It’s Friday . . . let’s duck in here to share your pieces-of-happy and all the other good stuff you noticed this week!
Times are weird. Some days are hard. It’s helpful to remind each other that life is good. Even when the dumpsters are burning all around us.
As for me . . .
Well. In my corner of the world, Spring has begun that push-me-pull-you dance of the season. Such a tease it is . . . a Michigan Spring. Sometimes sunshine, mostly not. Sometimes warming temperatures, mostly not. And – as always – just as I start to believe that it’s really here this time (!), it turns on its heel and walks away.
Still. I can smell it. I can feel it. It’s beginning!
“And in the spring I shed my skin, and it blows away with the changing winds.”
—Florence + The Machine
Particular joys this week?
The chipmunks are awake again! They’ve joined the happy woodland gang in my garden.
My very early-variety daffodils are beginning to emerge in my most south-facing garden.
I’ve started working on my very-early garden chore list. Nothing big yet. Because I know it’s WAY too early. But I can do a daily walk-around again, and pick up sticks, and organize my seeds, and think about pruning my hellebores.
Although the juncos are still around, I’m also seeing some returning birds in the garden: wrens, red-winged blackbirds, cedar waxwings, grackles. And the finches are getting their color back!
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How about YOU?
What have you noticed this week that made you feel good? What pieces-of-happy showed up in your life? Where did you find joy?
Despite all the ugly stuff happening around us, we really DO have good things happening in our lives.
So . . . join me for Happy Hour!
Let’s share the good stuff here in the comments!
Happy Hour will remain open all weekend, so come back and see what others have shared.
We have so many sticks in our yard that got buried in two big snowstorms. I have to pick them up but I’ll have warm temperatures (60-70 degrees) to do that. But the big news is that I ordered yarn for Justin’s hat 2.0 and it is being delivered today. I am excited to cast on so the UPS guy better be here by 2:30 as promised!
A thing that was annoying, but made me laugh at the same time was looking out my office window late yesterday afternoon and seeing a deer standing under the bird feeder (hanging on a shepherd’s hook) with her mouth in the feeder! (This morning a squirrel was sitting in that feeder!). Oh well – the woodland animals need to eat too. A happy sound last night as we had a thunderstorm! A sure sign of Spring. I opened the bedroom window more when I went up to bed and it was wonderful to fall asleep to rain pounding on the patio roof.
Early spring weather is here. Temps have been in the 70’s all week, but I do expect a few cold fronts in the near future. The little white flowers that I love entirely cover my front and back yards. I know they are weeds, but they create a beautiful carpet in the spring. I am not a person who believes we have to kill everything but turf. My camellia is blooming so heavily that there is a carpet of red all around it. My cherry trees have buds. Nature is reminding me that life goes on, no matter what.
I noticed my youngest daughter in my house when I got home last night and that made me feel GREAT!! Lots of “feel good” moments coming right up.
Have a great weekend!
I’ve recently enjoyed two documentaries on Prime … Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of my Voice, and Paul McCartney: Man on the Run! And today we are FINALLY receiving actual snow!!!
I went for a run for the first time this year without a coat (well, at least at home) this morning and saw crocuses blooming!
Well, the Amaryllis burst into full bloom today and it turns out pink and white – not just red – is pretty spectacular.
I won’t tell you how warm it got here yesterday… and here I am hoping that we don’t go directly from winter to summer! Gah! I did not see my juncos at all after Tuesday this week… but I heard them once on Thursday. This warm weather blast we have gotten must have been their clue that it is time to head north. My good thing was that spate of unseasonable weather… it lifted moods all over my little corner of the world. Happy weekend, Kym!
I can’t walk around my yard yet because it’s still covered in snow but I’m hoping by next weekend I will be able to do that. I keep clambering over the ice on my deck to check on the hellebores but they are still buried under snow. I, too, noticed the goldfinches are starting to show a little color, and the bird song in the morning definitely brings a spring feel to the day. My good thing for this week was attending the retirement party for the Police Chief in the town where I work. It was a wonderful gathering and the praise heaped on him was well deserved. In a time when we see corruption and the abuse of power, it felt really good to celebrate a man who did good things for the community and was also a great neighbor given that the police station and library share a parking lot. I feel really fortunate to have colleagues that are also friends.
The cardinal is singing. The daffodils have poked through the ground. I am still here and thriving.
The daffodils are up about three inches above the ground. We’ve had two thunderstorms so the air smells like Spring.
Chipmunks and a red winged black bird here as well! Signing up for that 3 week pencil class (thank you) and Heart the Lover!