The Holiday Bed

Mike washed the bedding with his laundry Sunday night and surprised me by replacing our everyday pillowcases with our Christmas ones a couple weeks early.  I usually wait until Christmas Eve to put them on, but seeing these in bed has been surprisingly sweet this week. I'll add the sheets one of these days.  Yes, why not enjoy them all month.  ♥  I've mentioned before my dream of setting up my dining room--I don't HAVE a dining room, so this is very much a dream, you see--with an assortment of mismatched tables and chairs for holiday family dinners. . .a kids table with seasonal decorations and activities to keep little ones busy, a table for two in a window, a round table with overstuffed armchairs around it, etc., and I've always had the same dream of hosting family overnight around holidays.  'Different bedding in every room,

seasonal pillowcases and sheets no matter the season,

extra touches of throw pillows and stuffed toys that add a little fun and whimsy to guests' quarters,

 no matter the occasion or holiday--

--no matter the guests' ages, since we're never too old for sweetness and silliness, and methinks we need those things as we get older at least as much as we did when we were kids, if not even more-so--

and that make them stop and think, "Ah!  That's right!  It's [Easter, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Beach Week, Valentine's Day, whatever]!"  

And just to make them feel special.  ♥  That's no small thing. 

We have no extra bedroom here, nor even a couch, so this remains a "someday" dream, but I so enjoy daydreaming about these sweet little spaces I have yet to own.  Mom and Dad's guest room at Christmas would sport its share of red gingham, I'm sure, and likely some pillows of their children and grandchildren made from old Christmas photos.  'Their own tiny Christmas tree beside the bed.  (Mike laughs because Mom still does this for me every Christmas when I come home.  ♥)  Wherever all the kids would camp out, in beds and sleeping bags and chairs pushed together, a stocking filled with little treats would greet each of them in their spot in the morning. . . .Star pillows and star-patterned sheets for New Year's Eve sleepovers, gardening and bird-watching magazines fanned out on Aunt Laurie and Uncle Warren's bed during a springtime visit. . . .For various reasons, these visits and gatherings are unlikely to happen, but a dream is a precious thing, so I dream on and enjoy each one--and thank Mr. Mike for the taste of it we get here in reality in our own little apartment with each other.  ♥

And My Birthday Cake (Lilac Petals Cupcake)

My birthday fell the day before Mother's Day this year, making my weekend home even sweeter for both me and Mom.  Some years, we mail each other our cards and goodies, and other years, we just wait until we see each other to exchange gifts.  This time around, Mom made me my usual cheesecake--and the only cheesecake I've ever liked (with a chilled-not-baked filling of lemon gelatin, cream cheese, sugar, evaporated milk, and vanilla)--for Saturday night, and we all had leftovers of that and Mom's berries-and-flowers Mother's Day cake on Sunday, so by yesterday, a single cupcake back here at the apartment seemed like more than enough.  I froze a few Lilac petals I'd pulled from one of Mom and Dad's shrubs before leaving yesterday morning and they were still a pretty shade of lilac when thawed and sprinkled over the cupcake last night, but the camera refused to capture the color.  In any case, this was my tiny 39th birthday cake, a simple end to a sweet weekend and a pretty start to the last year of my thirties.  

A woman I spent some time talking with in my hometown bus station yesterday morning asked me if I was a student, and I was momentarily flustered by the question, answering clumsily, "Oh no, I'm out of school--Done with school.  I'm older.  I'll be 40 next year"--because I'm smooth like this in conversation, clearly (see:  Goals, cross-referenced with Val, Self-Improvement Needs of)  :)--and she exclaimed, "Forty!?  I was thinking maybe 24 if you were out of school!  Well!  Good for you!"  Noooo, thank youuuuuuuuu!  We talked some more, and it was part of an otherwise already-lovely kick-off to the year ahead.  Lisa and Cheryl, if I looked 39 or 40 or 45 to you in-person last month, let me have a week before you burst my bubble.  ;)

Last year's birthday wishes and goals included finishing a first draft of the 80s memoir I've been working on, and while I've written a lot, I learned early-on this past year that producing a rough draft by this May wasn't a realistic goal, so the work on that continues.  I continue to write, though, and I'm still walking my way back into running shape, dreaming of spending the morning of my 40th birthday finishing my first full marathon.  I have a lot of (gained, lost, and re-gained) weight to (re-)lose before then, and many miles to walk and then run before that day, but it remains the goal.  Here's to the year ahead.  

