Vacation at home

Hello, dear blog readers.

First of all, let me start out by asking: how do some of you (namely Sarah and April) get such cool pictures and headers in your blogs?? I can't seem to get beyond the cookie-cutter sorts that Blogger has me chose. Oh well. I figure I'm doing pretty well in the electronic age if this is all I get done, but I feel my creativity is limited.

So I've been pondering today ways to enjoy living where I am. Better put, how to best enjoy my days off when I'm not completely overcome by the urge to sleep. This week Mike has his midterm projects due, so I can't make lots of vacuuming noises around the house during regular daylight hours (or evening hours). Yesterday I managed to sleep all day; I think I had a touch of the somach flu, but today was a great day. I slept in late (yes, I managed to sleep last night after sleeping/laying around all day yesterday; I have to confess I felt no guilt about being wiped out), and since I finished painting the walls and cupboards and wiping out the pantry shelves last night, I decided to make today more or less a Vacation Day. (I still had to do some laundry and dishes and grocery shopping, but I kinda enjoy those activities. Except the dishes, and those don't take long.)

So this morning, I woke up at about 11:00 and paid some bills. Then, I lathered up with my long-lost friend Banana Boat and headed outdoors to the pool. Mike made a point earlier today about how when you live in a certain area, it feels less like a vacation. My neighbors must feel the same way, because almost no one ever enjoys the pool. (Except for the hooligan kids who don't live in the complex and break in because they think they're clever. That's another story.) So, today, the only members near the pool were myself and a lizard who drowned in the pool. (I think. At first I thought he was a leaf; it wasn't until I got out of my chair a couple of hours later that I realized what he was, and he was in the bottom of the pool. Can geckos swim? Wouldn't surprise me.) That and the neighbor dog that barked at me for almost an hour before his owner got home and tired of him yapping himself hoarse. They were my only two companions at the pool. Maybe they're enough to drive everyone else away. If not the lizard in the water, the dog would be. Seriously. Some people ought to rethink having pets if they can't take care of them during the day. Locking them up in a tiny patio all day and night with exercise a couple of times a week is no life for a dog. But then, I digress.

I have to say it's a nice time of year to be enjoying the outdoor weather here. I didn't get too cold in shorts, although the breeze was cool. I managed to pull out the last few years' worth of March/April Martha Stewart Special Edition Gardening magazines, and now I think I've officially been bitten again by the gardening bug. I have some kitchen herbs that I want to start in my window that I received some time ago for my birthday (I didn't plant them last season due to our moving to Chicago for the summer), and hopefully when I transplant them outdoors, I can figure out a way to outfox the pesky green grubs that eat everything in sight.

So anyway, that was my vacation-at-home day. Sunlight near the pool, a cool breeze, the gardening idea books, home-made French cuisine (if you don't count the burned pan of rice I had to throw out and re-make), followed by a hot shower with candle-light and clean sheets, not much else in life can top these rare few days. Might as well enjoy them before we move back to cold and snow in the winter; it's hard to get beach days in those conditions. :o)