Mary in her zone!

Mary got home from work about a little before six this morning, her regular time. She went to bed as usual. When she woke up about one the sun was shining and the outside temp was in the high fifties. The sun shining in the big porch windows facing the south side had the temp up to almost eighty degrees in the back porch. Mary had her wake up meal in the porch as she does whenever it is warm enough. In fact she and the grandkids ate out there last night when they stopped over for supper. I am glad we finished the porch and got larger windows. The solar heat coming in the open sliding door raised the temp in the house two degrees. Free heat! I'm glad Mary has a nice private place to eat and read the newspaper. She needs to unwind from her hectic job.

Lots of times over winter when the sun is out the porch warms and we open the door and let the heat in. The cats like to lay on Mary's plant bench and soak up the sun too. It is Kyler's favorite place to play too. Not every three old has their own play room at grandma's. He did not want to go home last night. He wanted to stay and play. He fought his mom and dad to stay here. The kids spend a lot of time here. They have a good time and usually don't want to go home and back to school. That's kids, they like to be away from mom and dad to grandparents where they get away with more than they can at home.

I'm glad we did not sell the house about ten years ago when Mary wanted to move to a smaller place. I did not want to leave. Mary is glad now we did not move either. We built this house with things we wanted, and spent a lot of good times with the kids here. Since we put the new heating system in, and the new windows our energy bills are a lot less expensive. And Mary loves her back porch, the gardens and the ten acres of woods behind us that cannot be developed. We are here over thirty years already, and expect a lot more. Mary says when we can no longer walk up and down the driveway, we will drive it in the car!

Mary started growing some plants for the garden already on her plant bench. We got McDonalds salads Friday night and the dish with clear top is a great place to raise baby plants. The sun coming and hitting Mary's plant bench is a great place to start the growing cycle. Like my fortune cookie paper says:  It is not the outside riches but the inside ones that produce happiness.  It is nice to have some outside riches too, to make the inside ones possible.