♥

38 and Dreaming (or A Cake I Decorated and a Book I'm Writing)

The computer went kaput before I could share my birthday cake here a couple weeks ago.  I seem to be regressing regarding birthday cakes, getting more of a kick out of them--my own and others'--the older I get:  Deciding on flavors, decorations, candles, and tablecloths for my birthday is a small thing I look forward to every spring now, although I didn't seem to pay much attention even in my early thirties.  The past few years, it's become a fun and reflective time for me, just as setting the table for Christmas breakfast before I go to bed on Christmas Eve has.  ♥

The high temperature on my birthday this year was a humid 84°, so I decided just to mix up some pink buttercream and frost a ready-made ice cream cake.  And after a few minutes of wandering the store with my why-did-I-take-it-out-of-the-freezer-case-before-I-finished-the-rest-of-my-shopping cake, I finally hit upon what I wanted to use as this year's cake topper:  A truffle decorated like a nesting doll.  Her dreamy expression and heart-shaped lips charmed me and seemed appropriate for this birthday. 

While the newly-frosted cake was refreezing, I used pink acrylic paint, a light coat of glue, and a sprinkling of white sanding sugar to doll up a couple grocery store candles.  I only keep candles in cakes long enough for the pictures anyway, so why not jazz them up for the few seconds they'll last.  I stuck toothpicks into the candles' bases to make it easier to poke them into the frozen buttercream.  

A few hours later. . .eating and wish-making with Mr. Mike.  Ohhh, I want to have driven a lot more before my next birthday, although without owning a car, the amount of driving practice depends on how often we rent one.   And I hope to remain in good health and get back into running shape in the next couple years.    My biggest goal and dream for the year ahead, though, is to have finished writing a full first draft of the memoir of my 1980s childhood that I've been working on rather sporadically the past few years.   Memories of my family, house, friends, street, neighbors, pets, and teachers from those years make me light up like nothing else.  The more I write, the more I remember, and while my family and I have many old photos, I've also kept all the diaries I've written since the fourth or fifth grade, and they are detailed treasure troves of memories:  TV show theme songs, conversations with my parents, class projects, Christmas and birthday wishlists, first-day-of-school outfits, board games played with my brothers, paperbacks ordered from the school book order flyers, the athletes that thrilled and inspired during the Olympics, the first cassette tapes I ever owned, even a drawing of the view from my bedroom window circa 1987.  It is time to put all my notes and paragraphs together and get a rough draft finished.  At least a few of you here are published writers, and I hope my own dream of getting the memoir published as book comes true before too long.  

My family moved out of my childhood home in late 1988, when I was eleven-and-a-half, and I feel drawn to it like a magnet lately.  I haven't visited it since the day we moved, and I've always dreamed of it almost abnormally often, but even more-so this past year.  The night of Mike's dad's funeral in March, while we were staying at his parents' house, I had what began as a beautiful dream that my dad and I had gone together to visit our former street.  Oh, how I loved our little street!  It was a short no-outlet hill of a street hosting only seven homes.  And our former house!  I have loved few things in my life the way I loved that house.  I was so excited that I was about to see it all again, and Dad was humoring me.  As we turned the car up the short little hill, I was horrified to see that the street now looked like London's after the Blitz.  There was just enough of each house still standing to make it clear which one was which.  "My God," Dad kept saying, and remembering his voice even now hurts my heart.  I told him I wanted to walk around what was left of the house, and he said he'd seen enough and would wait for me outside.  I made my way into what had been our kitchen, and the dream got worse from there and soon ended, one of the worst nightmares I've ever had.  I was shaking when I awoke, and I'd somehow woken Mike with my fitful sleep during the dream.  "Tonight of all nights," I asked him, "Why would I have to dream something so horrible?"  Because his dad had just died?  Because I was thinking of my own?  Because with the death of one parent, that 80s childhood seemed especially Long Ago and Far Away and finishing the memoir felt that much more urgent?  All of the above, I'm sure, but the timing was cruel.  It took a long time that night to shake the feeling that I really had just been on that ravaged, silent street with Dad.  Four days after the funeral and nightmare, I dreamed that a woman asked me if she could publish my memoir.  "Yes, PLEASE!" I practically shouted in response.  Yes, I'm paying attention, Universe, and I'm connecting the dots. 

