Dear City Water System Computer Model – You have occupied every spare brain cell I have this week, and I am SO glad you are up and running.  Now play nice and let me calibrate you quickly without tearing my hair out. 

Dear DirtBike – Halleluiah!!  You made it!!  This has been a long, anguished summer, with  much angst and many tears [mine].  You aced Algebra, Son!  You conquered Spanish!, You rocked conjugating verbs en español, even though your teacher (ahem, that would be ME, Chickies!) doesn’t speak it fluently.  You made it to 8th Grade.  Let’s get our work done DURING the school session this year, m’kay?  Because I really don’t want to do this again next summer.

Dear Windowsill Dove Babies –  Wow, you grew up fast.  I looked out Tuesday morning to see you both strutting up and down the windowsill in front of my window! Now you have fluttered to the ground and are hanging out in the shrubbery where your parents still bring you an occasional bite to eat.  Live long and prosper!

Dear House Air Conditioner – Thank you for hanging with us for another week.  I know you’re old and tired.  We really, really appreciate your hard work.

Dear  Dr. Ford – Thank you for your very interesting, enlightening lecture at the Eckenfelder Lecture Series.  Yes, the industry DOES need to start paying more than just lip service to recycling water.  We can’t continue using freshwater for hydraulic fracking.  Your stories about Dr. Eckenfelder were just the icing on the cake, what a privilege to have know him.

::faithful

Praying for

• Daughters, as they continue packing their belongings to move to college.
• Sons, that they find patience and peace during the next few weeks of transition.  They already miss their sisters.
• Kevin, that he finds work soon.

• bicycles
• sandwiches
• leftovers
• Cherry Ames’ new job!
• oxy clean

::healthy

My last A1c was 5.1!!  That my friends, is the result of years of hard work, healthy eating and working out like a crazy woman.

::creative

ugh.  All creative cells have gone into hibernation until the weather cools off.  Except for a few quirky ones that are working on a knitted pig. Yes, a pink, knitted piggy.  It’s a test knit for a pattern designer.

::delicious

The lineup this week includes

• Pulled Pork Sandwiches
• Grilled pizzas
• Blackened Tilapia with Rice Pilaf
• Chicken Fajitas
• Pancakes – because DirtBike has been asking for breakfast for dinner for several weeks now
• Bean Burritos

::fun

Our weekend ride at Tour de Cure was AMAZING!  We ended up riding the 32 mile route, as the temperatures were creeping quickly into the triple digits.

::looking ahead

Dear Killian – May God Bless you abundantly all the days of your life.  You not only stepped once to save a stranger’s life, but when asked to donate marrow again for the same young woman, you said yes. If only we could all say yes with such abandon and heartfelt good will.

Dear Architect – Good job on the Bike Restoration.  It looks marvelous.  Better still, the brakes and gears work again.  You Rock.

Dear Random Van on I20 – Oh MERCY!!  Thank you for the gut-busting, rib-splitting laugh.   It was just what I needed after spending many sweltering hours tromping around a job site and hunting down a sewer line in the middle of overgrown poison ivy.  PARENTAL WARNING – Know that the signage on the back of the van is in questionable taste (literally) so beware when you click the photo for a larger image.  And?  Who eats baboon legs? Or ‘Eliphant Ribs’?

Dear Summertime – I love you.  You’re fun.  You’re carefree.  You have lots of extra daylight that lets the Pea Family play outside with bikes and kayaks and such.  But now you’re getting annoying in your persistent baking of my brain cells. You may creep away and let Autumn come early. Thank You.

Dear Windowsill Dove’s Mate – Thank you for the photo ops!  You’re not quite as reactive as Windowsill Dove. Where she literally sits on those babies if I come near, you  tend to behave like a human Dad, standing protectively to the side and letting the kids figure out what they can do on their own.

Dear Windowsill Dove Baby – I love how you look so scraggly and wise, all at the same time.