beautiful

The lake was so, so beautiful this afternoon. All day we'd had storms and sunshine alternating, and this afternoon the lake was a gorgeous deep teal blue color, scattered with constantly moving whitecaps, and shadowed with darker deeper teal in the hollows of the waves. I refrained from taking any photos out of the window of the moving car, so at left is a photo I found on Flickr that somewhat approximates the colors of what I was seeing today... it was just breathtakingly gorgeous.

Another beautiful thing: last year with all the wild abandon of the pre-crash economy we bought a bunch of expensive annuals and stuck them in our outside pots. This year I planted seeds, though I think I'll round them out with a couple of cheap geraniums, if such are still to be found at this late date. So I planted - just a few days ago - some nasturtiums (left)(a mix of orange, red, yellow that should be gorgeous), and some Grandpa Ott's morning glories (right).

Last year I had my favorite Heavenly Blue morning glories (below left)—and I do see two of those coming up this year (yay for self-seeding!) so I've been careful not to disturb them—but I thought I'd try a different color...

So anyway it's only been a couple of days and the Grandpa Ott's are already coming up!!! wow! they're just popping up ploink-ploink-ploink like the plants in the Totoro video I posted in April.

I do also see a few little sprouts coming that might be the nasturtiums; we'll see. I'll be lucky if the nasturtiums even bloom - they don't do well with over-fertilized soil, and I'm sure that's what I've got.

I was gonna write about some of the dogs we saw Sunday and online that we might get but I'm falling asleep at the keyboard so I'll leave it at this for now...

Except to just say that either my anti-depressants are working and/or I'm starting to regain my footing after the unspeakably awful last two weeks in April. Loopy and I have been doing a lot of fun things together, like last Friday we had a whirlwind trip to Milwaukee to hear a band she was really excited about. We have a lot of fun together just as we always have... Heartache doesn't heal overnight but... time is, as others have found, a remarkably soothing balm. So things begin to return to normal - although of course, there's never any "return to normal," there is always only a new normal. But new normal is shaping up quite well.

Not everything is redeemed: my Aunt's life is still flickering, possibly still ending, and even if not, she does not appear to be regaining any of her intellectual capacities.

And there's still a giant hole in our bathroom ceiling.

So yeah. Some things aren't beautiful no matter how you look at them... but beauty is around us still, and in our connections with those closest to us... very grateful as always...

Gotta sleep...