joyful, and my
thoughts are all stumbling and tumbling all over themselves-
thoughts about buying
this and moving that. . .
days are longer. .
.
I pass by my gardens and see little green things poking
their heads through the
soil that I forgot were there. . .
and then I feel an excitement stirring inside of me to get
my hands in the dirt
and -
let the spring
cleaning begin.
At first it’s so much fun because every piece you clean up and
prune and fluff makes such an -
impression on the yard.
I’m pretty sure I see the yard shift with pride. Not so anyone else would notice.
But I’m pretty sure it
did.
At first it feels easy and then one
day I stand up and look out over the vast yard and realize there’s so much to
hoe and dig and all that sleeping dirt to fluff so it resembles a
Better Homes and
Garden picture.
And then I call my friend and say “I’ll come and pick you up
and let’s go
nursery shopping for plants and yard art and
I’ll be there in 10 minutes and
no, you don’t need to put makeup on.
Well, maybe just
lipstick.
And on the ride to the nursery we share ideas and we both
get so excited we over talk each other -
And then in all my excitement I invite friends over for
dinner the following week and
won’t it be fun walking them through the yard and listening
to all their sighs and ooohs and aaahs about how beautiful everything looks and
-
who would have thought
to put that there!
As I dig and plant and water, my eyes wander up to the back
deck where all my summer pillows have found their way down from the attic.
I take a minute to go fluff and tuck and move this pillow
over 2 more inches which totally made a huge
difference in how it looks with that little bit of a move and slide another
one back where it originally started.
I know . . .
It’s such a process.
And how am I going to get my favorite red and white striped
sling chair out of the attic
because as I collected my pillows a few days earlier I was
greeted with a swarm of bees that had made their home in the attic over the
winter and raced me to the bottom of the stairs. (I won!)
And will my deck look the same without that chair?
especially with
company coming.
And then as I headed back out to my garden at 7 am this
morning (clearly I wasn’t thinking clearly
to have a shovel in my hand at that hour on a Sat. morning) I decided
to take a deep breath
and. . .
made a plan for our guests arrival.
I will only walk them through the parts of our yard that are
proudly waiting to be part of the garden tour- and no one will notice the piles
of rocks waiting to find a home in the landscape, or the bare spots that still
need attention.
I will distract them with a fancy table setting and even fancier food.
Well, I don’t know about the fancy part.
And now -
I can’t wait for our
guests to arrive.
