a good day

the good days have been hard to come by lately. the heat wave rocked our family out of routine, the record-breaking air quality crisis trashed my health and led to a hospital day, money is tight enough that it is changing my plans, and i have no idea what i'm going to do for work from september onward. but today has been a good day.

rode bikes with my daughter, who is so in love with biking. it's crazy, because biking is like. my favorite thing. a lot of people know me as "the bike person" in their lives, so for [DAUGHTER] to be as into it as i am and only three years old is so cool. we rode, with lots of long playground/snack/lunch/hydration stops, a little over four miles -- spread out over about as many hours. for most of that, a good friend of mine joined us, one i hadn't seen in a while, and we schemed about other rides and bike-building and car-building projects and just generally caught up.

i don't often have days where i get to be the fun mom. i usually work outside of the house, and my wife is usually home with the kiddo, so i sometimes end up as the hardass. today i wasn't the hardass at all. i got to make suggestions, collaborate in decision-making, and take it easy -- as easy as it gets while being in charge of the safety of a 3 year old on a bike in a car-centric world.

i have a couple more days off like this, and i am so excited to see what they bring. i already have so many ideas for projects i want to do with [DAUGHTER]. we're going to make sun catcher butterfly wings. we're going to make a visibility flag for their bike. we're going to paint and draw and play music. i'm so lucky