Things I love today

The lingering presence of my husband in a faint smell of tobacco, a pipe, and ash on the porch table beside a green glass whiskey tumbler and a worn copy of the Life and Work of Dante Alighieri.

A week off for Spring Break.

Kids, shivering in the pool, determined that "It's not cold, M-m-m-mom-mm-mmy!"

Eighty-degree days in March

Answered prayers, and the Lord's provisions

Azalea blossoms

Friends who don't mind packing into our tiny dining room, or balancing their plates on their knees while wedged, three-deep, on the two-seater couch.

My sleepy baby boy, pudgy fingers clamped tight to chubby cheek, nursing lazily, eyes rolling in contented satisfaction.

My big boy, charging from couch to floor, bouncing off the walls (literally) and shifting from superhero to knight to warrior and back again, in constant energetic motion.

My talltall girl. Long-legged, grey-eyed, stormy-cloudy-- then suddenly sunny again. From the height's to the depths and back again in nanoseconds.

An almost-decade of loving this man.