Perfect day

Awoken at 7:30. Told J to play on the computer so I could sleep a little longer. She tip-toed out of the room and did just as I asked. I didn't fall back to sleep, but that doesn't matter.

J and JBL ran errands, and I completed my long run in peace on the treadmill. When they came home, JBL tells me of their discussion in the drive-through line at McDonald's.

JBL: "If kids get Happy Meals, what do adults get? Angry Meals?"
J: "NO Daddy. They get Disappointed Meals."

After an hour or so of knitting while watching the first football game of the afternoon, J and I walk down the lane at the end of our street, collecting acorns in her purple bucket. We get a tour of the neighbor's tree house. We amble back in time to start dinner. The leaves of fall are bright like fire against the blue blue sky in the late afternoon sun.

Dinner is pasta with homemade marinara - a last taste of the summer sun rescued from the freezer. Sunset is a classic, with clouds turning alternately peach/orange, pink, then purple as the sun sinks behind the trees.

JBL turns up the music, an old song list, while he and J play a beloved pre-bed game as I clean up dinner.

Blessed, blessed, blessed.