You wont believe what is going through my head: I am suddenly immersed in thoughts about growing flowers.
It's January! Everyone knows that this is when you put together the outline of your spring garden. This is when you case out nurseries (online) to see what their stock is like. It's when you think about structural changes to your flower beds. There's no better time for it, especially if you live in Wisconsin and you're totally bummed by the cold, gray, snowless winter outside.
(the sun on my morning walk again lasts only for a few minutes...)
(I drive to the bakery to restock on croissants (for everyone) and cookies (for Sparrow and Ed). The lake is still completely unfrozen! It's cold, but there have been warmer days as well. Last year we were bouncing around on the ice already. We'd put in several days on skis. This year? Cold but without the good stuff!)
(happy to be back here!)
I've messed around with plants inside for a few weeks now. I have four pots of forced bulbs going right now, one which I brought to the breakfast table today.
They're lovely but fleeting. Still, I'm learning how to grow these in a house that hasn't the requisite temperatures (they need cooler air or else they topple), nor the needed hours of sunlight (we have some, but not enough).
So I hit the catalogues, just to look, to consider, to think about the next season that is if not around the corner, then pretty darn close anyway!
And in the afternoon I am back to picking up the two older kids at school.
We had good routines going before winter break and I imagined (not incorrectly) that we would need a little while to click back into that rhythm. Still, the kids surprise me: within an hour we are back on track, everyone happy, in their groove, moving splendidly through the afternoon.
Evening: only now does it feel like December is behind us and we have moved forward. Kid pick up at school, me cutting up fruits for their afternoon snack, reading that heart wrenching book about the evacuated children of London during World War II (where did we leave off? no, gaga, we read that chapter! next one! And from Sparrow - gaga, your voice sounds better, but it's still a little weird...), cranking up the heat, letting the terrified cats out (the children are back? run for your life!!)... All normal, all as before, even though it's 2024.
