I am reminded of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne…

This afternoon I discovered the garden’s chilly white blanket has been receding just enough to reveal spring flowers I thought might not have survived the frigid month just passed. There they were: a bedraggled patch or two of sweet nodding snowdrops and two golden crocuses. They’ve fired a hope that there are more just waiting to be uncovered.

“After all,” Anne had said to Marilla once, “I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

This is one of those days.

~

My reading project for the month of March is the collection of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s ‘Anne of Green Gables’ books. I fear I’m never going to finish all of them because I’m dawdling through their delights.

Anne Shirley’s ecstatic but sometimes relentless descriptions evoke memories of Marilla’s impatience, but at the same time they provide a vision of the wonders we grown ups too often miss. Montgomery gives us a second chance, writing a view of life through Anne’s eyes. It reminds me that my goal as a writer is to do the same — to transport readers into the world of my unique characters. If only I could do that as well as Lucy Maud!

“I’d like to add some beauty to life,” said Anne dreamily. “I don’t exactly want to make people KNOW more… though I know that IS the noblest ambition… but I’d love to make them have a pleasanter time because of me… to have some little joy or happy thought that would never have existed if I hadn’t been born.”
― L.M. Montgomery, Anne’s House of Dreams

You have, Anne; you have.

~

(Anne’s ‘gift of gab’ also prompts me to wish you a Happy St. Patrick’s Day.)

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Winter’s Worn Out Its Welcome

We’ve arrived at the second weekend in March. Did you remember this is when our clocks jump forward an hour (not on their own, of course; you have to change them) and our bodies rebel at losing an hour’s sleep?

I dislike these biannual time changes. There was a purpose for Daylight Saving Time way back in 1916 when it was first introduced in Germany to save electricity, but I’d be happy to keep one or the other — either Saving or Standard time — and not have to change back and forth.

What I DO like about mid-March is the coming official start of Spring on March 20th. We’ve finally taken down the front door plaque that says ‘Winter Welcome’, because winter has worn out its welcome around here. I’m tired of it. I want the snow to go away and let the buried crocuses show their cheery colours. It’ll be a while before the mini-avalanches disappear. Our shake roof relieved itself of several loads, one of which landed on the back deck, and I imagine that pile is going to be there for a while.

My hubby likes to say we are an Easter people, and Sunday morning at our church one more candle on the Lenten wreath will be extinguished, bringing us another week closer to Easter. As the Lenten material says,

“Lent is a season that focuses our attention on discipleship.  It pushes us to examine ourselves and the many ways we have turned away from God.  Rather than a shallow giving up of personal pleasures, Lent invites us to give up those things that have pulled us away from God and take up those things that draw us toward Him.”

I like March. It’s a forward-looking month and right now I’m all about saying goodbye to Winter and looking ahead to all that is to come.

Now, it’s an hour later than my clocks are proclaiming. Time to change them and go to bed, even if it’s a bit early for me. I’m going to need all the hours of sleep I can get tonight!

~  ~  ~

 

The Before and After…

“On budget and on time” … yes! Four weeks to the day, our bathroom renovation was complete, and we’re very pleased with the result. We didn’t dislike the original decor, but after twenty-five years an update was definitely called for.

Our desire for the new look was classic white on white, and we chose bianco carrara tile for the tub surround, floor and baseboards, highlighted with a metallic and glass mosaic trim. Counters are a dark-ish grey quartz installed on medium grey cabinets, and all fixtures are now white. I still don’t have the window covering made, but it’ll come eventually. There are only trees beyond the window; it’s not as if we need curtains for privacy, but a bit of fabric might be nice to soften the look.

So here are the “before” and “after” photos. The serene white and grey monochromatics won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s what we were looking for. A fresh new spa-like look for spring 2016.

The next renovation will be our en suite bathroom, but at the cost of renovations, it won’t be something that’s going to happen anytime soon. Maybe in another year or two. Maybe.

~

My people will abide in a peaceful habitation,
in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.

[Isaiah 32:18]

~  ~  ~

 

Spring Things – 3

A whim took me down our trail to the marsh late yesterday afternoon. I hadn’t ventured in that direction in months, but a few weeks ago my hubby had been given a tiny fir seedling at a special event. He’d planted it in the woods near the edge of the marsh, and today was heading there to water it. I grabbed my camera and went along. (With both bear and cougar in the area these days, it’s nice to have his company.)

The marsh is a transitional mess of lingering brown and gold slowly submitting to new green. Lily pads have already emerged from their winter depths and unfurled over the surface in still places.

A pair of mallards squawked briefly at our presence (it really couldn’t be called quacking) and disappeared into the grasses.

I’ve occasionally heard geese flying in, but there was no sign of them today. It was disappointing to discover bushes shooting up from their old nesting spot atop the abandoned beaver house — an end to their unique and safe mid-marsh maternity ward.

A lone blackbird silhouette was the only other presence. At least, the only one we saw. What lurked in hidden places stayed hidden.

~

For as the earth brings forth its sprouts,
and as a garden causes what is sown in it to sprout up,
so the Lord God will cause
righteousness and praise
to sprout up before all the nations. 

[Isaiah 61:11]

~  ~  ~

Does God do it on purpose?

I’m convinced He does … do it on purpose, that is. With the arrival of every spring season I comment constantly on the wonderful progression of new colours.

Winters on the southwest coast of Canada aren’t extreme, and, while my lawns may remain green throughout, full of moss as they are, deciduous branches everywhere are bare. The woods are stark, the marsh beige and lifeless. The underbrush along roadsides is brown with last summer’s dead grasses and ferns, and rain falls frequently, dampening everything to a grey sodden mess.

Out of the dirt and winter debris of our late January garden poke spiky little green tips from which nodding white snowdrops emerge. On our property they are always the first hint of the coming new season.  They’re delicate … a quiet transition from the winter landscape. From then on, we start discovering a green haze that begins to spread through the woods and gardens. I love all the new greens in their fresh shades of lime and harlequin and chartreuse playing among the darker evergreens. Every spring I exclaim over how many different shades of green there are.

Suddenly I begin discovering splashes of non-green and white shades. Mostly yellows and pinks and purples. Hellebores and Daphne.  Crocuses, Daffodils, Forsythia. Cherry blossoms and Magnolia. (Not all in my yard, you understand, but throughout the community.)

I’m convinced God intended this succession of colours and blooming times. It’s as if He knew we needed a gradual handover from bleakness to beauty, testing and tantalizing our senses with pastels before the bold and brash colours are ready to burst upon us.

Tulips and Iris, and the dependable Rhododendrons and Azaleas are just arriving now … later springtime surprises. It’s wonderful!  God is much better at planning the seasonal colours than I am at planning a story. He’s such a well organized artist!

~  ~  ~

 

 

Spring Things – 2

Spring Things – 1

 

“This is the forest primeval.
The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green,
indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate
answers the wail of the forest.” 

 .

.

From the poem ‘Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie’ (1847),
as collected in The Poetical Works of H.W. Longfellow (1855)

~  ~  ~