Ah...hello again! I apologize for the long hiatus, but if you follow me on Instagram you probably saw a few pictures of the recent trip Paul and I took to the East Coast this weekend. We were in New York for a wedding of my old roommate, and we extended the trip a few days to head to New York City and Hartford. It was such a wonderful adenture -- much needed -- I'll be back with pictures of our trip tomorrow! Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend!!
0 Comments
the perfect low-key, normal, completely uneventful weekend
a taco and margarita happy hour coming home from derby practice to a clean apartment an evening walk through our neighborhood a nice catch up talk with a great friend learning how to make macarons finally being able to open the windows adorable dresses (on sale!) for upcoming weddings making summer travel plans (Portland and Iceland here we come!) Sunday brunch and errands with my love I'm taking a minute to sit with this comforting thought: we made it. We made it through a frigid, never ending winter. We made it to spring. Insert huge sigh right here. Ahhhhh. There were times when I really started to think it wasn't going to happen. I waited so long and tried my best to be patient; it only feels fair now to stop and enjoy this wonderful, wonderful time of year. Do you ever wait, and wait, and wait for something only to breeze right through it when it finally comes? I found myself doing this with the warmer side of spring. I was so excited that we finally reached temperatures above 50 that I mentally jumped right past spring to dreaming of summer days spent swimming and gardening and hiking and...well you get the idea. I'm getting down on myself for getting excited about another great time of year (especially up north!), BUT I don't want to forget that I waited a long time for right now. And right now is very, very good. So this is how you'll find me this weekend: doing my best to be present and soak up this beautiful spring season.
Happy Friday! What do you have planned for this weekend? I am going to try to pay attention to the spring. I am going to look around at all the flowers, and look up at the hectic trees. I am going to close my eyes and listen. Anne Lamott I am paying attention to the forsythia, to the tulps, to the trees, to the daffodils, to the scilla siberica (the blue ones!). It's hard not to pay attention to the first natural pops of color I've seen outside in months. Sometimes it feels like I'm being reborn along with nature - only in Wisconsin have I felt the beginning of spring so dramatically. What are you paying attention to this spring?
May flowers feeling confident and strong at the beginning of my second derby session a beautiful, simple wedding celebration an excuse to dress up with Paul a surprise Sunday morning date on the way to dropping the hubby off at work soy chai lattes sitting on the front porch in the sunshine support from friends in trying to maintain a healthier lifestyle a Sunday friend date to Home Depot to spend way too much money on plants finally being in full-on Spring season (insert huge sigh of relief here) Happy Monday lovelies!! What are you thankful for today? Hope you have a great start to your week! This past Saturday marked the beginning of this year's community garden season. As the community garden director, I was responsible for organizing and directing the work day, and I am happy to report it was a success! I had been nervous about the turn out since our weather in Wisconsin has been so crummy. Luckily we had a sunny (but cold) day and a great group of hardworking gardeners helping to get our garden ready for growing! After the snow melted, we assessed which beds need repairs and identify our priorities for the season. Our beds just needed a few minor repairs, and we were able to spend the majority of our work day pulling weeds and topping off our beds with fresh, organic soil. We splurged this year on "activiated" soil, essentially fancy compost designed to add nutrients to gardens. As any good gardener knows, good gardening starts with good soil. The herb circle we built last year is still looking great, and I was happy to see a few perrenials made it through the winter! The sage and parsley will be making another appearance this season and the chamomile reseeded itself! Baby chamomile! I see some tasty tea in my future! They're alive! I'm realizing as I type this that I forgot to pick some sage and thyme to use in my home cooking. I harvested a lot of herbs from our herb circle at the end of last garden season, and the edible herbs made my winter dishes extra tasty, but now they're all used up! Time to get pick some fresh stuff. Last season we set aside a few beds to be educational and learning spaces. This season, one of our educational garden beds will be dedicated to growing strawberries and edible flowers. I like to have communal spaces like these that educate people about all the possibilities of gardening. Most people feel like they're