Friday night grateful moment

What a week... Short but long, all at once. I lost all track of days after Monday... and here we are at Friday. Serenity now, is all I have to say about that!

Very much to be grateful for:

* Summer well and truly has arrived. Sunshine. Warmth. Watering. Blooming. Weeding.

* Health is good. Sleeping is good. Energy is good. Need to pick back up with the actual exercise (yard work is only halfway there...), but feeling good about the downward trend pounds-wise too.

* All the garden hoses are still in good shape and Ruby has yet to bite into them. That alone is a miracle!

* My husband brought me some beautiful roses tonight. Such a sweet man.

* Seth is home. Three wonderful words.

* My work is at home again now. Mostly. This will bring good things for our little family, I believe. (Remind me of that when I start rumbling about wanting to commute to a job again, OK? Say: "Sher, you have plenty to do at home." I promise to nod and listen. I can't promise to actually hear you, but I will try.)

* Found this really cool color game online. It is very fun, and addictive. Mom, I can see you rocking this test, you are such a color whiz.

* I haven't tweeted in weeks, it seems, but still follow the whole phenomenon... and I do plan to pick it back up again in my spare time (I know, so funny). Here is a very interesting article about Twitter as a medium for what's termed "locked-in" individuals--those who can't communicate using more traditional methods. Fascinating. And if you want to see tweets relative to a particular topic, in a visual way, check out visibletweets.com. I typed in "weather" and got all kinds of updates and opinions from around the globe. I'd almost forgotten it's currently winter in Australia, but sure enough, it is!

* Had a great lunch with one of Seth's former teachers-turned-into-my-friend today, and just enjoy and appreciate her so much. She lives her life so beautifully and is an inspiration to me in many ways, not the least that she's raising four lovely children. Wow.

* Take a look at this time-lapse video of the Milky Way. Such a reminder of how little we human specks are in the grand scheme.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo
* I'm still grateful as ever for those things that inspire me and pick me up when it seems there's more rain than sunshine. Color, words, textures, images, words, flavors, aromas, words. Did I mention words? Here's something that makes me want to read the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy again... since the one time I read it was under duress in high school. I think I might just be ready for it now (I can be a little slow on these things...).
It’s like in the great stories--the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something… that there’s some good in this world, and it’s worth fighting for.
Sam Gamgee, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(Art above from http://www.freya-art.com/. Check it out. Creative and touching. Great combo of words and images.)
Happy weekend! Soon I'll actually get back to the food posting. Right now I make food. I take pictures (usually). We eat it. And then I move on. Somehow the posting step is getting missed in there. Must remedy.