While I was home a couple weeks ago, I told Mom how much I wanted to visit "our" street, but from the glimpse of the house visible in the distance as we passed the hill, we could see the current owner in the driveway, and that wasn't the visit I wanted.  I will explore it all on my next visit, home, though, Current Owner in the Driveway or not, because it feels more necessary all the time, like I'm being pushed or pulled there.  

Before I left this last time, the subject of my sixth-grade science fair project came up while I was talking with my dad, and he said again, as he did a couple years ago, "I think now that those were the best years.  All you kids were still little, and Mum and Dad were still alive, and we were going to Ocean City every summer. . . ."  And this time when he said it, just like the first time he'd said it, I choked up at his words, and I wished more than ever that I could whip a hardcover copy of my memoir out from under the picnic table and say, "I think those were the best years too.  Here's a book I wrote about it."  The memoir really is, after all, a love letter to my parents.  Thirty-eight begins, then, with not only dreaming, but also writing.  What else could have topped my cake this year but a dreaming brunette with love on her lips?!  Surely, things are unfolding just as they should here, with death, nightmare, dream, conversation, and cake topper each showing up as they did.  Surely, my dream too can come true.  By the time I share my next birthday cake, I hope to tell you that I have a finished piece I can start submitting--however-many submissions it takes--for publication.   And oh!  Please, please let me have my handing-Mom-and-Dad-their-copies-of-my-book moment. 

♥

My Dream Braided Rug (or Bargaining FAIL)

Click to enlarge.  ♥

While Mike watches football tonight, I've escaped to the bedroom to glue all the magazine clippings I've saved lately--mostly decorating ideas, some outfits, some quotes, a few recipes, some home/life tips--into my inspiration scrapbooks.  In tonight's pile of saved clippings is this page I printed and mailed to my mom in the summer of 2010.  I had found--well, seen--my dream rug on eBay and saved the seller's photos to show her.  If you click the above photo, you'll better understand my heartache at not being able to "Buy It Now" this rug.  Ah!  It is perfect for me--and a whopping 10' around so is the perfect size for under my table.  ♥  Mom had saved this page with some of her mail and gave it back to me when I was home in November.  Seeing the rug photos again makes me swoon, and rereading my note now makes me laugh. 

The eBay seller had listed a "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping costs, but had set up the auction so it began at nothing and included the "Make me an offer" option.  I thought I would be crafty--I thought I actually had a SHOT at this gorgeous rug (poor naive little Val)--so I made an offer of forty dollars, thinking that the seller would say (s)he couldn't go lower than $250 or so, I'd make a counter-offer of $100, we'd settle on $150 or $200--prices that struck me as fair--and I'd ride off into the sunset on my magic rug.  I was already imagining the rug under my round gingham tablecloth-covered table,  Stuffed curled up in all his black and white glory on the colorful braids, patchwork cushions on the chairs, red Geraniums as a table centerpiece, and Holly Hobbie herself eating her heart out over this perfect, perfect rug.  On this wave of braided bliss, I confidently submitted my offer of $40.  The seller pulled my magic rug out from under me when (s)he wrote back, just seconds later, "I think you meant to add another zero to that."

My heart!  It's so silly--we're talking about a RUG, just a rug--but it still hurts.  The seller expected a STARTING offer of $400?!  Gah!  And why sellers don't just start the bidding at whatever they deem the lowest acceptable price to be instead of using the vague "Make-me-an-offer" tactic, I don't know.  I'd have never gotten my hopes up if I'd known the bidding was to start so high.  My heart, my heart!  I watched the eBay listing each day hoping that maybe the seller would lower the "Buy It Now" price or put it on sale at some point, since I couldn't imagine anyone would bid on this beautiful rug at those prices anyway, but--no.  Once when I checked it, the auction was updated as having sold--to a buyer who had simply bought it for the full "Buy It Now" price of $850 plus shipping.  And to think I had made a starting bid of $40!  Ha!  And moreover:  Someone out there has this sweet rug!  Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  I hope it is well-loved and is admired every day, I hope there is a cat or dog cozily curled-up and napping on it right this minute, and I hope I myself find another just like it someday.  If I had enough space to work on one, I might, but I also wonder if, if I even had the work-space, by the time I'd buy enough materials to make a rug this size, if it wouldn't add up to a lot more than I'd want to spend on just one item anyway.  I don't know.  In the meantime, I keep the photos and my note in one of my inspiration scrapbooks and hope for "someday."  And I think:  Forty dollars!?!  HA!  Val, Val, Val.  :)

