first and foremost:
happy birthday erika!!

and then:
it is GORGEOUS outside!

today is my day off, and i am enjoying my morning for several reasons:

~the sun is shining, but there is a wonderful breeze (which we don't get often here) keeping me cool and making my wind chime make lovely bright happy jingly noises.
~i am sitting on my new patio furniture, which happily redd did not consume while i was at work yesterday (he did nibble on one corner, but you can barely see it and he appears to be sorry).
~the internet! she is working! this is sort of like an endangered animal sighting.
~did i mention my happy wind chime?
~i'm going to ph!lly for EPA training at the end of the month, and while i am sad that i will not be able to spend halloween with dana, i am psyched that i may be able to spend it with the lovely nieci!
~we had our first group training run last night, and it was super-motivating to run in that large of a group of people. we have another one on saturday morning, and i'm excited to push myself to run the whole thing.
~i've already got $325 $350 (just saw a new one! thanks jared!) in donations to the leukemia and lymphoma society for my 1/2 marathon run. it's a far cry from the $2200 that i need, but i only started fundraising a few days ago!

so, lots of things to be happy about. including my awesome boyfriend, totally not at all cute pets (ha!), and great friends and family. life is good.