4th of July!

I woke very early - 348am and it was pretty warm and no wind - making my room, even with both windows open and the ceiling fan running quite sticky. After filling my water bottle with some very cold water, I went back to bed, lying on top to stay as cool as possible.

A little bit later, around 4 something, the wind picked up and the curtains tickled my legs, giving me a start that someone or something was touching me...if only. I decided at 445 was close enough to dawn and decided to go put out the flag for the holiday.Closer to 8, I woke to the sound of pouring rain - welcomed as it further cooled the air, but I had to run around and close windows as it was raining in from nearly every direction. Of course the house warmed some again, and after the rain, the wind left with it.

I was so glad to finally have a Sunday morning off work and then indulged myself in watching CBS Sunday Morning for the first time in months. Today's show was aptly all about things to do with the 4th of July or Americana. Oh how I miss watching that show each week- as silly as it sounds, it is the one news story all about positive things, and not all things Hollywood gossip or fluff. I love all the suns they use between segments as well - being a sun lover of course!

After an intense early morning shower, things cleared some and gave way to Sun

then clouds,

then sun again.

I have a good feeling that is how the day will go.

Ah well, beats full day of rain or thunderstorms as predicted.

Around 930, I recieved a Happy 4th text from my daughter! YAY! Long awaited contact. I wished her one back and invited her to call and update me on her recent activities, which she did. It was so nice to talk with her again as it had been a couple of weeks. She is doing well and I reminded her to come and pick strawberries before the chipmunks ate them all.

Later I recieved a text from my son, who was at work, and shared some wishes as well.

Then I went out and picked the handful of reddened strawberries I could see from my window as I could also see two chipmunks darting in and out around the garage and the compost, and I thought, "I am having those before those pesky varmints (I used much rougher language) get to them."

Brekky

Since it was still to wet out to really get into the yard, around 1030 I decided to make some all-American breakfast. Blueberry buttermilk pancakes, bacon, fresh picked strawberries and some sliced watermelon!

Yum!

Lazing about til noon, the Sun poking in and out, I finally decided to get my butt outta bed and sort some things. Just after 1p the wind picked up again and is really cooling things down - not in a cold way, but in a fresh breeze moving out the thick humid air.

I cannot help but think about my mate who is missing his family today, and as holidays can be very hard for those of us alone, I sent him a message yesterday inviting him to do something today if he wanted to not be so alone as to dwell on that fact all day, and to start making some new memories, to replace the less-positive ones, or the loneliness. I feel it too sometimes, but was lucky today as my mate Paul from Australia was online as well this morning chatting on and off inbetween his activities and mine here. Company in any form beats being alone - especially on a holiday when others are with friends or family and you can't be for whatever reason. Hopefully that want to be involved in something will win over and he'll call or text. ¡Abrazos mi amigo!

So far so good - more later.

So I dug. And Cleaned weeds out. Then rolled out some of the fabric and moved the bags to kill more weeds and grass. Not a whole lot of effort - just a couple of hours putzing really, as it was a bit warm for manual labour. I wanted to work on it some, but still have fun. In the end, I was filthy and went for another swim in the river, then came home and had a shower to wash the river smell off me. It felt sooooooooooo good.

A bit before I left I sent a text to my mate to make sure he was not alone, he replied, but was waiting on family to call, so I went and scouted out my spot - incidentally the same spot I used back in 2005 when I was taking a summer digital photography course - at N 3rd Ave W & 5th St W. Just off Mesaba- and also made for a perfect quick get-away after the fireworks were done.

I was really psyched to use the tripod and had looked up some settings online to use my (M)Manual, (A)Aperture, and (S)Shutter settings, as well as the preset Fireworks setting. I wanted to try several and did. I had the most success of course with the Fireworks setting as well as the Aperture setting. The Manual setting sucked and the Shutter was just a bit better than suck. Regardless, it was fun to try them all.

Which are your favourites?

Fireworks with my new (xmas 09) tripod from my son - Thanks again! XO!