'A perfect heart-shaped stone Mom found out in my garden this spring.
Spring has been lovely,
and now we move into summer already. The oldest I've ever been and the fastest-moving year I've ever had, and I'm sure the two go together. I turned 42 last month, my older brother is only five years from 50, baby Bianca "graduated" kindergarten last week, "little" Dylanwho started kindergarten just yesterday has a girlfriend and is in high school this fall with his sister, a new niece or nephew is due any day now, I have been struggling for awhile now with what seems to be psoriatic arthritis, and all this to say time has been flying and I have been feeling old. Bianca's cat ↓ captures my wary watching of the seasons as they change. :)
'A thousand changes at work lately too, which have made for a stressful spring. As Lisa over at "Searching for a Balance" knows, balance isn't something you find once and cross off your to-do list, but instead something you have to re-find over and over every day. I found the below heart on a table at my workplace one night this spring and had to laugh. When a paper towel-piece heart randomly appears on a worktable, I have to take it as a reminder to "be still and know that [He is] God," right. So I adjust to the thousand new changes and plod onward.
And get a haircut that is way too short--where is my wild mass of curls!!!??!! GONE! I now have the smallest sprig of them, like an unruly paintbrush perched atop my head--
--then I find a heart in my hummus and chips and chill out a little more. Again.
I made it home around Mother's Day and Father's Day so got to see both my family and my roses--Louise Odier is in bloom this very week! ♥--and those things alone end this up-and-down June on a sweet note.
Heaven on earth! And the scent!! ♥ I made a small bouquet of these and my white Iceberg roses for my sister-in-law Sunday as she works her way through her final days of pregnancy. To her, the days are probably not moving along quickly enough.
'Another perfect heart Tuesday afternoon, this one as I was waiting for the bus back to the apartment post-visit home. And tomorrow, it will be summer. Ay yi yi.
A pink paper lantern on my parents' deck overlooks my little pink, white, and green garden in their yard. Only a few flowers are still in bloom now, but my white Iceberg rose is putting on its final show for the year this week.
Fall arrives in my garden now--my favorite season. What a world, what a world. . . .I wish us all the peace found in this tiny corner of the earth today.
Another favorite. Lily of the Valley blooms in pink and white--and Mom tells me I was once tickled to have discovered the pink variety, although I don't remember that at all and find the white so charming--throughout my garden. There is enough shade from the Maple tree just a few feet away to keep these beauties happy, although roses and other supposed sun-lovers have thrived in the spot too. The Lily of the Valley would likely take over--as much as such a tiny plant could, anyway--if Mom let it, but she tends to transplant some from my garden to hers every year, so that hasn't happened yet. What dear little flowers!
I missed this year's opportunity to see some of my beloved roses in-bloom by about two days: This is how Louise Odier looked as I was leaving my parents' home--where what remains of my dear old garden is, in a corner of their yard protected on one side by a wall of Dad's shed and on another by a wall of the deck--two weeks ago. Below is a shot of her in-bloom two Junes ago--
--and every time I look at it, I wonder why I didn't take at least a dozen more photos of it during this little photo-shoot. This one just makes me so happy, and it is so purely beautiful, that sometimes I look for other peoples' pictures of this rose just to satisfy that need to see something pretty. Look at some of these photos!♫ Ooh, Heaven is a place on earth. . . . ♪ I could weep at the beauty.
I missed my white Iceberg rose too and confess to having been tempted to peel down its [sepals, it seems, if I have learned the new word correctly] in order to see more of the precious petals before leaving. Last June's visit was timed to see at least one Iceberg open--
--and it did my soul good. Roses always do my soul good. :) And now I am remembering--and sounding like--Mary Ellen Walton proclaiming in The Homecoming, "I always feel better after I hug a cow." :) But. . .truly. ♥ I know you know.
Last night's Strawberry Moon was another I-was-kind-of-there-but-kind-of-missed-it this June. I saw the (full) moon, and as you can see in this stunning capture from the bathroom window, NASA won't be clamoring to study my photo of it anytime soon. :)
As it was last year, one of the treats of making a June visit to my parents' house was getting to see one of the roses in my garden there in-bloom. This visit, my white Iceberg was just beginning to open. 'Glad I got even these these pictures last Sunday because by Monday the rain had beat down the flowers.
I made it home to my parents' house for a warp-speed visit last week, and one of the non-family highlights of my short stay was getting to see my beloved rose Louise Odier in-bloom in my old garden for the first time since 2007. My spring visits home are usually over Easter and my May birthday, so I never get to see more than this beautiful rose's greenery anymore. Last week, though, the timing was perfect: Look at her! ♥ This was my favorite rose in my garden: Its color, its form, and its scent are all just Heaven-on-earth to me. The next time I'm blessed with any kind of garden space, this will be one of the first plants I find for it. Pure sweet beauty.
