Muscari in the Morning

The backdoor was left open, a shard of light hit my kitchen floor and pointed outside.  Under the guise of taking out the trash I headed down the back steps to see if there was anybody was up and stirring in my garden. The teenagers upstairs certainly weren't.

Under stray walnut leaves and ancient nasturtium vines and next to a very scraggly looking lavender plant, I found these guys!

Needless to say, the pile of dirty laundry is still sitting in a shameful heap next to the washing machine, a stack of unpaid bills is currently casting a shadow across my desk and my good pair of Saturday Grocery Shopping Yoga Pants are all caked with dirt because I couldn't resisted picking up a trowel as soon as I had put the lid on the garbage can.

As a reward for my first weeding session of spring I took myself to The Co-Op and bought some dwarf snap pea and fava bean starts. Rewards are important. I have big plans for my garden this year and self bribery will be a crucial tool in the process. Don't judge me...yet.

It is time to simplify

   

It is time to simplify my life (or is it my lifestyle? I am not sure, yet) a bit. My intuition is telling me that this would be smart, to say the least. 

One morning last week a small voice told me where to begin. It was clean up time in the preschool classroom where I teach. I was helping two three year old boys pick up the supplies that they had used while they were running a restaurant that day.  

Holding a basket, I said, "Let's put all of the food in here."

Little wooden apples, lemons, pears and watermelon slices began to pile up in the basket.

Then one of the boys asked me, holding what looked to be hand painted trout, "Teacher, where does this go?"

"It's a fish. That's food. You can put it right in this basket."

"No," he said and as he stretched and stood up on his tip toes, the preschooler's power stance, I noticed he  was wearing a pair of high top Converse sneakers, one pink and one red. "This is a fish. It is not food. It is a fish."

Simple. As. That.