morning

After getting all the usual routine things of starting my day accomplished, I took a cup of coffee outside on the deck, along with my pile of stuff, to enjoy some solitude. Is there anything like a morning in June, one full of bird song, the hiss of sprinklers, and the visual delight of butterflies on newly planted flowers?? (this butterfly very much intrigued Ernie)!
And to explain, my "pile" is something that I seem to gather together in the morning off the nightstand or floor near my bed, the part of the things from the night before I either never got to or hadn't fully gone through. I usually take it to the place I have my coffee - today that being outside on a chaise lounge, where I begin looking at it and periodically throughout the day will browse through it some more or just add to it depending on what I'm doing, if I'm busy or not. The first layer is usually some art books and magazines, and the current book or two I am reading. Later the mail gets thrown on top, possibly another magazine or two if I've been out at the store (wicked addiction), bits and pieces of stuff off the internet, the newspaper, etc. (Let me interject here that GR is the weirdest place for perusing a newspaper - it arrives around 5pm, yes you read that right, PM. Most the news you've already heard on The Today Show, caught a bit of on CNN Headline News, even the local and national evening news most days. I don't understand it and wonder, are there other places in the US who do this? I mean this isn't just the late edition, this is the edition! Yet I love newspapers, in fact seek them out when in other cities or towns as it really is where you can get an idea of what's going on and what a place is all about, and can't imagine not having the actual tactile thing in my hands each and every day). Living alone now I gather up the pile at night (Ernie's cue we are heading to bed and he now beats me in there each evening) where I watch tv or movies and it gets strewn across the bed as I go through things until there's barely room for the poor dog, before it lands on the floor or nightstand. And then the whole rigmarole is repeated day after day after day. My name is Mary and I am addicted to printed matter. I admit it but I won't be giving it up!

Today's pile started with Teesha Moore's latest edition of ART & LIFE, Tracy Bautista's new book, COLLAGE UNLEASHED, a Lake Michigan SHORELINE publication, and the atlas I grabbed out of my car. The latter so I could see the route Luke took from Ohio to Everett, WA, which he embarked on this past saturday and where he arrived last night as he'll be starting his camp counselor job this morning (still a bit farther north I see). He is such a social kid, although excited about getting there for the job and stopping along the way to see some amazing things such as Mount Rushmore and having the opportunity to ride his mountain bike through a couple national parks before turning in a couple of the nights, I could tell he was looking forward to being around people again after this interlude. I hope he has an amazing summer and meets some neat kids in his fellow counselors.

Anyway, a bobcat just drove by my window - some action outside in the yard, yeah!! I'm going to go investigate.