In the Greening Spring

Annie and I sat on a quilt outside this morning, warm sun beating down upon us, and we finished The Trumpet of the Swan.  The last chapter is called "The Greening Spring," and it could not be a better fit for today!

 Although it's not technically spring *yet,* spring is springing here at long last.  What made this winter so long?  The fact that we got a good amount of snow?  Or the fact that it was an unusual winter due to covid-19?  In any case, I am more than ready for spring this year.  

My daffodils and tulips are up, but not budding yet. The pin oak is still bare, but the red maple is fuzzy with its earliest buds. The birdsong is more intense and the squirrels are clearly more active.  We noticed robins today--a sure sign that winter is fading!  This afternoon, because we have no activities planned and no appointments to keep, I am planning to spend a few hours working on de-wintering my flower beds: raking, trimming, tidying.  I bought myself a pair of Felco pruners (and a scabbard!) a couple of weeks ago, a special treat. I use my pruners virtually every day during spring, summer, and fall, and my old Fiskars had about had it.  I was gnashing my teeth trying to cut out branches of the silky dogwood last fall when I promised myself that I would not start the 2021 garden season without a pair of nice, new, Swiss-made pruners.  

My parents and husband are now fully vaccinated (parents because they are the appropriate age, both with some health risk factors, and husband because he's classified as a frontline essential worker) and we are heading to Charleston soon to take the Trip That Didn't Happen last year.  Last year I had planned a historical tourist extravaganza for my children, who have been to Charleston plenty of times, but have never really done many touristy things because we are usually busy visiting family and attending holiday parties! We were set to go in May, but the covid virus threw a real wrench into the plans.  Last week I decided on a whim that we should go.  Soon.  Now! The azaleas will be blooming soon and I haven't been to Charleston during the azalea season in about 7-8 years!  There is one week that my husband can be off of work this spring, so we quickly planned to head to the coast that week. I'm so glad it will work out.  My children are beyond excited.  They love Charleston, and Finn in particular is happy because he is deeply into architecture these days, and part of the touristy plan is a pretty comprehensive architectural tour. We won't have time to go everywhere, but we can knock out a few of my own favorites.  He will love it. 

I recently looked back at what I'd written earlier this winter about my goals for before-the-forsythia-blooms:

-Knit a hat! (DONE! I adore it! I learned to read from a pattern chart and I learned a few new techniques.  Photos to follow sometime!)

-Read copious quantities of books. (Definitely have been doing this.  I think I've knocked out a couple dozen so far this year.)

-Write. (Yes! I did it.  I finished the novel I was writing. Now I am cooling my heels before I begin to rewrite it.)

-Figure out 9th and 5th grades. (I've done a lot of this!)

-Exercise as many days of the week as possible. (Yes!)

-Homeschool diligently. (Yes, mostly!  On nice days the school may slip a bit, but I'm not worried about that.  We're having fun. :))

-Be kind and loving to my family.  (Yes, I do think I have done that well...but I'm not going to cross it off the list!)

So the forsythia hasn't bloomed yet, but it will within a few weeks.  Now I can think of a few more goals.  Let's say these are the things I'd like to do before Finn turns (GULP) 14 years old in June. 

Fourteen years old.

My spring things, to do before Finn turns 14......

-Sew 2-4 dresses for Annie, using this pattern, the 1780s Portrait Dress.  She is obsessed with it! I have already traced the size she needs.  She's 10, but she's pretty tiny in girth, so the 8 will probably be the best fit.  I'll likely need to lengthen it, though. 

-Read! Read, read, and read.  It will be harder to read in summer, I think, with all the gardening responsibilities, so before that gets going full-force, I hope I can read a lot.

-Possibly knit another hat, or a pair of legwarmers for Annie for ballet, OR a baby hat for our new little baby on the farm, who is growing so quickly and is so darling that I cannot resist him. He is 5 months old now!

-Clean and reorganize Annie's room. (Not my favorite task, but one that must be done. And then I'll try to be better about having her keep it tidy.  That's hard for me.  I like the rest of my house to be really neat, but I do tend to turn a blind eye to my children's rooms, unfortunately.  Anne is a girl who loves her things: clothes, toys, hair do-dads, books, papers, pens, trinkets, handbags....you name it, she loves it.)

-Clean and reorganize Finn's room. (Ditto, although Finn is easier; he's a minimalist male, and basically owns as little as possible.  This will mostly be recycling papers and basic cleaning, which he can do.  Easy.)

-Finish up the 9th and 5th grade school planning so that I don't have to do any of it over the summer!

(Oh! To that end, if you have an online high school science curriculum recommendation, please pass it along to me.  Finn has been going through an Apologia textbook this year, but it's very general--it's a middle school book--and he wants in-depth teaching; he's not super satisfied with the way certain things are explained in the text.  We would like to move to an online format with a supporting text, so that there is a person doing some "teaching." I am considering Honors Biology through The Potter's School or Honors Biology through Pennsylvania Homeschoolers.  Help!)

-Do more reading aloud to my children. This is sort of ridiculous because I read aloud to them every morning during the week (we just finished Padriac Colum's The Children's Homer today! I hated the first half, but loved the second half), but I want to be more consistent with reading aloud at lunchtime and bedtime. 

-Prepare the flower beds for spring/summer--stay on top of the spring pruning, etc.  This shouldn't be hard, as gardening is one of my favorite activities in the world. 

-Keep homeschooling, exercising, and being kind. :) 

...and that's more than enough!

Spring fever has obviously hit me full-force. :) And I love it!