A Bit O' Green

So you should be so totally jealous of me right now.

I'm sitting outside, in my not-so-bad backyard, enjoying the evening with my laptop.

The plants are watered and pruned (dead blooms pulled off), the cats have their tuna, I have a bologna sammich (with ketchup, natch), Jon is out on a bike ride, and weather.com says it's about 78 degrees F, though I'd say it's about 75 in the shade, which is where I'm at.

It's very peaceful out here.  I hear lots of different birds chirping away, having conversations I'll never understand.  I hear the gentle hum of the window fan upstairs in one of our windows in the master bedroom.  I hear the somewhat distant sound of traffic rolling by on a main thoroughfare that's maybe 1000 ft. away.  That's about it.  I heard the ice cream truck earlier (playing a different song... was it a different truck?!??), so I won't hear that again tonight.

There's a very gentle breeze which causes the leaves on the trees to rustle a bit, but it adds to the peacefulness.  Man, I wish every day, all day could be like this.  Stress?  What stress??!??

I used to not like our backyard so much, but that was before we added some life to it.  We've got a "fire pit" thing for those logs that burn 2-3 hours (just our "size" as far as controlled fires go), a fantastic gas grill, a hose house (you roll the hose up into it and it hides it and keeps the sun off of it), our $15 clearance patio table from Target, a total of five comfy chairs (4 table chairs and 1 lounger), a garden that is growing nicely (BUNNIES: STAY OUT!!!), a beautiful pot of petunias in different shades of purple (in memory of Jon's mom) sitting on the table, two hanging baskets with hot pink geraniums and two hanging baskets with different purple petunias and another flower mixed in... all of which are hanging from two shepherd's hooks on either end of the house.  It finally looks like someone lives here and loves this place.

And it's true.  I love this place.

It's city, yet it's country.  It's near, yet can be far but not too far.  There's wildlife, and it's not a bunch of hoodlums roaming the streets, looking for trouble.  There are wild rabbits, squirrels, ground hogs, birds of all kinds, dragonflies, ducks, Canada geese.  Good stuff, I tell ya.

I guess I need to bring myself back to reality and real time.... Jon should be back from his bike ride shortly. I have dry clothing sitting in the dryer, waiting to be folded.  I have to get dressed in street clothes (house clothes just won't do) so we can make our weekly rounds of shopping.  I hate to pull myself away from this bliss, but I guess I'll just bank on the hope that it will be here soon enough again.