As my wife and I were preparing dinner last evening she looked at me and asked, “when was the last time we ate dinner at the kitchen table?”
\nHmm.\u00a0 Great question.\u00a0 We traveled back on our calendar and realized that we started eating dinner on our deck when we returned from our vacation, which was 56 days ago.\u00a0 Wow!\u00a0 AND we live in Cleveland, Ohio, which is not exactly San Diego, weather-wise.\u00a0 Fact is, while there’s been a near drought and my lawn is long ago brown, there’ve only been four days in the past two months when we did not go outside at dinner time to eat on our uncovered deck.\u00a0 Once we decided to do “dinner and a movie” in our living room, and the other three times we went out to eat at restaurants where — you guessed it — we always sat on the patio.
\nI am sometimes sad about the state of my lawn… yet the optimist in my always looks for some good in every situation.\u00a0 This run of mostly dry weather allowed Cheryl and I to use our beautiful deck as an extension of the house for most of the summer.\u00a0 It pulled us out of the house to socialize with the neighbors (who were often dining on their own deck) and enjoy the sights and sounds of our neighborhood at play.\u00a0 It’s been really lovely.
\nAt this point, however, I am ready to move back indoors.\u00a0 The remnants of Hurricane Gustav, colliding with spinoff weather from the many other tropical storms attacking the east coast, caused temperatures to drop back into the 50s at nite, and eating on the deck in a sweatshirt isn’t as much fun.
\nAh, but guess what?!\u00a0 Those 50-degree nites are FABULOUS for sleeping with the windows open and the crickets chirping.
\nSometimes, the universe makes being an optimist so easy!
\nHappiness is cool nites, and dinner on the deck… \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"