On a balmy summer evening.

I'm sitting on the porch - ah, wireless internet my fondness for you is unparalleled. A warm evening breeze keeps blowing blondish wisps of hair keep past my face. Every few minutes a bright pink shirt whooshs by on a shiny new scooter with red handle bars and red wheels. Apparently she's a lefty when it comes to scootering. Chad calls it goofy foot. So she writes right, rides left. Say that 10 times fast.

The one in the camouflage shirt is parked on the side walk in the shade, drawing with her new birthday side walk chalk and yammering something about the scooter that keeps whizzing by. I'm choosing to ignore said yammering.

Somewhere in the distance the sound of mowers and weed wackers tells me others are enjoying this unusually pleasant evening. Surprisingly cool, for July, but then again, that's the year we are having. Surprisingly cool.

{pause from the admiration of nature}

"Don't purposefully ride over her picture, please."

{resume admiration of nature}

My freshly weeded front flowerbeds are lovely. Waxy, dark green leaves. Fluttery leaves with variegated yellow tips. Dark brown mulch, that somehow hasn't faded since last summer. Scalloped beds trimmed with thick green grass. But my favorite is the dark silhouette of a flowering plum tree against a mountain backdrop. I love that tree.

I wish there were more nights to just sit.