What we do when I'm not working...

...which isn't more than a couple of days a week, but...

...sometimes we nap to rest up from all that working.

Sometimes we work in the yard. And sometimes we work in the kids' school's yard.

Sometimes in the yard we find poor dead moles that Miss Lily the Mighty Huntress has dragged down with ruthless tooth in gory jaw.

We feel bad about this, so we bury them. With mournful verses to mark their passing. (This one reads "I miss you furry friend. Dr Bab ML - which I interpret as "Bad Miss Lily" but your mileage may vary I hope you live in peace, love, Maxine)

Or not...quite...so mournful as all that.

We celebrate tenth wedding anniversaries with romantic dinners...

...and bellydancing.

We cuddle with our furry pals. And we nap a little. More.

We run races,

and climb walls,

and sometimes we even win. Well, we "win" in the emotional-satisfaction-sense.

And then we go out and get cocoa.

Sometimes we squabble and even fight...

...but we always make up afterwards.

There's no mystery to it, no magic, other than the mystery that holds people together in families and the magic that makes fathers wake in the night and rise to sit by their children in the dark just to hear them breathe. And the magic that makes children love their mothers through tantrums and quarrels, chores and disputations, treats withheld and disciplines enforced. The everyday mysteries, the common, or garden variety magic that rises with the working day and sets on the evening's rest.

And I can't imagine living a day without them.