Good morning or good evening, wherever you may be. It is just past 6:00 a.m. in "The City."

I guess you could say that it is late for yours truly, but I didn't get up until around 4:00 a.m. having gone to bed before 11:00 p.m. last night. For me, that's a lot of sleep time. Still, given the fact that I don't regularly get more than a few hours of uninterrupted sleep each night, I consider that exceptional.

We have a current temperature of 29° as we struggle to reach today's high of 40° under sunny skies. It should be a great day to extend my walking time, either before I began to bake an apple pie, or after, I haven't decided yet. Either way, I still can't walk at the end of a leash, so Mary will handle that part of walking and I'll just amble along behind.

We have a huge bag of apples in the mudroom that we got a few weeks ago before I had my recent surgery. They will make an excellent pie and also excellent applesauce. I'll have to allow Mary to carry the apples to their peeling station since I can't lift anything greater than five pounds for several more weeks. Mary offered up an idea yesterday. She stated that I need to look for ways to avoid lifting things or bending at all times and thus avoid the negative effects on my yak from now on. She is right, I just hate to acquiesce to the"New Normal" of my advancing age. Maybe if I had thought things through earlier in life, I wouldn't be here now. Ah, but as the proverbial "They" has oft opined, "If wishes were fishes, we'd all have a basket full."

I nearly forgot to mention that Mary and I combined on that chili yesterday. I think it turned out great, albeit not as spicy as I would have expected. Mary thinks it needs to be sweetened. Neither of us have the palates that we had when we were younger. So who is right? I dunno.

So, you now have a primer on my day. Apple peeling, pie making/baking, and reading. Mary and I started that latest book for our history book club, entitled. The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah. It is a book that chronicles the lives of a once young, now elderly, French woman and her extended family, both before and during WWII. So far, it has been a spellbinder that drew us in from the first page.It's a great story when that happens.

I just took a picture of  the glass mug that I received after I turned in scorecard from this winter's Loutit Library Cabin Fever Reliever. I try to get the "Free" gift every season. I have not been 100% successful, but I am doing OK. You know that I've been quoted as saying that "I"ll stand in line to receive free things, I don't like to stand in line to give up money." A quirk? Perhaps, but that's all I have to say about that.

Free is free!

I also started highlighting for Mary yesterday. This will be a quick effort on my part, as I can't sit at my desk for any length of time, so my comments will be limited by the fact that I'll be highlighting from my La-Z-Boy.

The sun will rise this morning @ 7:18 a.m. and set this evening @ 6:35 p.m. Ciao.