Yesterday, to celebrate my son’s birthday, we decided to go out for breakfast. Realizing too late that it was Father’s Day we soon discovered that all the good restaurants were already taken. So... we ended up at a notorious chain restaurant. Hoo boy... what to eat here. I decided on the Denver omelet, after all, I do live in Colorado. It was passable, fortunately not much ham in it. But even when eating mainly compliant foods there is a BIG difference between organic and mass-produced food in the quality of the meal. I didn’t have any digestive upset after but sure felt like I had consumed inert matter instead of food.

Went for a long hike up a new ridge that mainly mountain bikers use. Quite lovely views of the foothills and even hiked high enough to clearly see Cheyenne Mountain behind the hills. Lot’s of black clouds out over the plains though. There were a couple tornadoes on the plains as well. We stopped for awhile to watch a Black-Chinned hummingbird soar quite high and plummet into a death defying nose dive and then actually perch on a dead branch.

There is a saying in these hills that if you have gone on at least 20 hikes, then chances are you have been watched by a mountain lion. I wonder how many times we’ve been watched. I have never even seen lion tracks, well, that I have recognized as such as they do resemble dog tracks without the claw marks. Nor have I seen a bear and they are quite prevalent here.

Since we were celebrating my son’s birthday, of course we had cake. I substituted with spelt for the flour but the rest was the usual less than healthy ingredients. But that’s cake for you.

Today is another(!) day of clouds and rain. It would be nice if we didn’t get our rain all in one go. I am so used to the sunshine that I feel sleepy and lethargic without it.

I have again agreed to speak before our district school board on a ridiculous policy change the administration is proposing and I am already beginning to feel butterflies. Although I have been told that I speak well, public speaking is not something I enjoy. But I do like challenging myself and this is one more way I can stretch beyond my self-imposed limitations of who I think I am.

Always a good thing to do.