A gift from my friend Kent the week before Christmas, this pot of spring bulbs has begun blooming in the past couple weeks. For someone in Outside Gardening Withdrawal, a pot of pretty flowers in the windowsill is bliss. ♥
We had a day of near-70-degree weather this past week and now another couple inches of snow is on the ground. I am more than ready for spring. Especially because I had to leave my sweet little garden behind when I moved last fall, I am eager to see vivid colors outside again. Today is blindingly bright here, which is a wonderful change of pace, with the sunshine making all the snow sparkle, and I'll bundle up this afternoon in the many winter layers I am so tired of wearing and go for a long walk, but I am longing to see my beloved Daffodils sprouting up in yards all over town, to notice Forsythias and countless trees when they first start to turn their spring yellow-green, to smell heavenly Lilac bushes again, to watch Roses' blooms uncoil, and to feel cool grass under my bare feet again. I had a crying jag Thursday afternoon after spotting bulbs' shoots sprouting up in a neighbor's backyard on my walk home from work. I wanted so badly to be living in her tiny little house--one of the only tiny houses in the neighborhood, as all the rest are 3-or-more-floor Victorians converted into apartments--and making plans for that little yard. I wanted her soon-blooming flowers and her trees and her small back porch and her lawn chair and her bird houses. . . . I am happy here and Life is good in so many ways, but I miss my garden and I ache for the dream home I have wanted for so long.
My mom sent me a little "fun money" tucked into a letter yesterday and I will use a bit of it today to treat myself to a flower and a gardening magazine. And between chores today, I will daydream about my little pink and white cottage garden that I miss so much, and I will work on my visions for my next one--even if "bloom[ing] where [I'm] planted" in this case finds me beautifying my fire escape.
"I think that one must always be in love. To be in love with a person is, of course, ideal, but you can be in love with a flower, a tree, an idea. . . ."
~ Gloria Vanderbilt
"At any given moment, no matter where you are, there are hundreds of things around you that are interesting and worth documenting."
"Love is, above all, the gift of oneself." ~ Jean Anouilh
"Celebrate people who are in your life-- past and present, close by as well as far away. Thank everyone who contributes to your sense of well-being and joy, whether you know them personally or not. Every day, think of all the people who help make your life so rich and rewarding."
~ Alexandra Stoddard
"I'm not expecting to grow flowers in the desert,
But I can live and breathe and see the sun in wintertime."
~ "In a Big Country" by Big Country
"If you are any good at all, you know you can be better."
~ Lindsey Buckingham
"What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross ~
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee ~
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage."
~ Ezra Pound
"Let us make memories carefully of all good things, rejoicing in the wonderful truth that while we are laying up for ourselves the very sweetest and best of happy memories, we are at the same time giving them to others." ~ Laura Ingalls Wilder
"There are things you do because they feel right & they may make no sense & they may make no money & it may be the real reason we are here: to love each other & to eat each other's cooking & say it was good."
~ Brian Andreas
"There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing." ~ Lorraine Hansberry, A Raisin in the Sun
"Years ago, my mother used to say to me --she'd say, 'In this world, Elwood, you must be --' She always called me Elwood. 'In this world, Elwood, you must be oh, so smart or oh, so pleasant.' Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me."
~ Elwood P. Dowd in Mary Chase's play Harvey
"One of the things I learned the hard way was that it doesn't pay to get discouraged. Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life can restore faith in yourself." ~ Lucille Ball
"Until one has loved an animal, a part of one's soul remains unawakened." ~ Anatole France
"A house with Daffodils in it is a house lit up, whether or not the sun be shining outside." ~ A. A. Milne
"When something is too beautiful or too terrible or even too funny for words, then it is time for poetry."
"Keep away from people who belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great, make you feel that you too can become great." ~ Mark Twain ************
"Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid of standing still." ~ Chinese proverb
After My First 5K :)
During My First Half Marathon :)
~*~*~*~*~*~*~ * "Is life worth so much trouble?"
* "It depends what one wants in return."
~ Daughter to Student in The Ghost Sonata by August Strindberg ~*~*~*~*~*~*~
"Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot."
~ Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany's, spoken by Holly Golightly
"When we have sampled much and have wandered far and have seen how fleeting and sometimes superficial a lot of the world is, our gratitude grows for the privilege of being part of something we can count on—home and family and the loyalty of loved ones. We come to know what it means to be bound together by duty, by respect, by belonging."
~ Thomas S. Monson
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.
These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern.
Beautiful people do not just happen.”
~ Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, Death: The Final Stage of Growth
“How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in your life you will have been all of these.”
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