Staying occupied

This was a gorgeous morning for a run. I could tell, from inside my house where I was spinning away on the exercycle while watching Law and Order. I thought of my buds, out there running hills and dodging cows while I watched a new cop and a new DA try to find shortcuts in the law while McCoy got angry. Sigh. At least it was a new episode, I didn't have to watch the late Lenny Briscoe outsmart another perp again.

So in the name of resting my knee I spent 45 minutes exercycling and then cleaned my house for several hours. I think I'd have been better off running, but at least my home is sparkly clean. Highly unusual! Not a good job of resting and since I didn't eat regularly today I haven't been taking advil either. Ruh roh. Looks like I'll spend the rest of the evening with my knee packed in corn.

I'm looking forward to a seated Sunday. Claudia invited me over to knit (and eat) (and drink) (in a healthy manner, of course). It'll be fun working on my latest hat, or on my scarf, or even swatching the SOTSii, while chatting with friends.

When I bought my house about 9 years ago, one of the first things I did was rip out all the ugly landscaping, bushes and little trees and replace it with stuff I like. One thing I've insisted on in all my yards since moving to California is citrus trees. Simply because they grow here! And didn't in Michigan. I planted a dwarf Meyer Lemon on the side of my house and it's grown gangbusters, bearing tons of fruit that the neighborhood girls try to steal. At the same time, in my back yard I planted dwarf blood orange, tangerine, lime and mandarin trees. They didn't fare as well until this year. My neighbor cut down a tree that had kept them in shade most of the time, and this is the first time I've had at least 1 piece of fruit on each tree. I've been keeping my fingers crossed that the freezes we've had wouldn't kill off the fruit (or the tree, for that matter) and today I ate my very first blood orange. Yummy!

So y'all are probably thinking that since I haven't been putting up a Gratuitous Bear of the Day, I must have run out of them. Au contraire! I have many many more bears. I haven't taken pictures of them is the problem. So I'm changing the title of the feature to Gratuitous Bear of the Week and hopefully I'll be getting my camera out soon.

Today's Gratuitous Bear of the Week was given to me by my sis-in-law. She picked him up for me on a trip to Germany, the only place where a classic Steiff is now affordable. He's just a little guy, a classic fully jointed wool teddy. He sits on my mantle and watches.