Not much happening today . I'm still tired and feel kind of icky from this cold I seem to have picked up from my son . Apparently my husband has it too ~ he's sleeping the day away . That's fine if that's what he needs ; he's got to go to work tonight .

So the anxiety I was fighting with the last2 days over the big step forward I made yesterday has dissapated . I'm glad for that . I'm still tired out from all the stress and worry , but I think today I'm just going to take it easy and relax . My most pressing responsibilities for the dayare doing laundry and cooking dinner . I'm probably going to spend some time gardening since there's a strong breeze and the clouds have blocked most of the sun . I love days when it's not 90 degrees out!

Another really neat thing happened yesterday for me . We have a pond in the yard that's over anacre , and the last few weeks we've been faithfully going downstairs and sitting on the pondhouse steps and feeding the turtles and the fish . At first the turtles were very wary of us , but now they're coming to trust us . Last night it was just me sitting down there feeding my friends and Big Mama ~ a HUGE softshell turtle that's very skittish ~ actually came up on the step under my feet and ate sat there and ate! She wasn't even 5 inches from me . That was so cool ! And then one of the really reclusive turtles that I had named Stripes ( he's a mud turle and has 3 long bamboo – colored stripes down his back ) came up at the end , again right under my feet . But this time , I gingerly reached out slowly to touch his shell , and for the first time he allowed me to do it . Talk about a rewarding experience ! There's not much greater to me in this world than creating relationships with animals , especially wild ones that fear people . My husband has said that I have a gift with them ; that they trust me instinctively and know that I mean them no harm . Maybe he's right ~ animals of all sorts have been my friends since childhood , and I'm always one of the first people to get out of my car and move a turtle out of the road or rescue an injured animal and take it to a wildlife vet or rehabilitation center . There is some sort of unspoken bond between us , and I feel blessed to have it .

So I don't think I could hold anymore joy today from yesterday's happenings . I feel good about myself for the first time in awhile and extremely blessed for the gifts I have been given .