Sometimes when you wake up in early morning darkness you go back to sleep. And other days, for some reason, you get up, pull the curtains back and check the sky.

Last week I got lucky.

The sun was coming up over the hills behind me, just touching the house across the way as it sat under a big rolling cloud racing across the sky. The light was only like this for a moment. So brief I might have imagined it.

This morning I woke and caught a sliver of light through a crack in the blinds. It looked a bit gold, so I leaped out of bed and threw back the curtains.

Not gold, but just as rich.

“Those are Snaphappy Gal clouds!” I cried. (Go to her photography site, you’ll see she loves clouds!) Katie looked at me with held tilted as I raced outside with my camera.

And then the sky turned into a van Gogh right before my eyes.