I love evenings like this, although it’s a bit chilly, summer is definitely here. It’s been ten long months since I’ve been able to sit outside on the deck and watch the sun sinking lower. I should make a cup of tea to really set the mood but I just finished a coffee so I probably won’t.

It’s so still and so quiet at this moment. You can hear dogs barking, birds singing and people’s voices from other neighborhoods I swear. No breeze at all and cotton candy clouds against a backdrop of pale blue sky. My partner has gone to bed with Sid and the other kids aren’t home so I finally have some alone time. I’m finding I like alone time more and more. In bits and pieces anyway. Last evening I was dying for some alone time so I could sit and scroll WP and maybe write but my partner wasn’t getting the hint. He was lingering and I kept hinting that he should get to bed, since he gets up so early for work but as my Dad would phrase things, just because I wanted him to, he wouldn’t.

He was puttering around doing this and that and just when I thought he was done puttering and might say goodnight, he grabs a pear and sits down to eat it. I got up and went to bed myself. I was so annoyed. And then I felt bad for being such a witch. Who am I to tell him when to go to bed.

But back to the present, these quiet evenings sitting outside alone make me feel so contemplative. Or maybe it’s just evening in general. I’ve found throughout my life I seem to get the best and sometimes the craziest ideas late in the evening.

No I’m not making plans to start another business tonight. Not sure when, or if, I’ll ever do that again. Well yes I probably will. Somewhere down the road. Right now I’m satisfied with my job so that keeps me a bit more settled. Having a toddler in the house again also keeps me pretty busy.

I planted more flowers today after work and it was therapeutic to have my hands in dirt. I’d love to have my feet in some dirt too honestly. Like I did so often growing up. I did everything barefoot as a kid. My feet were so tough. I could run or walk on the sharpest gravel. I could run or walk through a stubble field at harvest time shoeless. So glad I got to grow up like that.

As for now, my puny little assortment of veggies are grown in containers in the backyard, not the earth. I don’t walk barefoot in our yard only because of the remnants the dog leaves behind on the grass. Even though we are quick to pick the piles up, I still don’t like the thought of stepping where it was.

I had something pop into my head last night when I went to bed kind of fuming that I couldn’t get the alone time I so craved. I was going to put it in the notes of my phone but of course I didn’t, thinking it was so damn inspiring there was no way I could forget it. But I did. I searched my brain for it this morning.

It was something about how the very thing I swore I’d never do is now the basis of my existence. I can’t elaborate what that thing is, as I’m not sure who reads this. Realistically it’s probably three or four subscribers who will read it but just in case one of my kids decides to take a gander, I’ll speak in codes for right now. It’s something to do with relationships and the longevity of them.

Anyhow, goodnight.