It's been a month, so a butterfly garden progress report is in order. But the morning is cloudy, so no picture. Perhaps tomorrow, in that ever-elusive, rarely spotted Saturday Post! Check back then, if you're interested.

There are some things growing out there, though it was a random little bag of "Butterfly Garden" seeds that included about a hundred different species of plants. Everything coming out of the ground right now looks suspiciously like non-indigenous weed, so we'll just have to wait and see. I did plant a few Dahlia tubers, however, and they seem to be doing well. How nice!

It's another Home Show weekend, second week in a row, as we try and make up for the lost time and little work that happened (or failed to) over the winter. People ask me how work has been and when I say "Busy!" they are cheered by the thought of national economic recovery. "Great!" they say, not knowing that we're a few months behind on everything. And so? Well, that's life.

If I can get some runs in, and some writing in, and try and help out with the family and the chores some, then life is great. I've noticed that if I fall off and fail to do any one of those, life's balance is off, and I get unhappy. Keep moving! Balance!

Speaking of falling off, I actually relinquished my dignity to gravity just the other day. Eons of evolution to enable man to stand upright and walk on his hind legs and me, I fall down. I'm sure it looked hilarious from the neighbor's living room. (Charlie Chaplin made a decent living off of falling down, you know.) In my defense, it was two and half hours into a run on a hot afternoon, at about mile 17. Seriously, when I get that far into it, I'll trip over an imaginary painted line on perfectly level pavement.

Clumsy as I seem, I'm actually pretty light on my feet and never fall. But I was going downhill at a decent pace and caught my right toe on something and went down like a sack of hams. I was wearing some dopey polyester running garb, which happens to be as slick as it comes, and I landed on my back on someone's lawn and went sliding for six or seven feet like a greased-up hockey goalie. The sky spun around, but I hopped back up, shook it off, and kept running. It was just the adrenaline I needed. Balance! Keep moving!

All this to say it was a good thing to while away a few hours yesterday reading and writing about Shakespeare, which I love. If I don't get a little reading and writing done every day or so, well, I go down.

As it is with spending time with the family and working on the house and building aluminum patio covers. I've got a great life. I've just got to manage it all, and keep it moving forward toward that hopeful, unknown frontier.

See you at the Home Show this weekend! We missed you at the last one, unless you are Mr. Guthrie, who is the only person we saw in the teeming hoards at the Avocado Fest whom we knew. We built a cover for Mr. Guthrie years ago and it was the biggest job we'd ever had. He spent a small fortune on that shade, but recently sold the house, and told us that he thought it helped sell the thing -which we were glad to hear. We showed him the picture of his old place in the portfolio and then, with a smile, Mrs. Ditchman asked him the inevitable question: "Do you need one for your new house?"

She'll be saying that all weekend, God bless her.


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