By the Bespectacled Reader

     This morning I hesitated to get out from under the covers.  Not that I was tired; I wasn’t, but it is a chilly, but beautiful mid-to-late Fall day, albeit August 30th.  I felt so cozy and thoughts began to float through my head.  I am sure you all have had those mornings!  I began to realize how fortunate I am (on top of the obvious, being in Maine in the summer), so this will itemize all the ways In the past 48 hours that I have been grateful.

….I woke up with only a slight twinge in my back which at my tender age is reason enough.

….Yesterday was my 78th birthday and I got a gift that all of us in Maine wanted..7 hours of a gentle but steady rain.

….I received cards, phone calls, emails, Facebook comments, and texts from family and friends.  All three grandkids texted short but sweet messages, filled with love.

….My brother and his wife had me over for dinner, to include a brownie cake, complete with forever candles (you know, the kind that keep relighting themselves), a la mode even!

….I wake today to a bright blue sky with puffy white clouds, skirting across its broad expanse.

….after a hot and humid summer (for Maine), this day was so welcomed with its crisp temperature of 68.

….I could hear a loon cry for its mate, sad but inspiring.

….the leaves were rustling and, as I watched them, I caught a glimpse of a hummingbird sipping nectar from the dahlias on my balcony.

…..then came a morning call from someone special..

….I spent some of the day devouring the Maine Sunday Telegram, disgusted by some articles, buoyed by others.

….I made one of my infamous experimental meals, verdict to be determined.

….and tonight I get to watch a new movie, The Way Back, starring Ben Affleck, which is being streamed on HBO…..oh, how I have missed the ladies’ evenings out to a movie and a meal!

       See, it doesn’t take much to make me happy.

Oh, to come back full circle once again, here are three good books I recommend:

       Erik Larson’s The splendid and the Vile

       Isabel Allende’s A Long Petal of the Sea

       All the Ways We Said Goodbye, written by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White, a novel that begins during WWI France and ends in England in 1964.

The Bespectacled Reader, Marty Round