3.22.12

{this whole foot, not being able to walk thing is really wearing on me. this tree is two houses over - shot with my phone because i'm worn out. . .}

3.21.12

3.11.12

{the annual first trip to archies - she's got a strawberry creamer. mine was orange!}

What The Hail?

{the size of the hail at our house}

{hail across town!}

Been an interesting few days. . .

:: the worst stomach flu I've ever had.

:: the biggest hail I've ever seen.

:: a desperate push towards Friday and a much needed day off which will make a four day weekend.

:: because of the aforementioned stomach flu I'm terribly behind on my creative challenges. it's catch-up this weekend for me!

Violet Honey

A "Recipe"

1. Notice that your front yard is freckled with tiny little violets.

2. Wonder what you could do with them.

3. Remember that someone you know wrote on Facebook a year ago that she turned them into violet honey.

4. Fail to find her instructions because you are too lazy to wade through an entire year's worth of wall posts.

5. Wing it.

6. Take a bowl and your girlfriend and go sit in the yard.

7. Carefully run your fingers up the stem of the violet until just the blossom pops off.

8. Fill a bowl.

9. Marvel at the description your girlfriend gives when she says, "Looks like you already cleaned out that little scrabble over there!"

10. Cover your violets with approximately twice as much honey as blossoms.

11. Warm the honey gently on the stove.

12. Let it sit overnight.

13. Warm it again and strain it.

14. Be amazed at the delicate color and the most subtle flavored honey ever.

15. Eat it on warm, homemade scones and smile!

Emerging

“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle;

you can live as if everything is a miracle.”

~ Albert Einstein

I think I'll still keep choosing the "everything" option.

These tiny little emerging dianthus on our little quilt square of the planet are confirmation of the power that lies just below the surface of most things. They manifest energy that we can't see. They ask me to look a little deeper, listen a little closer and look beyond what seems so hard to believe.

Almost Spring?

{what could be better? a friday afternoon. the sun shining. the garden appearing from its blanket of snow. warm enough to sit on the porch without a jacket. maybe a glass of wine now? that would just cap it off as perfection!}

Snowball Softball

{on first, we have "kids need hugs, not drugs"; the right fielder is visible in the distance; everyone had coins for eyes and a carrot nose!}

{the view from behind the catcher, notice the numbers with the catcher being #1 and the batter #10. there is also a home plate in the snow}

{the catcher, up close}

{batter, batter, batter. . .swing!}

{one of the pitcher's arms fell off!}

{someone or a group of very creative someones, obviously as eager for spring as i am, created an entire softball team at Rawson Park here in Findlay. how much fun is that??}

Dogged Detemination

dogged, determined, tenacious, resolute, singleminded, purposeful, resolved

There's nothing that out of the ordinary about the return of daffodils in the spring. Those nice green ones on the right side of the photo are sprouting in the normal dirt. The rest of them have managed to push their way through more than a foot of sand left from the neighbor's patio building project last summer.

All I can say is that they have more energy and determination that I do today. Maybe I should take a lesson. . .

Weekend Glimpses

It's March! And we survived Winter 2010!

Every year I wonder whether I will make it through February and every year I'm amazed when it happens. This February was the fourth snowiest on record for our little corner of paradise. We still have feet of it laying around but when I went to put my stuff in the car this morning something definitely felt different. There were birds singing. It was above freezing. All the icicles had fallen off the eaves sometime in the night.

I believe that spring is on it's way!

A few glimpses of the weekend.

:: Izzy, who loves to "help" with any sewing project that might be in the works. More on the finished product tomorrow!

:: {this would be an audible glimpse – you'll have to hum along} We watched a big chunk of the Winter Olympics at our house. Besides rooting for the USA we cheered for Canada quite a bit. Yesterday afternoon I could hear Ali in the kitchen singing O Canada fairly loudly. It's one of those songs that's fun to really belt out and she was obliging. If she doesn't know the words to something she just generally makes something up on the fly. Ditto with the tune. Before you could say "Royal Canadian Mounted Police" their national anthem had morphed into Somewhere Out There and she was wacking that out for all she was worth.

(Try it! After you get to "the true North, strong and free!" just slide right on into "Somewhere out there if love can see us through. . ." It's seamless. . .and hilarious!)

:: It must be getting closer to spring because I indulged in fresh strawberries at the grocery yesterday. They were grown in California and I can't think of a better March 1 breakfast celebration than strawberries.

:: Just because it's a clean slate, a new month and nearly a new season doesn't mean it's not still a Monday morning. We went out to get into our cars this morning and I heard a crash and some wailing.

That's Al – wearing a can of 7-Up. And doing it with style don't you think??

Happy March. . .and happy Monday!

I Believe

:: I believe that February will not last forever. Even though sometimes it feels that way.

:: I believe that the sun will indeed return. I know this because it's almost light when I get home in the evenings now!

:: I believe that I will survive February thanks, in no small part, to brownies.

:: I believe that the foot of snow we are expecting today will not last forever.

:: I believe all these things because yesterday afternoon I saw this. . .

Can't tell what that is? It's a tree full of big, fat, happy robins who are the first harbingers of spring. This flock was here and gone so quickly yesterday afternoon that I only managed to get my camera lens changed in time to snap one close up.

