I Gave Myself Flowers

Happy Monday world!

Today started out a classic Monday for me. I got on the scale and found I'd gained for weight than I would have liked over the weekend, I couldn't figure out what to wear (which always makes me feel ugly) and it was cold and grey with lots of wind outdoors. I started the morning by crying in the refrigerator while I was trying to get breakfast.

Image by mbgrigby via Flickr

But you know, I washed all the dishes, I planned out a fresh juice to make myself later that day, I took Aaron to work and then bought myself an armful of flowers on the way home, found a voicemail on my phone from an acquaintance who just called to say she admired me and was thinking of me and then the sun came out and the wind died down. By the time my aunt knocked on the door with her sewing machine cheerfully tucked under her arm, ready to sew the day away together, I was feeling pretty alright.

Sometimes you just need to figure out how to heal what ails you...even if it means a few indulgences. You're worth it.

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The Grey Part of Spring

Our speckled orchid, blooming in the sunroom window.

I was talking on the phone the other day to Mama (Big Grandma in the sidebar to your right) and she mentioned hoping that their recent trip to South Carolina to visit my sister, Lockbox (see the sidebar again for her) wouldn't sour them on the dregs of winter that they had to go back home to in Northern Michigan. Now that I am so newly returned from parts further south myself I have to admit to being pretty hungry for the vibrant colors of warmer weather too. I understand, Mama, even if I didn't head home to two feet of snow and maple syrup season.

Our fig tree, making a baby fig.

There isn't a flake of snow anywhere on our third of an acre but spring is still dragging out very slowly. We're living in those long cold days that hang heavily and greyly over everything...a dim, dirty light is all we seem to get for days on end and my photographer's eye is just hungry for some clean bright light, some warmth, some vibrant living thing.

My birthday plant, a little Meyer lemon, blooming (smells amazing!)

Yesterday I went out in the yard to check on the hyacinths (leftovers from the kind previous owner) and we found them up but producing only straggling buds mostly in white and pale pink. Monday is never a good day, I am prone to rash and irrational thought patterns. I gave up on the garden, and spring, and all plant life. And then A and I promptly had an argument. Overtired much?

Darned if the coffee plant isn't looking like its making flower buds again. See em?

Today, a night of sleep under my belt, marriage re-assembled and a little bit of light slurping through the morning blanket of grey I decided to take stock of the garden again and get re-inspired. One does not give up on the garden in the spring. It is just not done.

A single, tiny blue squill blooming in our backyard...one of my favorite spring flowers.

I was surprised what I found in the yard after a little investigation. There's a surprising amount of life and color starting to show. And folks, I have to tell you that it really looks like we're going to get great blooms on our inherited lilac! I am super excited.

Big fat, lilac buds.

All enthused, I decided to play hooky from my painting group and headed out to scope some local garden centers instead.

Lenten rose, blooming at the nursery.

Endless flats of pansies.

I can never resist the purpley pinky ones. They're my favorites.

There is something so boosting about garden centers, greenhouses, public horticultural centers and those tall, spinning racks of seeds in the hardware store....even if all of them tend to make me spend more money than I like to admit. Spending money on living things somehow seems less evil than many of the spendthrift possibilities.

My new watering can.

I found the perfect watering can (which I've been looking for for a good while), bought some pansies, and loaded up on crabgrass pre-emergent for our lawn. And bought, um....only a few dozen packets of seeds.

A straggling, but alive lemon yellow primrose.

Tiny purple veined violets which are blooming in our lawn!

I think I'm gonna make it. And until the real sunshine shows up, I'm drawing forsythia...sunshine on paper for foreshadowing.

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Winter Blues

Just kind of a funny odds and ends kind of day. I am not sure exactly what happened to the whole thing really. I hate it when a day does that to me. Somehow it managed to creep by slowly, feel molasses sloggy and then not really come to anything except for a funny whooshing at the end that amounted a sudden overwhelmedness and a tinge of the blues. I think part of it is the dragging slump here at the end of winter, part of it is kid whining, part family illness (hello Round of Earaches that has been keeping Mama up all night!) and part of is just a big pile of tiny complaints that have heaped and tittered about my ankles for some time now and have just managed to creep up high enough to really whisper persistently in my ear.

Losing the baby weight has been slower than I wanted it to be. Of course it is my third baby we're talking about and I've aged since the first go 'round and then there's my willpower with dieting which is a bit lacking but, even if we can explain it, friends, that doesn't make it all better, does it.

The house is wonderful and a home-improvement queen's dream but, a few little improvement set-backs have made it suddenly feel like an impossible, laughable, I'll-never-get-it-done mountain of work for one woman to tackle on her own while three small children howl in the background. I know this one is real and lots of people would think I was crackers for even trying to fix up a house single-handedly while raising three kids but then, that's just the brand of loony I am. I am determined to get re-inspired on this one and not cave to the popular conception that what I am attempting is ridiculous. Ahem.

I am planning our garden and while on the one hand I am fidgety with excitement over the soon-to-be-muddy yard in front of me....on the other hand it is a big job and although I really want to be a gardener who can handle a whole yard, I've never really done it and I'm trying not to listen to the section of my psyche that is screaming "You're going to waste so much money and destroy that perfectly good lawn!!! What do you think you're doing, you nutcase!" Isn't that silly? I should be thrilled but instead I'm intimidated and believe I'll destroy the property. Fabulous.

A neighbor wants to give me some cast-offs that she doesn't need anymore. That sounds nice, right? I keep avoiding her phone calls. She called this afternoon and I went as far as to press talk and then panicked and hung up. I think part of it is that I suspect that part of what she wants to give me I may not be able to move myself and I don't think A will be very thrilled at the prospect of being looped into the project. Then also part of it is that I kind of suspect that part of what she wants to give me I may not actually want and I will take it anyway and then hate the fact that I brought a bunch of crap into the house that we didn't need. Am so weak of will.

I don't entirely know what to do to get out of the funk. I am not all the way down in a depression yet and I think I can avoid it. Am thinking, early to bed, good talk with A, a nice warm drink and an early morning by myself. Hopefully tomorrow the world will be a kinder place.

The Scrubbing Begins

Well all, I am not vanquished yet but, I'm to the really mirey stage of The Big Clean. This is the part where I get weepy and almost quit five times a day. Things really slow down here. I was clipping merrily along yesterday but today I got to the jobs that are really grubby (scrubbing down the toilets, really, really well....cleaning the oven within an inch of its life...etc.) and they take a lot of time.

I spent all morning on just the refrigerator and by lunchtime I think everyone was on the verge of crying between the buckets and buckets of murky water I kept dumping out and refilling and the hunger level of various toddlers. Whew. Some things are nice to have over.

The hard news is that tomorrow is another hard day. After tomorrow (assuming I get tomorrow's stuff done tomorrow) I will be down to the fluffier finishing up tasks. Today, I began scrubbing with the kitchen appliances and bathrooms, and tomorrow I do glass (windows, mirrors, picture fronts and the like) and then hit the floors, walls, light plates, and skirting boards. Am trying not to think about that as I head to bed. Must just focus on rest at the moment. In the morning my aunt arrives to bolster the forces and fill our tummies with comforting food.

I will survive!

In the vein of distracting oneself...I thought you'd like to see the pictures I never posted from Dee's second birthday celebration.