I spent much of the weekend in awe of the fact that we actually live here. Our time here so far has felt more like an extended vacation in many ways, but for whatever reason, I realized this weekend that this actually is real life. While riding in the car on Saturday, I mentioned to J how I’d noticed a difference in the air and the light here. There’s a clarity to it, when you look out the windows, that is just striking. What is so astounding is the fact I had stopped noticing the haze in Baltimore, and that it had become so commonplace so as to make the change in quality something remarkable. Even with my worsening eyesight, the details I can pick out are incredible. I caught a glimpse of the clouds the other night, and ran across the street to catch the photo above. Amazing.

The girls and I walked part of the Kennebec River Rail Trail on Friday morning. It took some serious “Google fu,” as my husband says, to find the darn place. The website for the trail mentions access points in terms of local landmarks, but does not include street addresses, which does nothing to help a newbie like me. I finally figured out that we could catch the trail at Capitol Park, and my GPS knew how to get there, at least. I’m glad it did; what a beautiful park! It’s clean and well cared for, and we enjoyed the walk through it.

August seems to be the month for flowers here. Everything is in bloom, everywhere we go. Our yard is just teeming with color.

The first coat of color went on the glider yesterday! We used Rustoleum’s Rust Reformer as the base, and I laid it on thick to try and insulate the years of rust that weren’t going anywhere, despite scrubbing and scraping. It took several cans, but it looked pretty good. Unfortunately it was hiding a lot of imperfections that became very apparent with the application of the lighter paint. I knew it wouldn’t be pristine, and I didn’t want it to be, but it’s pretty rough. I suppose we’ll see how it looks after the second coat.

We spent today in the lake. Two months ago, Swee wouldn’t get in the water. Today, she swam out to the first floating dock with her daddy, and again with me. She was so pleased with herself, which made this mama incredibly happy. This happiness, it seems to be a recurring theme here.