today

I woke up this morning and went out on the front deck to watch the wildlife while I drank my coffee and was pleasantly surprised to see about five brightly yellowed finches swarming around the bird feeder near the pear tree. It was soothing and quiet, and warmed my soul in the way that only nature can do first thing in the morning.

I watched the squirrels fighting over peanuts or some such thing for about five more minutes before getting antsy to check out the freshly sprouted seedlings in the greenhouse. We planted some of them almost two weeks ago, but only half are coming up from that batch, so it makes me wonder if perhaps a frost got to them even though we protected them in the barn until late last week.

After I puttered around the yard for about fifteen more minutes,

Lisa was grumpy (she admitted this herself, although all I could tell was that she seemed a bit peeved at the world and not much else) so I decided to help out a bit by going to Wally World for a few things. Soda, which we go through at an enourmous rate, some things for the flowers, a surge protector (for the fish tank, which Teddy Bear, the scoundrel, broke and unleashed many gallons of water upon our hardwood floor), and some veggies, including some kale for the wild turkeys out near the back woods.

After I got back, I was hungry for lunch and Josh's new allergic-reaction-type rash was looking better, so I made us some lunch and ate on the deck. The sandwich was spectacular, with fresh tomatoes and the wheat bread made by Lisa's own two little hands, and I finished it in record time I think.

This afternoon I received all my information for my financial aid for college. Lisa and I perused through that and decided that A) I'm very lucky, and B) I will accept all my financial aid except the work-study part. I'm a single mom and I really don't want to be away from home MORE than full time class hours, not including all the hours I will endure tedious studying/doing homework.

After I puttered in the yard, replanting some heather, asters, daisies, and marigolds, I decided that it was time to try out my new acrylics. I've been using watercolors for the last few months, with superb results, but this week I decided to try my hand at acrylics, so I pulled out a pallette, some paper, my paints and brushes, and headed back outside on the deck with Lisa.

While she read I attempted to paint, but I'm not really sure how well I am at manipulating these types of paints. They dry very quickly and if you can't get back to a section very quickly, you're basically out of luck if you wished to blend some more color in a certain spot.

Joshua decided he wanted to try to paint with me, so I pulled out my student watercolors for him and he spent half an hour doing a colorful abstract. By this time it was obvious his rash was getting worse again (poor thing) and so we sent him indoors out of the sun.

I realized a few things today....

-- the damn dreams I had last night don't really mean a thing.... this was something on my mind today and worried me that perhaps I was having some trouble adjusting to something.

-- that I love the finches and the new "couple" in town, a pair of grossbeaks, the squirrels, the owl, the chipmunks, the racoon, and especially the wild turkeys (oh yeah, I forgot to mention that they showed up while I was beginning to paint and Lisa took some video of them with her new camcorder).... so anyway, yeah, I love all the little nature we have outside here. It's soothing and I don't think I've ever been this stress-free before.

-- I think I've changed a lot over the last year. Things that used to once mean something to me, don't have as high a priority anymore..... and other things that rated lower, now are on the top of my list.

-- I'm happy.