When the buds unfurl, when the pear trees blossom, as the lilacs burst forth in their purple glory, when the grass grows green and the gardening bug bites, you can bank on it:
some freak winter storm will zoom through the valley in a mix of wet and white, create a rush on milk, eggs and toilet paper, and break the branches on our flowering trees, generally creating havoc.
Never you mind that we always need that moisture in these arid parts. By this late date I just want to be living in flip-flops!
Shame on you, Home Depot and Lowes, for enticing shoppers with those tender tomato plants and petunias.
People, dear friends, do not be deceived by this. Wait until after Mother’s Day to plant petunias, zinnias, squash, beans, tomatoes, and cukes! Wait, I say, waaaait!
April 28, and the forecast is rainy mixed with snow = heavy, wet slush. There go my lilacs, darn it!
I have now claimed this day to actually, indeed, collage my thoughts. Aren’t you the lucky one?
Thursdays are good. I like Thursdays. I was born on a Thursday and even though “Thursday’s child has far to go,” and there couldn’t be a more accurate assessment of almost any particular day of my life (I love lists and yet, my list is never done), Thursdays, in general, are quite nice. It’s like ~ the bulk of the week is behind us, the beauty of a weekend ahead, but there is still hope everything will get done, wrapped up, finis. It probably won’t, but on Thursday? The possibility seems obtainable. *sigh
Plus, I pre-school Amelie Belle on Thursdays and each Third Thursday, monthly – I get to see my Supper Club peeps.
And, it’s spring.
Oh, how I have longed for you, sweet spring.
“Is the spring coming?” he said. “What is it like?”…
“It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine…” ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
Brought to you by the number 4
Amelie Belle turns 4 in a few days. So today we did lots of “4” activities. We baked cakes, we painted, we danced, we traced letters and free-styled some art, we taped and glued and sang and read 2 books and counted and reviewed shapes.
I am learning so much in pre-school! :)
“Holy Grounds”
“…and the sound of a stirring rod batting powdered cream into a small quantity of coffee…”
I read this hilarious blog post about all the weak, barely-brown, super-hot, white Styrofoam cups of coffee we church types have consumed in fellowship halls, foyers and church basements for, lo, these many years. But the writer sees something more there:
“It’s a material appearing of the Church universal, a visible sign of our invisible communion with one another and with God himself. I can walk into any fellowship hall, head for the refreshments table, and mix myself a sweetened milky-brown cup of coffee that puts me in touch with millions of believers around the world as they gingerly sip the same drink.” -Martyn Jones
I know I have cupped many a white Styrofoam vessels of coffee among the saints, left my own fingernail imprints about the rim, and maybe even spilled some on the indoor-outdoor carpet of questionable color, purchased for just such occasions. It is bland, but it is the cup of fellowship, week in and week out. READ HERE
THEN my daughter Stephanie sent me this
An even funnier blog post about how to tell if you were raised by religious parents (directed at my kids’ generation). I was terrified to read it because I feared I might find myself as a parent in there. Well, I totally did! I laughed until I cried, though, and then read it to Dave and laughed even more. He lists 21 possible tell-tell signs and we may or may not have been guilty of 19…or so. {CLICK HERE}
5. Every time you heard a loud rumble of thunder in the middle of the night you thought it was The Rapture.
6. If you grew up in Church of God, your college options were either Lee University or Lee University.
12. The only R rated movie you were ever allowed to watch was The Passion of the Christ.
13. You had a cassette tape labeled “Michael W. Smith” but it was actually an MC Hammer mix tape because you would never be allowed to listen to that.
I totally saw my childhood C of G tribe imprint in this list…And, it is kind of amazing my own kids turned out. Haha.
The Kelley kids on keyboard
Where have all the flowers gone?
