Picnic in the Park


Today was The Hubster's and my 28th wedding anniversary. And they said it wouldn't last! Ha! He took a vacation day from the office and we spent a little time reminiscing about our courtship days; back when we were young and poor. Now we're old and not-quite-as-poor.

To mark the occasion, The Hubster and I exchanged gifts. I gave him the spare bedroom renovation and he gave me a new baby. No, not that kind. He bought me a new Dell Inspiron Mini. He has already done a lot of special modifications for me, so I can track all my publishing queries, professional contacts, research, and so on. The size is perfect for travel; I'm really excited!

We packed a gourmet picnic lunch today and headed off to Island Park. The Hubster never does just pack sandwiches, chips and cookies. He made chicken salad with red grapes, Thai rice salad with sweet chili sauce, smoked almonds and sesame oil, mixed red berries and applesauce bars with golden raisins. Yum! The weather behaved for us and the ducks and geese were very appreciative of the day-old white bread we fed them.

The Hubster and I met when I was a freshman at Southwestern College and he was living and working in Winfield, fresh out of the Navy. We didn't have a lot of cash, so we spent many evenings hanging out with the wildlife at Island Park (and not all of them were ducks and geese!). After we were married and had the girls, we took them for picnics, playground time and Christmas lights. It's a great place to relax and enjoy the changing seasons.

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Don't forget! The first-ever meeting of the Cowley County Writer's Guild will be at 7 p.m. tomorrow (Tuesday, July 21, 2009), in the meeting room of the Ark City Public Library. I spent the weekend preparing handouts and the agenda. The meeting should be relaxed and fun, so I'm baking chocolate chip cookies to sweeten the deal. If it's a total dud and nobody shows, at least I'll have cookies to drown my sorrows!

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Exercise Update: I did three sets of hand-weight calisthenics and two aerobic workouts. I can tell I needed more workouts last week, because I started having stress-related mood swings. Not fun! I will definitely do better this week.

***

Notable Quote:

"Each small step of faith is a giant leap of growth."--Our Daily Bread

Happy 40th Anniversary to NASA, and the first men to walk on the moon. Dream big!

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