Springtime Sluggishness

The deep freeze of winter settled well into my bones this year and the defrosting process seemed to take forever. Most days found me scrambling to get a move on and accomplish something. . . . . . anything! Project baskets remained sparse, blog posts ideas floated away unwritten, laundry piled up, and the poor house longed for open windows and a bout of spring cleaning. With the arrival of May Day, however, I decided enough was enough and headed out to discover I wasn't the only mama in arrears. . . . .

. . . . . Mother Nature herself must have been playing hookie as well! Just look at the condition of the lilacs I discovered! A sad state of affairs when compared to . . . . .

. . . . . this glorious blossom that meet me on last year's May Day romp.

I did find violas in abundance but the hostas have just barely begun to unfold.

The faithful Forsythia was still in flower. . . . .

. . . . .and our runt of an apple tree had a special surprise. For the first time ever in its three years with us blossoms have actually made an appearance! Whether or not apples will follow matters not for this little miracle was enough to finally thaw me out to the core!

With motivation in hand I headed out back to our 4x4 garden plot. Anyone remember the brief mention I made of it last year? Unfortunately we had a bit of a late start on the square foot gardening endeavor and so missed out on a harvest of peas and spinach. This year, however, I'm just on time. With a quick once over to remove the bits of last year's plantings and a restringing of the plots, all was set for some early seeds. Now we have something to look forward to! Liking how that felt set me to work on a bit more in the planning department. . . . .

. . . . . dates were set to sow a few more flowers out and about the yard and a wish list of New England houses it would be fun to visit during the summer holiday was created.

A lucky find at an antique shop (thanks mom!) this book has me ever so excited to explore the delightful dwellings of Dickinson, Hawthorne, and Alcott. To be honest I've already been to Alcott's Orchard House several times but since hubby has yet to set foot in the enchanted domicile I think it would be fun to take him. If I sugar coat it with a lunch date I'm sure a good time will be had by all!

Another lucky find was this one made by me....(thanks me!) The buttons I snatched up without a second thought but the fabric had me in a tizzy. It was a lot of five pieces, four had been stitched at some point in time into curtain panels while the fifth was apparently the leftover yardage. I loved the print immediately and was envisioning cottage curtains before I even realized the preliminary stitching had already been done by someone else of like mind. Buying them, however, would mean a change up in my current window treatment situation and change of any sort I tend to avoid. I have come to learn that seemingly harmless purchases, such as a bundle of vintage fabric, can oh so easily lead to full scale redecorating endeavours involving furniture shifting, painting, chalking, and of course a catastrophe or two in the process.

But this little detail on the selvage was so endearing. . . . .

. . . . .as was the sweet pattern name of "Sunnyhill," that all caution was thrown to the wind and home it came with me. With the bright sunny days of summer ahead who knows, I might actually be inspired into a bit of redecorating. . . . .