What the ever-loving heck? Why can I open a name-brand bag of frozen, chopped broccoli and find only 5 or 6 small-sized florets with a huge pile of broc-stalks? I realize broccoli has stalks, I just refuse to believe that I am paying for only 5 or 6 small florets of broccoli. And dang the corporate executive who thought that since I was buying a bag of stalks anyway, I should just as well get some below-the-stalk pithiness, too! I am not a woodchuck and don’t like gnawing my greens. I don’t have all day to masticate, people! The lesson: BUY FRESH!
My Super-Power: Leveling
When I am sitting up straight, completely straight as far as I can tell, my head is sort of leaning to the left. It just is. I was actually born with this totally bent-neck-head thing and they corrected my newborn-neck with sand bags on either side of my head and me screaming for hours. I don’t like anything pinning my down now, either. So, I am crooked.
My whole life, photographers would say: straighten your head. When I told them it was, they’d “manually” adjust me and it would feel like I was going to fall over on my right side. I’d lose all perspective. It feels so wrong.
Somehow in spite of this “leaning” challenge, I can tell if something is level to within a 16th of inch. It is true. I can be walking down a hallway, 40 feet away, see a group of men hanging a poster, satisfied that they have just perfected it, and tell them exactly how far off it is – and which direction – to within a 16th of an inch, no kidding. Boom! No one likes me around when there are posters to be hung.
What does this particular super-power mean in my everyday life? That I have to walk through every room of my house daily and try to ignore the things on my walls, because every. single. thing. is. slightly. OFF. But in totally different directions. Jesus, have mercy on me! Makes me crazy!
Sometimes a super-power just doesn’t pay.
The picture I wasn’t going to show.
Because: Amelie = adorable. All of the pictures in the background = crooked.
Amelie and her baby “Emily” in Estes Park, Memorial Day Weekend
True story: So, two little girls run in to see their Nonni~
A beautiful morning in May, two little darlings come bounding through the house and into the kitchen, breathless with excitement.
“I have something for you, Nonna. I have money for you,” the big sister tells me.
“What? You have money for me? What’s this?” I ask them with complete surprise and total awe at their cuteness.
“I have money for you, too,” the little one exclaims.
The first 5 grandbebes on the patio at a family celebration, mid-May
They both open their bags and pull out tiny coin purses, whereupon the older sister beamingly presents me with 10 pennies, lined up one by one, and tiny girl carefully adds her 4 pennies, as well.
“This money is for you, Nonna!”
They repack their bags and set off on their merry way. They are so generous, so loving, so sweet. And I am rich! The interest is compounding daily. I am loaded with benefits and treasure. I have 8 grandbebes and I am made of this stuff. :)
I love May.
Every May without fail, Tara has a birthday, Stephanie has a birthday and Gemma May does, too. The grandbebes have lots of cute school programs, there is Mother’s Day and usually some one is pregnant (this year that is Tredessa). The final frost date finally arrives in May and you can go into a gardening frenzy. The skies seem unusually blue this fifth month of each year and of course the green is that intoxicating shade of “spring” as new leaves unfurl and floofy, wildly-hued prom dresses get packed away while flowers in every dazzling color from here to heaven and back take their places and begin to bud and blossom with abandon.
May is sunny. May is new leaves fluttering in gentle breezes, really enthusiastic rains washing away the meandering Colorado winters, rainbows, crazy-gorgeous clouds quickly moving by, colorful sunsets that rival Maui and the beginning of lemonade season.
Cornhole! Happy Birthday, Tara! Amelie loves it!
May is a soft shade of yellow and a bright-sky blue. It is lush, sky-watered grass and all the windows and doors flung wide. It is kids counting the days until school is out and then wanting to go back to play in the school yard when it is out. No rules! It’s hearing the neighbors you didn’t hear all winter and graduations and weddings and baseball in full swing.
May is for expressing possibilities {I just may do that} and relishing long days that you thought had actually been swallowed up by long nights. But here they are again, May days.
