Spring Fever!

 I wish I could take credit for these beautiful blooms, but it was my mom who took them at Botanica, the botanical gardens in Wichita, KS.  They are so beautiful!  It gives me hope that spring will come here, too!  I know it will.  It is raining as I write!  Remember those April showers?!

 Spring has never been my favorite season.  I seem to carry this cynicism that takes away from the little moments of life breaking through the cold.  I don't like this about me.  I have always seen spring as a tease; starting to get warm, only to bring in the bleak clouds of rain and more cold.  This feeling was only reinforced when we moved to Alaska and "spring" is called "Break-up."  It is a time where the snow starts to melt and the ice literally breaks up.  The roads are a huge mess and it's muddy, mucky, cold, and wet.  And brown.  Leaves start to emerge in May.  Tulips show up around mid-May here, if they make it past the moose!

 In the past year, I have kept a list of things for which I am thankful.  It was funny because I got a book that had this suggestion and tried to read it, but I couldn't get through it.  Ironically, it was too flowery for me.  I continued my journaling, however, and I am trying to get past my cynicism.  I want to see the beauty in the first blade of grass I see, in the smell of the soil, in the warmth of the sunshine; not sulk that the snow isn't gone yet.  Sometimes I wonder how much I've missed while lamenting all that is not perfect.  I know we were made for a perfect world, but I believe God sends us glimpses of it!

Thanks, Mom, for sending me this one!