jazz hands

After many gray days in a row could there be anything lovelier than waking up to these little yellow faces?

The sun is out this morning and with it is the steady first drip drip drip of  our snow covered house.  It has awakened something within me.  When the progress of all those drips starts to show I am certain it will renew all of us.

In the morning I sip my tea out of my new tea cup.  It is almost as lovely as those tiny daffodils.

Yesterday was library day and I have a nice stack of books waiting to be read.  Up first is The Yonahlossee Riding Camp for Girls: A Novel.    Library day is a big deal as I go to a library over an hour away—in Concord Ma home of Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott and Ralph Waldo Emerson—it is my favorite library ever in the history of all libraries), to do this while Sawyer is nap deprived can be a challenge.  Yesterday was good except I lost my phone in the snow and slush covered parking lot (boo) but later the library called the number I have labeled as Home on my phone as someone turned it in and I went and picked it up (yay).

And today?

Well today is just plain old awesome.

I hope you find the awesome in today, too.

100 year old lessons

This is the view from my room. 

There is a brook that runs through those trees and it is the most lovely thing to fall asleep with the windows open listening to it.  Almost always before I sleep I think of the olden days as this house and town still hold on to those horse and buggy days.  It isn’t hard to imagine the way it all looked back then. 

This morning I thought of my great-great grandmother.  Her name was Flora Sampson.  She lived to an old age and based on all the pictures and letters I have seen she was very busy on her homestead.  In one letter to her daughter she complained at how idle she had been that day having “only planted 40 hills of beans.”

This is her feeding the hens at her home in Massachusetts.   I wonder what she is feeding them as I am certain she didn’t drive her minivan to the drive thru grain store (seriously I go to a drive through grain store where you pull into their garage and pay through a window as they load it up).  Sometimes I wonder if we had to physically do more in our lives if we would all be a little better off.  Not that I want to have to do more.  You get what I’m saying, right? 

Translation: We should be closer to saying planting 40 hills of beans isn’t a big deal and farther away from watching home garden shows on tv.   But it is so hard!

ships at sea

Winter is kind of like a sea voyage.  There are lulls and storms and an occasional rogue wave.

But we get through it.  Every year, the storms and winds come and we sigh and secure the decks.

I don’t necessarily think this is a bad thing.  There is serenity to be found on these quiet winter days.

Spending time spent reading or cooking feel appropriate.  I am actually watching the growth of my bulbs. A tiny bit everyday until their green shoots start to grow faster towards the sun.

The days have routines, mostly me driving busy children and feeding hungry children.

When the day comes to a close and I retire to my cozy room, I listen to the quiet interrupted only by the creaks of this very old house. Almost like that of  the wind blowing against an old ship at sea.