Tuesday

No one from Wisconsin will be sorry to see April shuffle off to Buffalo (or wherever these dismal temperatures travel after they're done with our state). It really is terribly cold for mid-spring. It is mid-spring, you know. My calendar tells me so, even if we are a full twenty degrees below the average reading for this day.

My garden work is on hold. You just can't get excited about working on a bed in wraps and jackets that are more common to winter than to this season. I'm back to doing not much of anything in the morning (as recommended by the Dutch, who call it niksen according to this article in the NY Times). This is supposed to stir my creative juices, but I'm sure niksen as practiced, say on a porch, looking out to a sunny day, stirs many more juices than niksen done on a day like today, where nothing creative can happen, because everything within me is on hold.

In doing nothing and not being creative, I pick up a catalogue of one of my favorite flower retailers. I remember typing in a small order in the middle of February. It was really cold then! I thought April would never come. But wait. Where is my order? I look it up on line. Damn! Did I neglect to submit it? It's funny how sometimes you click "send" and then you regret your impulsive move. This was quite the opposite: I regret sitting on it. Because the trouble with sitting is that you sometimes doze off and miss the boat.

In continuing to do nothing, I think about how by late April, I always would have made at least one trip to our own Flower Factory for replacement plants (there will have been some winter attrition in my garden for sure). This wonderful flower grower always opens right around my birthday. This year, the weather just hasn't been right for it. We need a warm spell, that's for sure.

(The cheepers would agree.)






(The late tulips are always spared from an attack by our resident tulip eaters. They should bloom in the first days of May. That would be this week! I'm hoping!)






Breakfast, in the kitchen and rather hurried because Ed has an appointment.






My total doing nothing time lasts about an hour. Was it worth it? Yes, I think so. I like letting the mind wander a bit. The Dutch are onto something!


In the afternoon, I pick up Snowdrop. Someday, I'll tell her how important it is to do nothing every now and then. Today though, we're busy. Lego castle-lette building time!






In the evening, there are parent-teacher conferences and so the young family is here with pizzas for dinner...

(Snowdrop kills time waiting for her food by playing with finger puppets)






(Ed sort of plays along.)






(Sparrow -- totally happy to be sharing a meal with his sister...)











And so ends April. It's always a rocky happy stunningly bumpy ride into the warm half of the year. But it's green. It's fresh. It's colorful. It's full of hope.