spring

Travel – Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania

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Groundhog’s Day is my husband’s favorite holiday. He despises Valentine’s Day – too commercial, but he loves Phil.

A college friend had grandparents who lived there, so she grew up with Punxsutawney Phil, the myth, the groundhog.

Except that it’s winter in western Pennsylvania, I think we would try to take a vacation there for February 2nd. Maybe one day.

For information on how to get there and what to do, here are some useful links:

The Punxsutawney Groundhog Club
Visit PA on Groundhog’s Day
When I was a teacher many years ago, I tried to find unusual books to read to the kids that wasn’t your typical Winnie-the-Pooh or ABCs. Those books have their places in classroom and they’re fun for the teachers as much as for the kids, but sometimes it’s good to introduce them to children’s literature and expand their horizons.

You may remember Crocket Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon. He also wrote a wonderful, simple book for Groundhog’s Day. It is my favorite:

Will Spring Be Early or Will Spring Be Late?​
We should know by now. Let me know in the comments.

The Spring Garden

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One of the things I love about my house is the backyard. I don’t get out there much because of my reaction to the sun due to one of my medications, but we have a really lovely backyard. My husband takes very good care of it. He gets his green thumb from his mother. I did well when we had an apartment and we had only containers to garden in. Those were beautiful. Gardening is hard work though.

One of the things I love about our yard is the lilac tree. Some years it blooms better than others, but every year I wait and I wait, and when it comes that is usually my first foray into the back. I love to smell them, and touch them, and of course, photograph them. They have different colors depending on how the light hits the petals.

When I went out this past week it was nice and shady by the lilacs so I got to spend a bit more time with them. There were many clusters that gave me some good pictures. I also watched some bees doing their thing and I think I caught some of them in the act.

The second Instagram set is some of the highlights that I discovered on that recent visit outside. While my kids are too big for those toys, they still made me feel like a parent of kids. It wasn’t a nostalgic feeling as much as content. I hadn’t noticed that my husband hung the windchimes in the back porch. After taking a couple of pictures, I pushed on them and listened to their perfect harmony. Some advice for buying windchimes: When you find one that you like, listen to it. They all have their own sound, so find one that you can listen to for the rest of your life.

Candlemas

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If Candlemas Day be fair and bright,
Winter will have another fight;
But if Candlemas Day be clouds and rain,
Winter is gone, and will not come again.
~Old Rhyme

Around New Year’s when my husband wants to take down the tree, I say no, and try to put it off until Twelfth Night.

When Twelfth Night rolls around, and the following weekend arrives, he tries again, but I come up with but we didn’t put the tree up until late, let’s leave it another week.

And then why don’t we just leave it until Martin Luther King Day. Isn’t that what we always do? (We do, but I can’t remember why.)

This year, we got the tree down about a week ago.

Today, however is Candlemas. Or the feast of the presentation of the Lord. Or forty days after His birth when Mary, his mother goes to the temple now that she’s purified after giving birth to Jesus.

The nights are shorter, the days longer. Spring is just around the corner; if we can get through the next few weeks. The sun is bright if not warm. (I need my sunglasses more in the winter than in the summer in fact.)

With more natural light, we use less artificial light. We’re also brightened a bit more. Smiling a bit more. Less aggravated; more tolerant. Even that little bit helps, and it gets more and more as each day passes with its lengthening sunlit afternoons.

I’m thinking that we could have left the tree up another week and it would have been alright.

I’ll have to try that next year now that I’ve put Candlemas on my calendar again.