Two Days Before Thanksgiving

If counting my blessings counts as being in the Thanksgiving swing of things, I'm all set, but the thought of decorating a table and baking pies from scratch isn't delighting me this year the way it usually does.  We bought pies--BOUGHT! pies, and Maple-leaf-shaped cookies, to boot--but we have my homemade fudge and my mother-in-law's homemade sugar cookies too.  I'll get home from work around 8:00 Thanksgiving morning and will have to sleep at least a few hours while Mike begins the food.  Maybe by afternoon when I get up and smell the turkey and whatever-else-he's-started, I'll feel more jazzed-up for pretty-table-setting and cute-dessert-making, but in the meantime, it seems good enough--more than good, really, and more than enough--simply to be grateful for the meal and the time with Mike.  I spent Thanksgiving at work and then alone last year, after all.  

This past weekend, Mike rented a car to make the trip to see his family back home, where they had eighteen inches of snow, and returned yesterday before the storm hit us.  My own family, baby Bianca now included,  ♥ will gather for their dinner Thursday afternoon but all live within about twenty minutes of each other, so I don't have to worry about any of them driving or flying a long distance in the snow this week.  Ideally, Mike and I could be here, there, and everywhere for Thanksgiving, but work schedules and weather issues equal a table for two this year.  Opposite work schedules and a frugal and car-less life mean we've only ever spent one holiday with each other's family--Easter 2008 with mine--so our holidays are not quite what I wish they could be, obviously, but I have really learned to appreciate the time I do have with Mike and with my loved ones, and regardless of how or when or with whom I spend the holidays, I always know I'm blessed.  Still, my dream dining room for years has been one large enough that I can keep it set up restaurant dining room-style year-round, with a round dinner table with comfy chairs and high chairs for any babies, a long Waltons-style wooden dinner table with benches at either side, a square table with more painted chairs seats, a couple overstuffed wing chairs at a table for two, maybe a high-backed restaurant booth in a window, and a Pottery Barn Kids catalog-style kids table with sweetness and color in abundance.  I've had this vision for my future dining room for years, and someday, someday, I hope to make it happen and enjoy the sight of both our families gathered in this crazy room catching up with each other in all its mismatched chairs and over all the mismatched vintage tablecloths.  I can picture it so clearly, it's like it's already happened and is an actual memory.  It makes my heart ache, I want it so. 

We are supposed to have nine inches of snow by Thursday morning.  I walked around the neighborhood taking pictures last week before the last of this year's vibrant leaves were snowed-over and took a few more pictures this morning while Mike and I walked to the store for our Thanksgiving groceries.  I love this time of year.  One of the news shows played a recent segment from "Saturday Night Live" in wich one of the cast members ran around Manhattan screaming, "Take down the Christmas decorations!  THANKSGIVING'S FIRST!  It's not time for all that yet!  THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  Mike and I laughed like loons over that and have yelled it at each other a few times since seeing it.  While walking home from work one morning last week, I noticed the city had put up its giant Christmas candle lamppost decorations along the streets overnight, and I thought of Mike and the skit and laughed again.  "THANKSGIVING COMES FIRST!"  What a beautiful time of year. 

Table and Chairs and Other Gifts of Ordinary Days

My parents and I went to a flea market Saturday afternoon, and after two hours of looking around, just as I reached the place where the three of us were all to meet up and head back to the car, I saw this great green table and its four matching heavy oak chairs. At this point in the day, I had $5 in my pocket, so I knew there was no way I'd be buying it, and yet. . . .I wanted this set as soon as I saw it. Sometimes things just hit you a certain way, and this was one of those times. There was just something about the set--I could imagine Mike and I eating cinnamon rolls at this chipped green table on some on some future cold Christmas morning, I could see my parents sitting down with us for a simple summer garden meal on these four flowered chairs, I could see the table in a kitchen we don't even yet have with a terracotta pot of red Geraniums on its center. . . .I just wanted this, and $5 in my pocket or not, I couldn't imagine leaving it behind. I actually had tears in my eyes as I looked at the hand-painted flowers and examined each of the chairs.

