Well, my friends, despite all the work I’ve done outdoors, pushing, pulling, bending over, mowing, yanking, carrying heavy bags – I found myself throwing out my back by the simplest of movements; reaching for the toilet paper.

Yep. Nothing outside, nothing brought on by physical extremes, just the mundane. How un-glamorous!

It happened yesterday morning as I was getting ready to spend time on the porch. Not to be deterred, I did spend a couple of hours on the glider, sitting on two pillows, with two pillows behind my back. It was such an extraordinarily beautiful day, with sunshine and bird song all day long, that I had to be out there. The kind of day that was fairly frequent last year, but extremely rare this year.

To be sure, today it’s raining and twenty degrees colder.

Anyway, ain’t that the pits? I find that whenever my back really becomes a problem it’s most often because of some everyday movement that suddenly becomes a betrayal. Sleeping last night was not easy, but thankfully, I did sleep. We had to cancel brunch at Rick and Doug’s this morning, even though I urged Don to go without me. He won’t, darn it.

So. I’m taking it easy – I have no choice – using the heating pad, walking around fairly frequently to stay somewhat limber, you know, the usual. This too, shall pass.

I finally moved the pillows from the living room sofa to the glider and replaced them with other throw pillows. The replacements will only be there for a short while as our new sofa will be here within about 10 – 14 days.

I finished Ex Libris  yesterday afternoon and now I’m reading David Coggins’ book about the winter visits to Paris he and his family have made for years, named, appropriately, Paris in Winter. Coggins is an artist and his watercolors are sprinkled throughout the book. It’s really quite lovely.

Mother’s Day has become a not-very-good-day for me.  So I tend to ignore it. But I don’t want to ignore all of you, or my sister, who is the best mother in the world. So I wish all of you who are mothers – whether to human children or furry children, farmyard animals, nieces and nephews, students, foster children, grandchildren, neighborhood children, or to green, living things – a Happy Mothers Day.

Happy Sunday.