"feels so good to be feelin' good again"

- Robert Earle Keen

That's my motto today. What a beautiful, perfect day! The windows are open in every room, and a wonderful breeze is flowing through the house. An old house really capitalizes on a region's strengths, and ours was clearly designed to take advantage of the Bay breeze. This often makes up for it's complete impracticality in every other sense! Tracy is on break from his Master's so we've had no agenda. Okay, a little bit of an agenda, we are never plan-free. We started the day by running some errands and happened upon some baby ducks, which thrilled me almost as much as the girls. Then we worked in the yard painting and posting a bird feeder, then planting a climbing rose at the base. This rose is a cutting from Tracy's paternal grandmother's rosebush. Tracy's mother, Judy, transplanted the rose to her home, and made a cutting for me. It's beautiful, and smells like heaven. The stereo is blaring, and the grill is smoking. Life is good.

India's friend Nicole had her birthday party today and Tracy kept Kate at home for her nap while "us big girls" went to the My Little Pony party. India is used to napping and yawned a little on the sly, but we had a great time thanks to candy and cake for India and cosmopolitans for the moms. Nicole's mother is so smart to serve alcohol to the parents! We hardly noticed (or at least cared about) the cheeto-stained hands and the green icing lips, although my shirt bears the remnants.

After the party we traveled to Herbal Instincts, our local organic store, for some provisions. Ingredients for a tomato, basil and mozarella salad, salmon burgers (hot dogs for the girls) and some fresh, homemade bread were purchased. I would never, ever be able to set foot in that store with Kate, much less BOTH girls, so that was a treat for me. It's the small things that make me happy. Good, healthy food again, after a week of scrounging! What a treat. I'm including a pic of the mozarella salad, mostly for Mom and Clare's benefit (try laying it out this way...).

We were supposed to attend a party tonight, but we both agreed we are burnt out and need a night at home together. With any luck we'll get the girls to bed early and be able to rent a movie and relax. Wish us luck!