The sun is shining. The sky is a bright bright even blue. There was a rainbow-colored hot-air balloon drifting low over the trees in the backyard about half an hour ago while I was on the phone with my sister. The lilacs are nearly finished but now the poppies and irises and peonies are popping. Meadow buttercups dot the grassy sward between our neighborhood and the school, and every green slope along every road and highway is cheerfully whitened with daisy faces.

Today is our 13th wedding anniversary and Anders gave me 13 roses. It's really easy for both of us to get caught up in the daily routine of work and house and kids and forget what a miracle it was that we found each other and kept each other.

I went and got my hair done today and behind me a woman was having her nails done. She told the nail technician that she and her husband had been married for 55 years. FIFTY-FIVE years! The nail technician stopped what she was doing and asked her, "Don't you ever get tired of him?" And I didn't hear her reply because I was thinking, "Of course you do. But you keep him anyway. Because he's a keeper."