:: I believe that spring is on it's way! That is, after today's blizzard moves it's big old self on outta here anyway. . .

Change

It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that I was scraping snow and ice off my windshield every morning and slowly sliding my way towards Bluffton. I remember thinking, at least a hundred different times, that I couldn't wait for spring to arrive. There was a period in there that I almost succumbed to the belief that it might not return.

So, here I sit this morning, listening to the rain fall gently on the roof. I can see tree branches just beginning to bud at their tips. When you walk outside you are hit with the smell of earth. Of worms making their way out of wherever it is they have spent their winter. There is new life – green replacing grey at every turn. The cycles of life are so evident right now – beginnings and endings. And beginnings again.

And what am I doing? Wondering when it's going to stop raining. Looking past the place I wanted to be just a few short weeks ago and mentally bitching because I'm not someplace else.

How utterly human is that?

I haven't written much in the last few days because I haven't had much positive to say. Sometimes when I look at this blog I have a creeping sensation that I'm not really telling the truth about my life. When I read what's here it all appears to be so light, funny and just a little too perfect. And those periods when I'm absent from the blog are days that there's nothing light, funny or perfect going on.

So, here's some truth for today. We have had the kid-ling more than we can comfortably handle in the last few weeks. We're burned out. Stressed out. We try our very best to help him mature and be a good human being but the truth of the matter is he's not our kid. It doesn't really matter what we do.

The house in Toledo still has not sold and money situations just seem to be inching incrementally backwards. How far back can you go before stepping off the cliff?

Our house is a mess. When kid-ling is here the dogs are banished to the backyard until he goes to bed. It's been raining a lot. They have drug more dirt and mud in our house than can possibly be healthy.

The nights we don't have the kid-ling we are so tired that for dinner we scrounge the cabinets for things that don't require cooking and end up subsisting on a meal of Funyuns and string cheese. 

Tired of hearing all this yet? I am. But, it's where I am right now. And, at least occasionally, this part of my life is the truth too.

But if spring can teach me anything, there is one precious truth – things can change. You just have to wait through the rain.

Coaxing Spring

Everyone I know has spring fever. The last of the mountains of snow that lie marooned in parking lots around town are finally disappearing. Since Sunday we have had the magical extra hour of daylight in the evenings so that we can be outside just a little longer. The kids on our street are making great use of it – rollerblading and biking up and down while pulling their dolls in baby strollers.

While walking Sammy one evening this week I saw the first little crocus flowers blooming a very resilient yellow. It made me smile with relief.

After a long winter, I will do just about anything to coax spring to keep moving our way!

Last Sunday I cut these forsythia branches and brought them indoors. This particular plant doesn't bloom until the end of April but I decided to help it along a bit.

Here's where we are now.

Spring flaunted her smile -

Everything she loved 

Slowly awakened in praise 

– Dorothy (Alves) Holmes

Welcome back! We missed you!

Last Kid on the Block

I was the smart, quiet kid on my block who was always reading a book and a good year or so behind everyone else in keeping up with the trends. We didn't have much money and my tennis shoes were always the ones from Payless. They were the ones that everyone else had worn the year before. I always tried to hide my feet under the bus seat and under my desk at school so the other kids wouldn't make fun of me. I badly wanted to be like everyone else, so I know what it's like to be the last kid on the block with something cool.

I thought of that this morning when I realized that the forsythia in the front corner of the house was actually a forsythia! It finally bloomed!



When we first moved in, nothing was evening hinting at being green yet. I thought maybe the little thing in the corner was a forsythia – but when everyone else's on the street was blooming, ours was just sitting there looking like a bundle of forlorn sticks!

It's OK little fella. . .when their blooms are falling off you'll still be in all your glory!



I was also excited to realize that we have not one, but THREE purple lilacs! There is a huge bush in the corner of the backyard and two smaller ones on either side of the house. They are among my favorite spring flowering plants.



Any ideas on what this is? I don't have a clue. It's got long stems and is more a plant than a shrub. There are several other unknown things coming up around the house and I'm looking forward to the spring surprises!

And, I don't care if we are the last kids on the block!

Spring Cleaning – Several Ways

The picture of Sammy from yesterday’s post was taken last weekend. We were engaged in the time honored spring tradition of cleaning the closet. It’s the time of year that I look forward to the most – when you put away all the wool sweaters and thermal shirts and finally get out the shorts and t-shirts again! It’s almost like having a brand new wardrobe because it seems so long since you’ve worn that summer stuff! Poor Sammy was lost in the piles when Ali took that pic.

As the days warm up and the clothing gets lighter, skin that hasn’t seen the light of day for five or six months begins to reappear as well. Since more than just my hands and face is now exposed I decided to make a bath scrub and celebrate the coming of the warmer weather.



This is a Jasmine Salt Scrub and here’s my “recipe.”

1 cup sea salt
½ cup sweet almond oil
6 capsules Vitamin E oil, pierced and drained
1 tsp. jasmine oil

Combine in a glass jar.

This stuff is WONDERFUL and smells really yummy. It makes your skin very smooth and moisturized. You can use any essential oil (available at health food stores) that you particularly like the smell of. Some of my other favorites are lavender and orange oils. This recipe also works well if you substitute sugar (either brown or white) for the salt.

Happy Spring!