The swimming pool is open for business. I finally plugged in the heated birdbath last evening and it has had a lot of visitors this morning. It is 34 degrees this morning and the water had been iced over every morning for the past week. But today, I have the only open water source around here so the landing zone is full. There is a stiff breeze out there so I'm glad I filled the feeders last evening. I wouldn't want to go out this morning. It is brrrrrville out there. It's a Carhart coverall morning.

The weekend went quickly. Saturday was Ms. Charlotte's funeral and yesterday was church day. We got home around 1430 and then a couple of the neighbor's came by. The Girl Scout next door came selling cookies and of course we bought $20.00 worth. And neighbor Dan brought over a dish full of fresh-out-of-the-deep-fryer egg rolls that his wife Minh had made. She makes the best egg-rolls in the world and it is always such a blessing when she shares. After they all left I came out to the sunporch, turned on some Montovani and I don't think I heard the end of the first song. I awoke to the next to the last song on a 27 song CD. Yeh, --- that was a quality nap. Ms. Kate said I didn't even finish the sentence I was saying; I just drifted off.

There are currently five cardinals sitting on the edge of the birdbath. I wonder if that equates to meeting around the water-cooler at work. I can see another four or five sitting on feeders and in the bushes. What a beautiful sight. All my regulars are here this morning; the finches, the junkos, the wrens, the chickadees, and the mockingbird. By now, the squirrels have discovered that the feeders are full too. But --- they are spending more time keeping each other off of the feeders than they are eating.

It is going to be a busy week. I of course have writing to do, but choir practice starts up again this week. We have a special meeting of our local church association this coming Saturday morning and I have the first of two church congregational meeting on Sunday. The second one will be the following Sunday. And before you know it --- January will be gone. I tend to look down range at the calendar a lot for planning purposes and can see where this year is going to fly by, at least through the first half. Come July we'll throw out the anchor and slow the boat down a bit. In the mean time, I'll just enjoy the simplest of pleasure such as seeing that beautiful Cardinal and that cute little wren that hops around everywhere out here on the sidewalk. God speaks to us in all kinds of ways and my mornings out here are just one of the ways I get to see and hear His glory. Have a blessed day.