Dear Reader:

Mollie sent us a “sneak peek” photo yesterday (from Sarah) of what is to come! It made my heart swell with pride and love. So happy to see Eloise smiling…she had a tough start but it appears Sarah, the magician, managed to win her over too! (‘Course Boo had a tough start herself! 🙂

While reading a novel yesterday…the phrase “The best things in life aren’t things” stuck in my mind and I found myself adding it to my quotes notebook that I always place beside me when I read. How true that statement is! *Just looking at my grandchildren’s picture reaffirms it.

I started thinking how easy it is to fill in the second part of that quote…depending on the day and feelings of the individual. We have all heard ‘take-off” phrases like “The best things in life are free” or “The best things in life are worth waiting for” or “The best things in life are simple but not easy.”

On any given day any of us can fill in the end of the quote with a desirable word or phrase we want at that moment. Try it and you will see what I mean.

“The best things in life are…touch.”

“The best things in life are…children’s laughter.”

“The best things in life are…a balanced check-book.”

“The best things in life are…friendships.”

……………………………………………………………………………

You see how I could go on and on, as well as you. Speaking of…I would love for you to share your own personal, at the moment, completion ideas of this popular phrase….it can be serious, funny, satiric….anything that pops up in your mind.

For example…yesterday I would have answered this quotation ending with …”The best things in life are…dark.” (I realize this wasn’t exactly the word you were probably expecting…but it was one I really needed yesterday.)

As ludicrous as it sounds…I simply could not face another hot, sunny day with no chance of rain for my wilting garden (in spite of my struggle to sweat to death while watering it) …I just couldn’t!

*I think I was having some kind of pre-ancestor cave man/woman syndrome. It was like when the climate outside gets too much…we just want to crawl back in our dark caves and hibernate. 🙂

For the first time in I don’t know when…the foremost thing I didn’t do was open the shutters and let the day in. I woke up with a slight headache and was just plain tired and not ready to get up. I just wanted to stay in a dark room and ignore the day outside. I craved coolness and darkness…no more 95 degree days with high humidity and the apparent or “feels like” temperatures in the 100’s…again! It is like we are stuck in a  “Groundhog Day” effect using heat instead of cold but still stuck.

Sometime during the day…another thought hit me…and I had to start laughing. “Oh no!” I thought to myself…I am turning into one of those creepy old people who lives in dark places that scare children away. (I remember disliking visiting elderly people as a child at Christmas with mother and cookie tins from the church…because the houses smelled musty and were always dark and spooky.)

I didn’t scare a child away yesterday…but sweet Gin-g came to visit…and I am sure she thought I must be really sick…I told her “No…I just decided to have a dark day” and I know she thought…”Am I in the right house?” Of course once I explained my day off from sunshine…she burst out laughing and said she enjoyed the cool darkness…she was sick of the weather too.

Today is supposed to be another replica of yesterday. But there is supposedly  a little hope that things might actually “cool” down towards the end of the week….”cool” , of course, being a relative term! As far as rain goes…we will just have to see if the invisible bubble over Summerville moves somewhere else and opens up the skies for us.

But hey, miracles still happen….Boo survives a stomach attack, Eloise starts smiling, all the photos get taken in time (before the sun sets) for the family album…so the weather will improve, at some point we will get rain again…along with blessings from heaven. Life is good.

So until tomorrow….Today the shutters will re-open, the sun will come in, and laughter and happiness will prevail.

“Today is my favorite day”  Winnie the Pooh

Walgreens did a great job making a collage of the family’s young astronauts to remember the 50th anniversary of the first moon walk

I feel like I have surely built up shoulder and upper arm muscles toting gallon cartons of water to the areas not reached by the hose…but these flowers are surviving because of it…maybe the next time you see me I will be on the National Female Body-Building Contest!

My lantana has played ‘peek or boo’ all summer….they bloom for about two weeks beautifully…then wilt and fade away…about three weeks later they are back out blooming beautifully and so on and so on and so on….maybe they can only take so much heat and sunshine in today’s new climate too! 🙂

My frustration with a seemingly endless hot beaming sun doesn’t transfer over to the moon, however….it was gorgeous last night peeking at it through the branches of an oak tree…and then turning around to the welcoming  lights on my porch. Home sweet home!