A Vernal View

So far it's been a mostly wet and chilly spring.  I can handle the wet- it's good for the flowers, drowns the larval Japanese beetles incubating in the soil, etc, but the cold?  I just want to be warm.

It's no doubt apparent that I feel the tiniest bit inclined to complain about this, especially when stuck indoors on these damp, windy, cold days, so I've been trying to focus on how encouraging the view out the windows is now compared to a few months back, when it was actually cold, not this 40- and 50- degrees I'm now referring to as "cold."

For example:  Here's the view out our kitchen window as of February 2nd of this year.

At first glance, this is a pretty scene to look upon whilst washing dishes or tearing ends of the aloe vera plant off for the kids' various scrapes and cuts (Band-aids are only allowed if I witness actual human blood seeping from our children; all other enquiries are directed toward the kitchen aloe vera plant, as they are allowed to smear as much aloe vera innards on any perceived hurts as they want), but there have been winters when the snow starts really accumulating in December and doesn't fully go away until April, and all that month-after-month unrelieved white makes me tear at my hair and grind my teeth.  Except not really, because the sound of teeth grinding against each other makes me feel ill.

Anyway.

And as much as I enjoy watching other people work when I don't have to...

...that winter view out our front storm door really can't beat this spring one:

Or this one, also taken through the front door:

Hello, Mr. Finch.  Our son is named for another Mr. Finch.  Different species, though.

The kitchen window view is also loads better:

Taken on a rare sunny day.  Click to embiggen to see Caedmon's joyful face.  It's worth it.

Click to embiggen to see Adelaide going all Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

Note that our children are outside while I am in, because I am the biggest baby in the family about the cold.  Also note the tulips in the foreground.

All the wind and rain have been a little rough on some of my tulips, so I've rescued a few here and there from the indignity of lying helpless in the mud.  

I did brave the spring cold and wind and cold wind to watch this guy play soccer:

Atticus is the happy guy in the middle of the frame running and looking all-around joyful to be out in the cold and the wind.  Did I mention it was cold?  And that he refused to wear his jacket while on the field?

And here's Gulliver in Lilliput.  Or it could be soccer coach extraordinaire Derek amongst his players.  

If it looks like Derek/Gulliver is a little out of focus, it's because I was shivering.  Maybe this week's game will be warmer.  

Ah, sometimes my hopeless optimism amuses even me- I mean, this is still spring in Iowa.  Of course it will be cold.  Thankfully no one seems to mind but me.

Do You See What I See?

Today we're going to do that thing they do in movies where they show a shot of one invariably sad/brooding/pensive character staring at some celestial body or other, cut to a shot of the moon/stars/whatever, then cut to a shot of another character staring at the same sky, suggesting they're connected in some way, even when apart.  It'll be like you're right here with me in central Iowa just by forcibly looking at the same things I'm looking at.  Or something.


The view out our front door:

Leaves that I should probably rake up or mow over, but why the heck should I?  They're just too pretty.

The view when I wake Cade up from naptime:

I found these next to our sleeping four-year-old, and when I asked him what exactly happened to his sister's purloined Lip Smackers, he yawned and nonchalantly told me, "Oh, I ate them."  Right.



The view of our kitchen today:

Both the boys are now sick with whatever gunk Adelaide had, and they'll play with their usual vigor and energy until they collapse.  Then they'll play again, hunting for bad guys or fighting dust motes, then collapse.  Then draw and color in treasure maps to roll up and tuck into their belts, then collapse, because evidently even coloring will drain it right out of you when you're sick.  I keep finding them lying in odd places around the house and yard.  It's somewhat disconcerting.  

The view of me most mornings at home:

The morning after the half marathon, I was tidying up around the house, mostly trying to keep moving so my entire body didn't stiffen up and go all Petrificus Totalus on me when Caedmon asked me to kneel down to his level.  With great solemnity, he placed my finisher's medal from the race around my neck, then went back to playing.  I wore it for the next couple hours over my jammies while getting household stuff done- I mean, I already had it on, okay, and I wouldn't dare risk offending our youngest child, and it did lend a certain air of accomplishment to my highly important dusting of the blinds and reading of the picture books.  Cade, for his part, was tickled I'd left it on, and we've gone through a makeshift awards ceremony almost every morning since.  

The view of my garden's last offerings of the season:

Gourds.  Gourds coming out of my ears.  I had already foisted at least half of them upon unsuspecting friends, and this is what I'm left with, plus a few more I just found hiding among the weeds a couple days ago.  I ended up dumping most of them on the front porch, because Lord knows I needed some kind of color on there, what with the demon squirrels constantly uprooting all the ornamental kale I tried growing in my containers.  THERE ARE NO NUTS IN MY FLOWER POTS, SQUIRRELS.  TAKE YOUR DIRTY PAWS ELSEWHERE.  YOU'RE RATS WITH FANCY TAILS.  GOD REGRETS YOUR CREATION.

The view of our piano-top:

More late-season garden produce:  Ornamental eggplant!  Gracious.  Remember when the lovelies in the above two photos were just tiny little egg carton sprouts?

They just grow so fast!  *sob*