(Started at 8:05 AM, Wednesday morning) Try as I might to combat their affects, clouds and rain exhaust me.

As a child, I would tell my mother that the rain makes me sleepy. I am positive she always found something to occupy me, keeping me alert, but I am confident I never gained her sympathy. Mother pushed through things and it was not until quite a spell after she retired that she gave into taking naps when she felt like it.

I am just not built that way and at fifty-six I really have no desire to take myself back to the design table to make any adjustments.

Rain has always been miserable for me. I never enjoyed it and to be honest, I really hate getting wet when I am dressed for dry. Sometimes, when it was raining hard, I wore galoshes and an actual yellow raincoat to elementary school, as did my classmates. It was okay. It was cool.

Throughout junior high, I rode with my band friend and neighbor, Todd Davis, and until I began driving to and from school, I rode to the high school with my next door neighbor, Don Fortner, the printing teacher. Since I often carried my saxophone with me, to and from school school each day, he nicknamed me “Super Toot.” Those were wonderful times! Don was, and still is, a renaissance man on many levels, and forty years later, I still take my flower photography cues from him. Don was a bonus uncle and dad for me, and I am still grateful that he shared his light, laughter, and love.

(Continued at 5:48 PM while listening to THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW) Today has been a day of reading, napping, playing with the lethargic pups who seem to have captured my dampened spirit of not being able to spend time on the deck. It has been a steady rain or sprinkle since early morning and is forecast to continue through tomorrow evening without stopping.

Ah, well. I still feel accomplished in making it a great day!