Good news!

Saturday my sister & I went to my lake property to clean up & get it ready to put on the market. We were not even unpacked & inside when a neighbor came over in his boat to say hello. While we were talking another couple pulled over in their kayaks.

Before we had the rest of our stuff out of the car, I had shown the couple around the premises... and they were already sure they wanted to buy the property. I gave them an 'as is' price & Sunday morning at 10:00, they were over to discuss a bit more, wrote a 'good faith' check & my sister & I went home without having to do all that work.

Today came a phone call. Their loan is approved. The place is sold & it wasn't even 'on the market' yet!!! Needless to say, I'm elated! Sometimes things were just meant to be.

New, new, new!

Last month i decided to move on to a new blog... and a new outlook on life! Last week i visited an old friend on the net - nowhere near as old as i, but that's another story. She had moved on too!

This blog is a new beginning - a new slate. If you do not see your blog on my list it's because i haven't been there lately...

Now... back to the kitchen. I forgot to have breakfast so i think it's brunch time!

Day 3...

...not really but got a thing going here! Had two graduation parties, a daughter visiting from California, and a 'moving away' potluck in the past few weeks and somehow managed to lose 8 pounds anyway. Now that's not bad at all, is it? I'm giving Sparkpeople.com loads of credit for this, coupled with the fact that 3 daughters & my grandson's fiance are members as well. Mostly two of the girls & i are currently very active there & that continual support, coupled with the free Sparkpeople tools, is a very very good thing. Check it out. You might like it!

I signed up for a daily motivational email that encourages the blogging portion of the program. This includes a quote & i'd like to share the quote from this morning here with you.

'There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.'
Albert Einstein, physicist

My house has a deck that spans the entire back on the second level. The first level is a 'basement' - partially exposed with windows & doors from the ground up. It is a beautiful deck.
From the deck you can see my back yard. Beyond that is a field, farmed annually by a local farmer. Beyond that is a row of trees & the river. Although i can't see it i know the river is there. Somebody recently commented as he stood on my deck - 'This is a million dollar view.'
Funny, i never really looked at it that way. I've lived here all of my adult life & i guess i just took it for granted.

Recently i've learned to enjoy & appreciate this 'million dollar' view. I've had breakfast on the deck - in the morning before excessive heat takes over the day. I've sat for a while & listened to the sounds. Yes, there is traffic driving past my house but mostly they are hardly noticeable. Across the river is a state highway, but as it goes through town traffic must slow down.

What i hear is the birds... so many birds. They love the trees my husband & i planted throughout the past 47 years. We wanted to create a wild life haven. We did.
There are bunnies & chipmunks. An occasional frog from the nearby county ditch (we refer to as the creek) visits the little pond my husband created in the garden the year before he died. I see an occasional little garden snake... helping keep the grasses insect free. They rush away when i'm around, sometimes startling me as much as i startled them.

The yard is green even in the driest of seasons because it is more than grass... it is a neatly mowed meadow. When I mow there is a smell of clover & mint... and in the closer yard - the smell of lemon balm gone wild.

Yes, i am learning to enjoy, to appreciate this miracle... the beautiful natural habitat that grew with our love... right here in my own back yard. In this day of weed killers, insecticides & the chemically perfect yard, my backyard is truly a miracle.

granni is gone...

salli is here.

My horoscope for today:

Quickie:Your creativity will allow you to have fun and get out of an
unpleasant assignment.

Overview:If you were in charge of everything, traffic would be clear, you'd never spill coffee on your good wool pants and that annoying clerk at the local cafe would ... Oh, let's face it, it would be too much work. Let it go.

Day 2...

My boat goes in the water today. I'm doing this alone. It seems that now my husband is dead, my kids do not like boating any more. I have no friends who really like boating. The boat was mine before he died almost two years ago; the boat is still mine. I like boating. I moved it from the lake 'way up north & 2-1/2 hours away so i can use my boat more often. Now it is on the river, only a half hour away!

A real woman doesn't need a man to use her boat. A real woman can do it alone. I will.