Today I believe in happiness...

After a marvelous weekend that began with a Saturday morning trip to another farmer's market (there are many in Austin) as I kept my eye on the cloudy skies, hoping the weather wasn't being a tease again.

It wasn't. I spent the rest of the weekend enjoying the sound of rain outside, reading some new pages of a friend's book in progress, catching up on more "Doctor Who" (the first David Tennant season), napping and being a bit lazy. I steamed lovely tamales from the Farmer's Market for dinner (chicken mole and spinach/caramelized onion).


I happily spent Saturday evening watching television and drowsing off to the sound of rain on the roof. Sunday morning felt like Christmas morning, waking up before dawn to thunder, lightning and more (!) rain. For those of you outside of Texas, I am not usually obsessed with rain. I am currently obsessed with rain because we haven't had any significant rainfall in Austin since MARCH. March, people, and if you've never seen what a drought looks like I'll sum it up: depressing as shit. Brown lawns, brown leaves, brown trees, yards turned to dust and dirt, highways lined with brown grass. Oh, and there's the fires that happen spontaneously because everything turned to kindling over the dry summer.

On this wonderful Sunday morning there were puddles everywhere and it was raining so hard the puppy wouldn't go outside (but the front porch was just fiiine...). I trekked to Starbuck (happily in the rain), got my usual gigantic (trenta) iced coffee and settled in to work on some copy and line editing. The rain let up long enough for me to walk the dog and it was wonderfully cool and breezy. I wore a hoodie.

My point...if you're expecting me to lead you to one...I had several in-the-moment-I'm-happy-right-now pauses throughout the weekend. Just for the little things. Like tamales. And rain. And my dog's third birthday (my sweet Lulu went from this to this in such a short time!). I'm happy right now.

And now.

Now.

There's nothing better...

than a rainy, stormy Saturday afternoon when it's 90+ degrees outside and you were smart enough to take the dog for a nice long walk in the morning when it was still cool and not raining and do the dishes and go to the grocery store, which leaves your afternoon free to turn down the air conditioning to 67 degrees and take a nap on top of your duvet/comforter with a throw blanket over your feet, fat little puppy on one side and cat on the other while it pours rain and thunders outside. Guilt-free group naps. They're the best.

Also good: having a stack of unread library books, dinner that doesn't require a lot of preparation in the fridge, the 2nd two discs of Weeds season 4, and a great excuse for staying in for the evening.

The only thing better: if I get to do it all over again on Sunday.