I talked with the flea market booth vendor/owner about the set and told him I really wanted it and was just figuring out how to handle it. He said he'd go down on the price by $40, which made it even sweeter, and then he said something I don't remember about the price, and I had to laugh and tell him, "I'm not playing hardball with you! I have $5 on me right now! But I want this, and I'll figure it out. Let me find my parents and see what we can do." I found my dad first, and we went over to the booth to look at the set again. My dad could see why I was charmed by it. We left again to find my mom and returned with her. As my parents checked out the table and chairs together, the man told me I looked just like his granddaughter in Myrtle Beach--"You even have the same hair!"--and said if we could put a little down on it, he'd hold it for us that night and we could pick it up Sunday. I said, "Would you hold it for $5?!" expecting him to laugh, but he said, "I would. I know you really want it, so for you, I would." 

I promised the man my dad and I would be back in the morning to pick it up. I found an ATM that evening to get the cash and could hardly believe I had gone to the flea market expecting to find maybe some fabric or the usual flea market who-knows-what and had instead ended up with furniture. 

My dad and I made the trip back to the flea market the next morning, Dad wondering out loud if he'd be able to fit all the chairs into the back of the car or if he'd have to call one of my brothers to help. I had baked chocolate chip cookies the night before and had some wrapped up and tied with a red-wired bow to give to the flea market booth owner. It was supposed to be another rainy day, but the weather held until later that afternoon.

When we found the booth again, we saw that the man had already taken the table apart for us--it has two extra leaves--and had it all ready to go. He helped my dad load it all into the car, he thanked me for the cookies, and he shook my hand when I offered it and told me to enjoy the table and chairs. An incredibly nice man. I hope he's still in business when I finally have this all set up in some future new home, as I'd really love to send him a picture. 

When we got home and unloaded it all from the car, I took these pictures, sent a few to Mike, and oohed and ahhed over the set some more. The green! The flowers! The carvings! The curvy shape! The black leather seats! The weight of each piece! The incredible deal I'd gotten on it! I was just so tickled.  When I got out of the shower later that night and said goodnight to my dad, who was still up watching TV, he said, "Good night" then gestured toward the TV and said, "They got that Bin Laden." Pajamas on and hair wrapped in a towel, I grabbed a blanket and curled up on the couch while Dad stayed in his chair, and we watched the news and then the President's address together, near-silent for the next hour or so. What was there to say? How many thousands of people did not get to enjoy a carefree flea market weekend in early May, or share another visit with their parents, or enjoy a cinnamon roll and flowers at a table with the one they married? And how many protect us every day so that we might be able to live the table-and-Geranium-filled lives we so love? I doubt I will ever sit in one of these chipped chairs to enjoy a meal or see a loved one pull up to the hand-painted table without uttering a thankful prayer. 
 

The Easter Spider

Every Easter morning, while Mike is momentarily busy with something, The Easter Spider visits. (Spider-Man-loving Mike would not, of course, be visited by a bunny.) This morning while Mike went outside to get the paper, the Easter Spider left behind Mike's traditional peanut butter candy-filled basket, and this time, treat of treats: It included a duck! How did he know that Mike wants a pond filled with ducks and can't yet have one? :)

Happy Easter to you all. ♥

Be Still, My Heart!

While looking for something online this morning, I came across a picture of a set of old playing cards with this unbelievably accurate drawing of me and Mike's dream home on one side.  It's a tiny maybe-one-story house! With a fishing pond! And ducks for Mike! And cats and dogs! Rounded window/frame above the door! Cobblestone path! An apple tree like the one in Great-Grandma's yard! A big old mailbox up on a pole! Shutters AND a window box! There are even Cattail plants edging the pond! A few years ago, Mike and I were emailing back and forth, and I sent him another one of my dream home pictures along with the following email:

Now, picture yourself on the (bigger-than-this) front porch in a comfy chair with a pillow behind you and your feet up, reading the newspaper to Stuffed--you underestimate him: he's probably quite interested --and looking up every now and then to watch Rowlf/Buster/Buckingham patrol the grounds. The scent of apple pie is wafting out to you from the kitchen, and the honeybees are (at a safe distance! and) buzzing around the flowers and their boxes. A better-than-water-beverage is at your feet. Our pet groundhog  is chasing squirrels. Your girl lounges beside you, happy happy happy....Can you dig it?

