Sprung

I don't really know when it happened, and I feel like I missed the entire season, but all of a sudden I look around and realize that spring has sprung.

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to the weather here. I think it feels like I missed spring because we only had maybe five days of rain and maybe a handful of gray/cloudy days outside of that. Where I come from, spring (and most of winter) is months and months of rain and overcast days. Not here.

Essentially, around here it almost always looks like summer, but only feels like summer during the summer months. The rest of the year it is about the same from the inside looking out: bright and brown. Spring and early summer are the rare exceptions when things start to bloom and turn green and you could possibly describe certain areas as 'pretty'. After spring it gets so hot that things turn brown and stay that way again until next spring :).

As I looked around our yard last weekend I realized that the tulips had bloomed and died, the trees had bloomed and were now growing leaves instead of petals and the weeds are already establishing their nasty roots. All of a sudden it's still daylight out by the time we're done with dinner and the sun is up before me. When did this happen? Where did spring go? There were no weeks of crummy weather to remind me to curl up with a hot drink and look out the window at the spring flowers. I'll have to set a reminder on my phone for next year, since the weather didn't seem to clue me in. I suppose I'm also a little preoccupied lately too ;).

I'm really looking forward to summer for several reasons (not working, enjoying the outdoors and, oh ya, having a baby!) but I didn't want to take spring for granted. I'm trying to stop and smell the roses (or rather watch the roses grow and hopefully bud) a little more with life in general and hopefully this will help me appreciate what is left of spring. It's so easy to look forward to the next stage of life without stopping to appreciate the stage you're about to leave.

We started planting the garden last weekend! Soon everything will be growing like a weed... or rather growing lots of weeds.. but for now it's so fun to see the little starts, lattice and cages all set up with lots of open space in between. We primarily planted those vegetables that we are starting from seed, since we still have a few weeks before we're safe from the danger of frost and hopefully those little seeds will take their full time to germinate so they don't get frostbite between now and then. We're also taking measures against the rabbits this year!