Flowers, Butterflies, and School

Note: This is a combination of two days of writing.

Flowers picked with love

A couple of sweetheart girls picked the most beautiful bouquet for me. Kara spent most of the day with her friend here in the neighborhood. They skipped back and forth between our house and her's the entire time.

School starts Thursday. School schedules our family. I like schedules. Even the kids are getting excited about school starting again. They love the structure as well. They were almost giddy organizing their school supplies into their backpacks.

Off schedule, was a long talk with Kara last night that turned into reading the first chapter of Little House in the Big Woods to her. The Little House books were my favorites growing up, and she started getting into the story this time after her first time to pick them up and not be drawn into it.

Sometimes squirrels are prettier stuffed

I do sweep the deck often, you just wouldn't know it to look at it at a random time. Here's what it looks like when the squirrels have a penthouse apartment in the walnut tree overhanging our deck: chewed off bits of walnut hull and shell carelessly discarded from aloft.

Today's sightings included a beautiful orange butterfly with brown markings that perfectly matched the rock in my in-law's flower bed. He had the finest little hairs, and he flew away before I could take a picture.

Tuesday is my Sunday. I try not to spend more time in my shop than I have to because I enjoy being home with my children. So, back to my shop I go tomorrow.

Tonight has the feel of fall, except it's just a cool, summer night in reality, the kind that a sweatshirt starts feeling good. It has me looking forward to cool Saturday mornings at soccer games for Kal. Those will be starting in September after a few weeks of practice in August.

I'm signing off now to the sound of crickets singing in the darkness outside my open kitchen window. I wish you guys could hear it. It's the sort of sound that lulls a person to sleep with a rhythm that says, "It's okay; now, now, it's okay; now, now, it's okay..."