Spring Is in the Air

We had quite the winter here in Missouri this past year, as did lots of places in the country. It seemed to last longer than usual, probably because it was really cold and snowy. I think it was the 10^th coldest winter on record and the 19^th snowiest, so spring seemed so late in coming. It's taken forever to warm up, forever for the grass to get green and forever for the trees to bud/blossom.

It's still none too warm and it seems like we are several weeks behind where we usually are this time of year (spring-wise). It's really only been in the past week or two that there have been any noticeable signs of spring. There were several days last week where it just poured and poured and there were lots of storms (which included lots of lightning). The grass literally greened right before our eyes. I tell you, the grass greened considerably last Wednesday in the 12 or so hours that my shade was up. That's what a little moisture and lightning will do for the grass! (Yes, it's a proven that lightning is a natural fertilizer. I don't understand all of the science behind it, but it has to do with nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere.)

My friend/helper's birthday was last week. I really try hard to be thoughtful and creative when it comes to the gifts I give, but after you've known someone so long it gets hard to come up with something fresh/new year after year. So I just made things easy on myself and asked my friend where she wanted a gift card to. She said, "Forget the gift card; what I'd really like is a hyacinth." She said that she loves the smell of them (they do smell wonderful) and it's something she wouldn't buy for herself. So My mom picked up a beautiful, pink hyacinth at the store last week (and a gift card). I happily watched over the hyacinth in my room until we saw our friend two days later. It was fun to enjoy the beauty/fragrance of it. Now it's been replaced with some beautiful azaleas given to us by a friend. I'm glad spring is here!