F is for flowers.

As I work through the first days of this project, I am finding myself focusing on the Letter of the Day. Yes, we watch a lot of Sesame Street around here. We started our day with Abby's Flying Fairy School. What to write about? Today, the answer was in the mail.

 I have to say that this is not my photo. Why take a picture when another can speak for itself? Especially when the picture is on the front page of a gardening catalog that was in the mailbox when we came home from preschool today. 

I contemplated taking my laptop to the coffee shop today, to do my writing while Lily was in school, but I wasn't organized enough this morning to have it ready. I didn't have coffee before we left, and I'm lucky that I managed to get matching socks on without my caffeine. 

This is the time of year that starts to get me down. Christmas is over, decorations are put away, and there is not much to look forward to except spring. A spring that seems very far away. Especially after one has just spend $10 at the car wash to scrape a months worth of grime, salt and slush off the car. It's bright and sunny and above 0 today, so it was a good day to wash it without having to worry whether or not I would be able to get in or out due to frozen locks and doors.

I love my garden. It's my haven, my stress release and my oasis. From the moment the snow melts enough to see my lawn, the garden is my focus. I shovel the last of the snow onto my perennial flower beds and around the trees, rake the grass and start planning what to add, what to move and where, which plants to take to my mom's garden and which ones to steal trade from hers. Last year my parents gave me a fountain for Christmas, and I redid part of the back yard beds and added in some paving stones to widen my sidewalk a bit. With the city redoing the streets and sidewalks out front, I had an opportunity to enlarge the front flower beds without doing any digging, as they re-landscaped 6 feet up from the new sidewalks. 

What I love most is that Lily loves the garden too. We gave her a great name, as she is a mini-me in the garden. All my kid needs is a bucket, a shovel, a pile of dirt and some water from the hose. She can amuse herself for hours while I weed and dig and move plants. When gardening, our motto is "As dirty as you want to be." And we do get dirty. If we had a larger house, I would have a mudroom, just for us. 

According to wikianswers, there are only (!) 81 days until the first official day of spring. Bring it on please!

Project 365-6