Weekly Wrap-up

Some weeks are just like this:

Some weeks are heads buried under the blanket as you dictate the spelling list, and you vacillate between wanting to yell "Get your HEAD OUT FROM UNDER THE BLANKET!" and thinking, "Does it really matter if his head is under the blanket?"

Some weeks you just want to watch the red-bellied woodpecker and the goldfinches and the pretty red house finches frolic at the feeder behind his head.

Some days, it's too sunny and beautiful to think about grammar. It's better just to put up your hammock under some trees in the back yard or just to pet the cat in some sunny spot.

Some days, it's too dismal and dreary to do anything at all.

Some weeks you completely, 100% understand when he groans when you say, "Let's start school" or when you peak in at her and she's snuggled under her blankets watching a movie instead of writing her paper.

Some weeks, you're counting down the days until summer.

Linked up with the Weekly Wrap-up

In Just Spring

Everything is flowering, about to flower, or just finishing up flowering here in East Tennessee. My backyard is like a fairy land, bursting with purples and pinks with a few dashes of yellow and white, all smothered in green. It's hard to resist the urge to join the dog rolling around in the grass. I only resist because of the itchiness.

And so today, some flowers, a few faces and a poem. 

Today 

By Billy Collins

If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze  

 

that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house

and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb, 

a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies

seemed so etched in sunlight 

 

that you felt like taking 

a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table, 

 releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage  

so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting 

into this larger dome of blue and white, 

 

well, today is just that kind of day.

Linked up on Wordless Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday

See poem in one place here

First Spring Hike

Our spring break went from five days in Florida to one afternoon hiking in the Smokies, but I'm OK with that. I was looking forward to sand and water and hot sunshine, but who can complain about this?

A few billion grains of sand or a bright spot of yellow hiding behind a moss-covered boulder?

The roar of ocean waves or the song of the river?

An amazing seafood fest at an out-of-the-way crab shack, or Laughing Cow cheese and Goldfish on a rock in the middle of the river?

Feet soaking in the warm ocean, or feet dipped in ice water?

Give me sunshine, something beautiful, a spacious place, and my family, and I'm good either way.

But if I had to choose forever, I'd choose mountains over beach, always.

Linked up with Outdoor Wednesday and Wordless Wednesday