The Flowers are Telling Me

My mom's best friend is Cheryl. Mom and Cheryl used to swap baby-sitting all the time when we were little. I have so many memories from Cheryl's old house. Her kids, Jeff and Ryan, had the coolest toy record player ever. The records were plastic, but somehow they played, and they were all Disney stories. I would listen to The Fox and the Hound and cry every time. Cheryl was always cooking something or sewing something. Her sheets on her beds always smelled good. Jeff, Ryan, Nat, and I played Build the Tower of Couch Cushions and Try to Climb to the Top without Falling Down. And we always fell down. But Jeff always made sure we had a carpet of pillows from all of the bedrooms to ensure that, when we fell, we wouldn't get hurt. They had this cool marble slide thing. You put a marble on the top, and it would roll down a slide, go through a pocket, roll down another slide in the other direction, etc. We played the game, Life, every day. I would refuse to put the little blue husband piece in my car, because it embarrassed me.

Cheryl had some tape she always played when we were over there - it was a tape of kids' songs. Oh, I loved those songs. I've tried to find them online, but to no avail. One of the songs was "Ten Little Speckled Frogs":

Ten little speckled frogs,
Sitting on a speckled log,
Eating the most delicious bugs.
(Yum, yum!)
One jumped into the pool,
Where it was nice and cool.
Now there are nine green speckled frogs.

Another favorite was about spring. My title for it is, "It's Spring, Spring, Spring Again":

Blah blah blah blah blah,
Blah blah blah blah blah,
The crocuses and tulips are as bright as they could be,
It's spring, spring, spring again,
The flowers are telling me.

And then there's another verse about pussy willows, and another verse about the birds. And I'm pretty sure the verse I typed above has something about daffodils in it. Obviously, my memory is really spotty on that one.

But whenever my spring flowers pop out of the ground, I sing bits of that song to myself. I wish I could teach it to my kids.

When I saw my flowers popping out a couple of weeks ago, I literally jumped up and down and yelled, "Yeeee!!" Jumping up and down is hard for me to do nowadays, so this shows how excited I was. Winter is hard for me. I really get the winter blues. Seeing living things popping out of the ground really lifts my spirits.

Without further ado, pictures of my little mood-lifters. This is probably really boring for you. Indulge me.

My daffodils:

My ground is so sandy over there. It drives me nuts.

My peonies:

I'm digging up my ugly evergreen bushes that completely block one's view from the gorgeous peonies when they bloom. Goodbye, ugly evergreen bushes.

The dwarf irises my gramps gave to me a couple of years ago:

My tulips, also on the sandy side of the yard:

And the current stars of the show, my crocuses:

I can't believe they bloomed this year. Last year, Ben seperated them all out and spread them all out, and I thought for sure they would die forever, but they managed to survive. They're tenacious little suckers. I want to plant more of them this fall, though. There is no such thing as too many crocuses.

And my tempermental clematises are actually peeking up right now. My mom just discovered them today. Maybe they'll actually grow this year. And bloom. Maybe the third year is the charm. Sheesh. Everyone else in the whole neighborhood has thriving, gorgeous clematises. Not me. And the word "clematis" is uncomfortable for me to say. It reminds me of chlamydia. I'm just sayin'.

When my beautiful forsythia bush explodes in color this spring, I'll have to put that up here for your enjoyment. Aren't you lucky you get to partake of my minutae?? :)

Kar out.