undertaking a lot just trying to grow the basics like tomatoes, so seeing other people grow new things is helpful. I gave edible flowers a try last year in the garden, and this season I can't wait to grow them again! Hopefully this communal space will give gardeners some ideas for next season. I was so impressed with all the work we accomplished Saturday. It's so fun to see everyone working hard together and the beautiful transformation of our garden. Just look at those gorgeous garden beds! In addition to prepping our garden beds, we also added two cold frames to our garden. One of our garden committee members built these himself. I was beyond impressed. He bought the supplies, measured and cut the cedar, then assembled everything at the work day (the plastic film covering was added after I took these pictures). We are so lucky to have such talented people working hard to make our garden a beautiful place. These cold frames will help us extend our garden season and provide a space for baby transplants needing to adjust to outside conditions. Getting my hands in the dirt felt so amazing. If you've experienced a winter up north, you understand the tremendous joy that comes from finally reaching spring after months of being frozen solid. It gets to the point that you start to forget what it was ever like to see living things outside. I was joking with some gardeners on Saturday that spring starts to literally feel like being reborn. Being in the garden made the end of winter finally feel real - we've almost made it to the days of nice weather and seeing living things outside again. Thank God! This is my happy place.
In a few months this area will look completely different. It's so hard to image now, but in a few months we'll (hopefully) have more veggies than we know what to do with. I. Can't. Wait. Well things have been pretty quiet around here this week, and not for any real reason. Just been busy with random things and with getting ready to go out of town this weekend. Some weeks are just like that. But no worries - I will be back with a full week of posts starting Monday! Hope you have a fabulous weekend! I leave you with photos of my current kitchen flowers. I love their in between stage with some flowers still perky and others slowly drying. So pretty.
Art and flowers: two of my favorite things, combined at the best event the Milwaukee Art Museum offers. ART IN BLOOM!! The premise is simple: participating florists are randomly assigned an art piece to inspire a floral arrangement. The museum curators choose pieces from throughout the museum so attendees get a chance to see all parts of the museum as they look at the 40 something entrees. Some floral arrangements match the art pieces very literally, others are more loosely connected to the art. The results are always interesting; there's always a few pieces that make me scratch my head, and there's just as many that take my breath away and literally make me stop to smell the roses. This year there were lots of excellent pieces, and I managed to get some nice pictures of a few of my favorites. The Madonna and child arrangement was my top pick this year (although it was a really tough choice!). Those colors! Those shapes! I felt it matched the painting so well (in the background of the photo above), and it helped me see the Madonna and child piece in a way I never had before. This is an example of a piece I had never taken time to look at before it was included in Art in Bloom. After appreciating the floral piece, I found beauty in the Noah's Ark painting I hadn't before. (Score 1 for the Art in Bloom curators.) See how it doesn't match the piece exactly but you can see how it was inspired by it? Loved the use of the bonnet in this one! I forgot to get a picture of the painting this was based off, but it was a 19th century beach scene with a couple of ladies in dresses - and bonnets. The bonnet, colors, and sea type plants worked so well in the piece and really captured the feeling of the painting. Awards are given for the top three pieces and for honorable mention(s). First place was given to this beautifully innovative piece based off a button sculpture (below). The sculpture is one that usually gives me a "huh?" feeling (which a lot of modern sculpture does for me), but again, seeing such a cool floral piece made me give the sculpture a second chance. Do you think the rose arrangement capture the feel of the sculpture? The designer statement mentioned how the repetition of the water vases mirrored the repetition of the buttons. I looked forward to this event so much. Art in Bloom comes at such a great time of year, just when I need the pick me up that only flowers and sunshine can give. I went twice in four days this year! Luckily I have these great photo reminders of how lovely the event was to carry me through until next year.
You can see more photos of this year's Art in Bloom winners here. You can also check out my Instagram for more photos I shared from the event (joy_allthings). |