He wrote back "Let's make it happen." And bit by bit, one Craigslist-acquired-wing-chair and Daffodil-bulb-from-a-friend at a time, we are. I'll save the new picture-find for inspiration and take it as a sign that we're on track here. ♥

His House Was Perfect....

"His house was perfect,
whether you liked food, or sleep,
or work, or story-telling,
or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best,
or a pleasant mixture of them all."
 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

Although I've found myself loving many of the quotations from A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories over the years and understand the charm of the characters and their (mis)adventures, I've never read the books or felt any urge to do so. While looking for something cottage/decorating-related online the other day, though, I came across two illustrations by E.H. Shephard's that depict Pooh's home, and oh! my! goodness! It's like someone was poking inside my mind and drew the exact picture Of Val's Dream Home (s)he'd found there. Ever see a photo so "you" that you ache to jump right into it? I could happily and most contentedly live in these illustrations, and indeed, I kept thinking things like "Hey, I have that quilted patchwork pillow!" "I already have those tablecloths!" "That looks just like my stool from Papa and Grandma's house!" "That's my pink floral wing chair slipcover!" "There are the brick floor...the pink/yellow wallpaper... the cupboard for canned goods I've always wanted!" Who knew Winnie-the-Pooh and I share the same dream home?

I learned five days ago the titles of the specific books these illustrations came from, and in the strange way these things tend to happen, I stumbled upon both books at a thrift shop after work today. So now I head to bed to read, at long last, Milne's stories and to squeal over more of Shepard's sweet depictions of my colorful little "someday" cottage.  
 

Bee Boxes

My grandfather, my beloved Papa, kept honey bees in a few bee boxes in his and Grandma's yard. I wasn't as interested in all of that while my grandparents were alive as I am now, and I wish I had been: I want to keep bees someday too, and while I will learn the how-to when I need to, I wish I had the memories of having learned all about beekeeping firsthand from Papa. I would watch the bees from a safe distance as some exited the boxes and others flew toward them, and I was fascinated by the design of the honeycombs Papa would bring into the kitchen--the honeycombs are edible, although my parents still wince when they tell the tale of the time Papa bit into a honeycomb and ended up swallowing a live bee--but I didn't pay attention to the actual honey-gathering. While helping my parents clear out my grandparents' house in 2001, we came across an old instructional booklet on beekeeping, and I was shocked to realize that Papa hadn't always known how to do this either--that he too had been interested and had had to learn from others. There is comfort in that knowledge for me.

My very last visit to my grandparents' house about a month after they had died, I waffled for an hour over whether to disassemble the bee boxes and pack them into the car to take with me, but I ultimately decided to leave them behind. I didn't want the bee boxes unless I could also have the sloped part of the yard they had always sat on, near where my childhood Beagle was gently buried by Papa, across from the raspberry bushes and tomato plants and flower gardens, feet away from Papa's thinking tree. . . . I didn't want to keep the bee boxes unless I could also keep Papa and Grandma's yard and house and Papa and Grandma always inside. I sometimes think I should have taken the bee boxes after all, though, and just lived with the heartache of their missed surroundings. I don't know.

Papa and Grandma and their bee boxes and their jars of fresh honey are all on my mind tonight as I keep adding store-bought honey to hot tea as I battle a cold, and also because I had a sad dream about my grandparents last night. I have dreamed of them only a handful of times since they died in the spring of 2001, and most of those dreams have been nightmares like last night's. I miss Papa and Grandma so much, and part of me will never believe that if I knocked on their door right now, they wouldn't open it and welcome me inside. Ah, Life. I am so blessed just to have had a "Papa and Grandma" at all, and I will someday have another happy dream of them, and I believe there will eventually be a reunion. Papa and Grandma missed people they had loved, as well, there are still bees out there traveling back and forth from boxes to flower gardens, and life goes on. 

I never had any other desire so strong, and so like covetousness, as that...I might be master at last of a small house and a large garden. ~ A. Crowley

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.

♥