Winter mornings it is dark until after 8 a.m. and I have my first coffee and some quiet time in the reading chair which sits in the corner of my sunroom.  The sunroom is also home to my desk and computers, i.e. office space.  It is a very pleasant room with more windows than walls and has a wonderful variation of light filtered through the trees that surround the room and house.

I go through times when I wake up even earlier than my normal early wakeup and now is such a time – I’ve been waking at 3:30-4 a.m. in the last week.   There is no one but Bob and Karl to disturb and I work from a home office so have some flexibility in my work hours – I get up when I wake up.

This morning I was up at 3:50 – too early for the front porch – well, too early for Karl and Bob to be out and about and I can’t get away with going out without them.  After a short heat wave we are back to near normal for July – 80ish days and 50ish nights.  In the sunroom, with all of the windows and the slider open, it is almost like being outside – even at 4 a.m. there is a hint of light in the eastern sky – I am nearly up against the Swan Range to my east so I don’t actually see the sun until much later but he’s there, turning the sky over the mountains from dark night to a deep, dark blue and gradually to a light blue, then a rosy sky and finally to full light.  The birds and squirrels and turkeys are up and about and it gradually gets “noisier” as everyone wakes up.  The final night cooling happens just before sunrise and that fresh, cool air finds it’s way in even though it seems like there is not even a breeze outside.

I sat down in nearly full dark with my coffee and just watched and listened to the change from night to morning.  A million morning miracles (ok, I didn’t count them!) happen – It never fails to amaze me.