Flowers in Spring

Spring. For me means so many different things, but the thought, the picture that stays in my mind when I imagine spring after a long winter it is the first sight of a crocus or daffodil - that is spring's real statement of new life which is a totally new beginning.

Spring can be wonderfully gaudy in those new beginnings, or like when it first begins can be delicate and pastel and simple. Unlike the profusion of life in summer, spring can actually have many faces, and all new starts for that year's new season.

My paternal grandmother as she aged made a celebration of each decade of her life by doing something out of the ordinary for an "old" person. One decade she took up diving, one she took up snowshoeing but whatever she took on, she challenged herself to physically and mentally stretch. In her later years golf was one of those challenges and she always read volumes to keep up on an ever changing world. This seemed to her to be the way to the real fountain of youth.

I have taken up that same challenge - but in my own way. From this day forward I will try to find something new and lovely about life and myself with each new spring. I certainly won't wait for a new decade since I want to cherish all that I have in this life of mine. Like the flowers every spring I will stretch to touch those different and new things and embrace them.

Grandma C, here's to you and your every growing love for new beginnings!!

The Times They Are a Changin'

Hopes of spring are the center of attention in our area right now. We have some early spring flowers, but are a bit stuck in the "almost spring" weather. That is we're 40s and sometimes 50s during the day, and freezing temps still at night. The grays and browns are everywhere - though the grass is a bit greener, finally. I'm ready for spring...but not quite ready for summer!

Changing Seasons

It’s that time of year for changes for us here in the North. It began with a bit of cold that pushed its way through the warm screen door and sent summer scurrying further South. At first because of the dry summer I wasn’t sure if we would have our normal colorful fall but some of the trees have exploded with reds so it finally is fall here.

Many here aren’t into fall and winter but I love those seasonal changes. I grew up where those seasons were celebrated by some, though we have our share of snow birds. But the fall and winter are great fun for me even though I have to live in layers. Playing in the leaves can be so much fun with anyone under the age of 6! And there’s nothing like the snow to make snow angels, or snowmen with. (Does anyone remember the snowmen Calvin built in Calvin and Hobbes?)

The seasons are all fun…and your perspective on them is everything!!

Frost, and It's Love/Hate Relationship with Summer

Frost. It covers the grass with a thick coating of white and when you walk through it you can see the path as if you'd walked down a sandy beach.

This morning it sparkled on the grass and surrounding plants like a light snow fall. What really stood out this morning in the frost were the huge leaves of my morning glories who as the sun hit them withered and turned a dark wet green and were almost brown by the end of the day.

I find I love the changes from one season to another. They are so like life, but they bud, bloom and dies so quickly in one season of summer. From that promising first bloom, to the loss of the petals seems so short but the beauty stays and lingers in my life through the pictures I take, and those that haunt my mind throughout the white that comes with winter. The colors linger like the taste that is rolled around on your tongue to hold that wonderful flavor over and over again.

So enjoy the colors and the tastes that explode in the summer. Hold those colors close in those dark days of winter. That's a way to keep summer alive the whole year through.