for apple trees and honey bees

It is a perfect, sunny February day.  The kitchen window is open, the breeze moving the strings of a bright floral apron hanging from the window frame.  Max sleeps lazily in the patches of sun around the house, getting up to move every half-hour as the sun changes positions. The voices of kids walking home from school float through the kitchen, their voices merrier than usual.  The only thing that could make this day more perfect would be something lemony to eat...

Well, now it's perfect!

It is the kind of day that demands fresh starts and fresh thoughts, and I have spent it in preparing for the upcoming addition to our little family, reading, walking around the neighborhood, and checking things off the to-do list.  This all makes me think that if only I could live in a sunny climate, I would be happy, productive and interesting every day, though I know this is far from the truth.  In fact, it seems that the more we hang our happiness on something, the less likely that thing is to ever truly satisfy us.  Besides, I would never appreciate days like today as much if they happened all the time!

If anyone is looking for an interesting read, particularly for teenage girls, I would recommend Sarah Dessen's book "Along for the Ride."  I'm about half-way through it, and though the main character does make a bad choice close to the beginning, her behavior is not condoned and the incident is not described at all.  I appreciate that cleanness about Sarah Dessen's books (this is the third I've read so far), but even more so I appreciate how her female characters find themselves without either falling hopelessly in love or having any kind of feministic empowering experience.  God is sadly missing, but the message is oddly more along the lines of what I would want my girls to be reading than many Christian books of the same genre.  Not that I have read all that many Christian YA books... if anyone has suggestions for some good ones, I'd love to check them out!

Well, that's about all I have for my "writer's journal" this week... off to finish up some homework and then set to work on a egg-sandwich dinner to be shared with some friends.  Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day!