spring has sprung

I'm coming off our first full-on warm spring weekend, and boy did it do a body (and soul) good.

Those first few sunny days in the city are the best -- so festive, so hopeful, like all of New York is letting out a collective 'ahhhh'. But they're even better in the country, where it seems the world has turned an instantaneous, happy green (seriously, entire bushes and trees had burst into color since I was up there a week before).

We cranked up the oldies on our outdoor speakers (Van Morrison, Ray Charles, the Stones, et al), dusted off the outdoor furniture, sprawled out with some good reads in the sunshine...

...the hubs fired up the grill, cracked open our first bottle of rosé of the season, took a dip in our ice-cold backyard creek (bold move), and helped Otis and I plant an herb garden...

...and then we all curled back up in the sun for a magnificent afternoon snooze. 

It doesn't get any better than this, folks. It really doesn't.