Ah, what a day....

I'm sitting outside on my deck in the shade with a sundress on, it's 84 degrees, breezy, and no humidity. The birds are singing. Ahh, if only life could always be just like this.

I woke up, put on my walking clothes, turned the sprinkler on, and headed off for my walk. I swung back to the house halfway through to move the sprinkler, then continued on. That was a nice way to do it. (There's a tufted titmouse on my feeder right now. They're so cute! Big eyes, small body with a tufted head) When I got back, I took some pictures of a 'freak' cherry tree on my cul-de-sac. The builder planted an ornamental cherry tree in front of every house about a year after we moved in. I opted not to have mine planted in front as I had already put in my garden. One of my neighbor's trees started bearing cherries on half of the tree. See the trunk that appears grafted to the right? That shouldn't be there.


See the difference? The right side of the tree bears the cherries.

Delicious cherries

This is what the sidewalk looks like:

It's a mess! The birds eat the cherries, and there's pits everywhere. There's a nest of vegetarian Robins, and I tried to get a picture of the momma with a cherry in her beak, but I couldn't. Anyway, I guess I tried one of the cherries last year. I didn't get sick, so I kept on eating them. I stop by the tree every morning when I'm finishing up my walk and pick and eat cherries. Yum! OK, some of the pits are mine.

We decided to go to a Chinese buffet today instead of IHOP. My sister called me from the parking lot to say the place opened at noon, not 11:00. Em, JD, and I went to Lowe's, then Borders, to pass the time, before driving over to the restaurant. My sister and parents waited in their cars. Boring. We were the first ones in, and had a nice lunch together. I gave my father his usual present: a Walmart gift card. Not creative, but practical. He goes there every Tuesday to buy a new DVD. When we got home, we went to the pool. It was such a beautiful day, and we spent most of our time in the water. I swam laps, and read my book, The Other, by David Guterson, the author of Snow Falling on Cedars. I've read a few of his books, and they're intense and so descriptive. It's a hard story, but I'm really loving it.

We had a summer meal for dinner...grilled Flat Iron steak, baked potato, and corn on the cob. Yum!



And here I am, sitting on my porch with the fan creating a wonderful, if artificial breeze, and writing and watching the hummingbirds visiting the feeders. I wish I could suspend this time. This perfect day. Things have been really hard at home lately. Really hard. Today was a great day with Emily. No conflicts at all. A much, much needed reprieve. I'm going to hope that tomorrow is another good day. And with that, I'll say g'night.