Sunday evening

Wow! What a great day today has been!

First and foremost, the weather has been glorious today! Warm, sunny, mid-summer weather in the middle of April! What a gift! As the day went on, the breezes picked up, but even then, the air had an enveloping warmth to it. Heavenly!

I worked out on our deck for a couple of hours, enjoying the sunshine. I swept winter debris, dead leaves, and probably three or four pounds of pine needles from the upper deck to the middle deck and then down to the lower deck. I moved all the pots with their sad, winter-dead foliage out from under the protection of the upper deck roofing, cleaned them out and got them ready for new spring flowers. I wiped down and cleaned all the deck furniture, mostly our ubiquitous green plastic Adirondack chairs. It was so warm I even got the hose out and washed down the decks, my bare feet reveling in the unexpected freedom of this warm day.

Steph and I took several breaks, kicking back, enjoying each other's company and drinking a beer. She gave all our front yard ornamental grasses their spring haircut, so the new spring growth has room to breathe! She chopped down the lonely, bare stalks that remained from our Van Gogh sunflowers in the butterfly garden from last summer. I was glad to see them go. They looked downright forlorn in their bedraggled-ness.

Around 3:30, I came in and chased dust bunnies for a couple of hours. I'm always amazed at the amount of fur and hair that Cisco "shares" with us, here in the house. By 5:00, both of us were petering out in energy, so we conked out on our bed, under an open window, enjoying the sounds of the breeze and the birds.

Tonight, we watched the finale of the Trading Spaces Home Free competition. I am definitely addicted to that show. I especially enjoyed watching tonight's show because the contestants were so creative. I get energized watching other people being creative!