I was strolling through the park one day
In the merry-merry month of May
I was taken by surpise by a pair of roguish eyes
In that moment my heart was stolen away
Warning {roguish eye picture ahead}
The black eye is pretty much gone now. I have lots more wrinkles there from all the swelling. I hope they will go away. Seriously. But I shall always remember I had my first (hopefully last) real shiner in May 2013.
Cousins.
Oh, May, how I hate to see you go. Thank-you for the the green, the new life, the sunshine, the rain, the hope, the promise and the lovely month, year after year. Good-bye, merry-merry month of May.
Come, thou long-awaited spring – decided proof that life goes on. Bare branches, having lost all great glory as winter overcame resolve and strength waned, have waited {working so much harder to dig in deeper than can be fathomed} and now bud to give birth to glorious leafy-green life. The brittle-dead fields are shedding that golden debris-blanket in strong March winds where green shoots have quietly emerged unseen, looking heavenward. The tulips pop up and then out, the birdsong gets sweeter.
Come, spring ~ release us from heavy garments of mourning, from the dry burlap and twine of packed-away hopes to sun-warmed dreams as big as the cloudless blue-sky. Let the seeds of desire and vision, though dropped barely {breath-held} hopeful into the black soil of despair, now ~ softened in the unseen tomb of dark ground and cold night ~ spring forth with gladness. Life does go on, life is renewed in the spring rains via sorrowful tears. So, come spring.
O spring, how grand the hope you bring, we look for you, we count the days, we hold onto promise barely, our anticipation growing. And then, the crystal-blue light of the freshest of sunrises, a cloudless daybreak, diamond-dew on new grass catches the morning sun and sends it glistening back to You. We are loaded in daily grace, divine benefits – veritably dripping in treasure.
All my springs*, O Lord, are in You. All my springs, my seasons, my days, my hours, my minutes, my wretched body-soul-and-spirit, all of my life and new life, all life abundant, my past, my future, but mostly my today – this minute – all of it is in You, by You, for You and because of Your faithfulness. I thank-You, Lord for the spring which vigorously compels me to concede that letting go or giving up what was cannot deplete nor diminish what will be…
Come now, spring. Fully, finally. Faithfully.
And for fun:
Winter has passed. This must be baseball… :)
*Psalm 87.7 NKJV
Both the singers and the players on instruments say,
Who loves Picnik.com? I do. I do. It is like Photoshop for dummies. I just use the free version to change exposure and crop and add effects like vignettes or 1960s coloring. Plus WORDS! I love being able to add lots of words. It is really easy. If I can do it, anybody can! I’ll share some fun little things soon.
Meanwhile, a song I enjoy. On a true, spring rainy day. Which is nice.
9 News/KUSA – A large snow storm will cause blizzard conditions to develop around Denver and over much of northeastern Colorado on Thursday.
A BLIZZARD WARNING is in effect through 6am on Friday for Denver, Boulder, Fort Collins, and all of northeastern Colorado.
Following a nearly snowless winter season, we will finally get some moisture. Can’t wait to see my grass in a few days! So far, though, it is not living up to last night’s newcast hype. Not quite the raging devil we’d been told. But, they say we could get 12″…we’ll see?
It can hurt. Old crap can follow you around for years.
Sometimes life can take so much cold, dark effort.
Then winter fades into the fresh, green hope of a bud.
A surge of energy, breakthrough.
Life. It can surprise you.
It begins again as if winter had never happened.
Spring.
“You heavens above, rain down righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up; let righteousness grow with it; I, the LORD, have created it.” Psalm 47.8 NIV
March in Denver came in like a 70-degree lamb, but appears to be roaring out like a hungry, crazed lion. The promised rains are delayed, but howling winds whip up dirt clouds in these dry parts like nobody’s business.
Today, very early, at approximately 2:00 a.m., Daylight Savings began. Yes, despite the fact that I lost an hour, I have gained daylight. Nearly 6 p.m. now, I am happy to report an abundance of it.
