The Best. Place. Ever.

... is right here right now. While I'm a pretty happy lady most of the time I do have my drearier moments, so let's enjoy this one right here, yes?

Why is this the best place ever? EVER?!?!

Have you ever noticed that you say that in different moments of your life, in different locations, all the time?

Okay, maybe not all the time, but when you do the settings always change? Different aspects of your life conspire to raise your internal temperature to the point of bliss over small events that normally go unnoticed? (Man, if you're NOT having one of those days today or are regrettably having a very bad day, you'll hate me and my flower-child optimism right now.)

Right now I'm sitting in a borrowed backyard (house-sitting) staring at an infinitesimally small field of baled hay between me and another row of sort-of-country homes. It's July, there's golden sunlight coating everything and that makes even dead dill weeds beautiful. There's not a breathe of wind, flying bugs are minimal and singing bugs in the grass are putting on quite the show. I've got a bowl of chocolate chips and a glass of diet-dr.-pepper with mandarin vodka (I made do with what I had, and I did well.) I worked a long day in a job I that makes me excited about life (on the best of days, but today was one of them), I'm 8 chapters into Eat-Pray-Love (good for me, keeping mainstream), A train is whistling, there's a very sassy Chihuahua under my care that just returned from her jaunt down a quasi country road with some dead animal in her mouth and man is it gross, but it's so cute how proud she is...

So okay, there could be more epic days. This is pretty normal. Good work, lots of sunshine, I can smell the earth and hear the birds. It's July. I feel like I'm getting 20x more oxygen than I do in the winter. I've got a rambunctious and snotty little dog to keep me company and a book that doesn't require me to stop and take notes as I go. There have probably been a lot of days like this, and I didn't appreciate them all the way I do July 29th...

... but since I'm feeling grateful, thanks world. The nature rocks. The people rock. The weather, sunlight, O2, miniature Chihuahua's, diet Dr. Pepper and mandarin vodka rock. I'm really digging this quasi-country thing. What on earth was I thinking, hauling myself off to the city core for so long?

(Well, I know exactly what I was thinking and I was totally right, but that was then and this is now and now is the bomb.)

I'll stop rambling. Thanks for listening, crazy internet void! :)

- Paisley