Awake in the quiet.

Awake in the quiet. Only the tick of the clock, the hum of the dishwasher and my stomach noises surf the sound waves of the house. Outside a misty grey sky, rain tempted to drop down. The birds chirp here and there, reminding me I'm not alone in the world. Oatie's curled up under my pillow upstairs with Justin beside him sleeping. I savor this time alone with my thoughts.

Days run together and now it's almost July. The fourth is coming up. I figure we should ride our bikes into town if we're going to try to watch fireworks. It's not the day to get stuck in the car. Out here, the best plan is to find a high point in the city and watch everyone blow off their fireworks. It's a display that goes on for miles and miles.

We've been looking at houses. The market is a buyers nightmare- multiple offers on every house. If you want to "win" a nice house, you need to offer $10-15k over asking. It's 2006 all over again, and I wonder if the housing market is skidding down the same road. With a farce appraisal in hand, we ask for bank loans for more than a house is worth. I wonder how this will pan out. Or maybe the market here is just going up and up without an upper limit. Portland has been booming mostly for about twenty years, so maybe this is nothing new. Just bad timing for us. We keep trying.

This morning, I'm reading The Sun. Its focus this month is incarceration and racial profiling. I'm thankful for those folks in Chapel Hill, NC who publish this magazine monthly and continue to speak on important topics, especially those which I would not normally seek out on my own. One of the writers commented, "But the one invaluable gift that prison grants you is time - time to think and reflect, or time to waste." This I can identify with in the solitude of the morning.

So Monday starts the new week. One just like the last. Happiness and contentment abounds. I count my life as a success and I'm thankful for all the free time I have.