It's a beautifully warm, breezy spring day today, exactly the kind of weather that makes me remember why I like our neighborhood. Daffodils are blooming all along our block, little white daisies have popped up on every green surface, the horses in the farm down the road are all frolicking with each other in total spring-madness, and in the field at the bottom of our block, there are two different sets of mother-horses grazing with their baby colts, who are fuzzy and awkward and almost unbearably beautiful. On the one hand, weather like this makes me yearn for our own yard so I could sit outside in it and bask; on the other hand, since we don't have a yard of our own, we have to walk Maya up and down the block several times a day, and in today's weather, that's pure bliss. A couple hours ago, Maya and I walked to the end of the block, spent a while watching the baby colts with their moms (Maya loves horses; if it weren't for the fence around the field, she'd be trying to lick their faces), then walked back home...and thought, no, why go inside? So instead we spent another 20 minutes sitting on the bench outside the 18th-century schoolroom across the street from our cottage, and I felt purely happy.

(It was a lucky day for Maya, too; a dog-loving neighbor happened to pass by while we were sitting there, and she got a full-on cuddle session from him. She was wagging for several minutes afterwards!)

We're also starting to think about a summer vacation, which is always fun. What we'd really love to do is spend a week back in Stockholm. Last time, when we went in the autumn, we got a great deal at the Nordic Sea Hotel, which is in a perfect location just by the central train & subway station, offers phenomenal breakfast buffets, and even has a ridiculously fun ice bar. (See photographic evidence!) The prices weren't bad at all. Unfortunately, what we discovered when we got online this weekend is that that was a total fluke of autumn sales. Sigh. So...no Nordic Sea Hotel for us this year, but I'm spending today on intensive googling and link-following to try to find some more affordable options. For various reasons, this is definitely the year for us to take a romantic European city-break, and darn it, we both love Stockholm. It's got to work out somehow!

But in the meantime, rare and beautiful sunshine is streaming through the windows, Maya's snoozing on top of two different toys, and I definitely need to get back outside. :)