
of the strip around a tooth pick. Run a glue stick
over the rest of the strip and begin to roll it around
the toothpick. One single sheet of paper can give
you several beads. For color, either print on
different shades of paper to start or lightly paint
afterwards (too much paint may make the bead
unravel). To ensure the bead stays wrapped, paint
it with Modge Podge once you're done.
2. If you were seduced by Monica into what has
probably become a lifelong caffeine addiction, make it
work for the environment! Use coffee grounds for
fertilizing plants or composting.
3. Staying in the coffee theme, I hope ya'll have
something prettier than Styrofoam cups to drink coffee
out of. But if you do have them around, you can
use the cup as a starter pot for a small plant or you
can shred it up to create snow for that Once Upon a
Christmas diorama that you've been working
on. ;-) On a less... obsessive... note, you
could also cut the bottom off and paint it to look like
a peace sign then glue a magnet onto the back.
Your refrigerator will instantly be Doc-approved!
4. Over my years of running JABB, I've amassed a
collection of CD-Rs filled with back-up copies of the
web site. With flash drives, the cloud, and
external hard drives; these CD-Rs are now redundant and
useless. You may also have some from the old days
of saving fanfic, photos of Mr. Dye, and so on. If
you truly no longer need them, make a collection of
Adam-approved coasters by wrapping yarn around the
disk. I've also heard they make nifty mobiles.
5. Orange juice and ginger ale is a treat for many
John Dye/Andrew fans but what to do after
imbibing? Turn the orange juice carton into a bird
house and, if your ginger ale comes out of a glass
bottle, make a bottle tree if you have several or a
cool, colorful vase by covering it in beads or fabric
remnants.
This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for taking a chance
on playing a character like Andrew. Today is what we
at JABB have dubbed Promotion Day which commemorates the
date, in 1865, when Andrew became an angel of death.
I've sometimes wondered what JABB would be like if John Dye
had played a caseworker or Search and Rescue type of angel
instead of an AOD. But, really, I think the better
question is "Would JABB even be?" By bringing Andrew,
an angel of death, to life; John continued the good work
begun by Charles Rocket and Bruce Altman in giving us a
comforting and even fun way to imagine the angels who escort
people Home. Okay and let's face it: the whole AOD
thing kinda has an aura of romance and mystery about
it. "The Maiden and Death" is a recurring theme in
artwork. "The Maiden and Case by Case Social
Worker-type" is not. ;-)
(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from
Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions,
Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions. They are
not being used to seek profit.)
