There is an ancient tradition that a cricket on the hearth brings good luck.   (Although I think that a chirping cricket is an invitation to mayhem, as one tries to find and destroy the pest.)  The best sort of cricket to have on one’s hearth is made of brass, one can get the luck without the nuisance of an actual cricket.   I fortunately have no crickets (yet: it’s still early summer), but I do have some little creatures around that amuse me, and amusement is much more reliable than ‘luck’.

I love little frogs (as you will soon see) and this one lives on a quilted wall hanging.

This one bookends the other side of the wall hanging.

Now how did this frog get there?  And why don’t I pick it up and put it somewhere else?   I just like seeing it there, a small splash of color against a large beige floor.

But it’s not all frogs around here, these finger puppets are ready to leap into action from the top of the door jamb.

But wait, there’s even more of them.  (The rest of the finger puppets have gone to Afghanistan.)  Finger puppets add a cheery touch to any room, a fact that decorating magazines have chosen to ignore.

And Pteri is currently residing in this room (doesn’t want to hang out with the rest of the dinosaurs), perched atop the carbon monoxide monitor.   Perhaps considering attacking the giant fly nearby, or perhaps just being admired.