A few weeks ago, I realized that I was looking forward to spring. Sometimes, after a warm winter, spring just heralds the onset of warmer weather with hot to follow. Not so this year! Winter past was actually cold! The serious chill settled in sometime in November and with the exception of a holiday thaw, it has continued cold (relatively, of course) until the last few days. We even got *snow*! On March 1st!
I love winter and its home comforts, but it feels good to feel content near the end of a favorite season. I'm so grateful for seasons. They are a lovely gift from God -- change in His time.
So, it's been with pleasure that I've seen that there’s just “something” about the slant of the sun through my southern windows lately. The robins have been busy for awhile. Some of our early bulbs have already started to fade, but we’ve enjoyed some daffodils and hyacinths, and the azaleas are getting started. It’s beginning to look a lot like spring!
What have I been looking forward to? The warmth, and the flowers, and the soft colors. There have already been some seasonal blessings. And, I have little ideas & plans budding -- tiny things, but pleasant, fresh, & pretty!
- I've had the misty impression that spring was all tied up with grace and femininity this year …
I pulled out a creamy freesia body wash, good for both winter-dried skin and a spring-ish craving for florals! I’ve splurged a few dollars on some lavender scrub and a fresh bottle of clear polish for my nails. My mother treated to some thrift store finds of pretty blouses, modestly cut, with lovely details; and, just for fun, a Belvah bag, new with tag and crisp “dotty” bow. - February's classic novels, like Death Comes for the Archbishop, Robinson Crusoe, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, have given way to the current “bit a' fluff” (a light perspective of Pride & Prejudice). I think, though, that what I’m
craving now is Wives & Daughters. Past experience with Mrs. Gaskell’s novels says that it will be gentle, substantive, romantic, and very satisfying. And, its pretty pink cover seems "just right." :)
- And, there’s the garden, of course! The ever-self-refreshing “to-do” list this week includes planting some seedlings for the summer garden. Drew has given me a little "greenhouse" seed starter set just for that purpose. After necessities were purchased on Saturday morning, we treated ourselves to a trip to Lowe’s garden center, and felt so blessed when we left! My mother came home with two beautiful specimens of Navajo thornless blackberries -- the type she’d been wanting for years! We also came home with some extra catnip plants, one of the great delights of the fur-babies’ lives. And, there are a few pretty basil plants for me to try propagating-by-rooting.
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone; The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land;
Song of Solomon 2:10-12
"There is a tendency, I think, on the part of those of us who are well fed, clothed, and housed to imagine that the needy people to whom Jesus refers in Matthew 25 are people we don't know -- the sort of people who are served at homeless shelters and soup kitchens, at which we ought therefore to volunteer at least occasionally. But housework is all about feeding and clothing and sheltering people who, in the absence of that daily work, would otherwise be hungry and ill-clad and ill-housed."
