Rick diligently practices his classical guitar every day. And guess what? He gets better and better. In the summer, I paint every day. And guess what? I get better and better too.
Then I put everything away for months at a time and when I go to start again, I realize how far I've fallen. So when the Sketchbook Revival free workshops began, I decided to jumpstart my creativity!
Now, this is the way to spend the first day of spring!
We hadn't yet celebrated the Big Guy's birthday -- he turned five in February. So, on this glorious first day of spring, we headed to Livonia with presents and cupcakes and settled in for a day of fun!
The sun was so bright, the weather forecast so positive, that I couldn't resist stepping out the front door early in the morning to smell an early bit of spring. The daffodil shoots are tall enough now that I can see them from the kitchen window, bravely peeking from the dirt and the mulch, hoping it is safe enough to continue to shoot taller, without the possible enemies of snow, ice or squirrels to deter their growth.
Since it's almost spring (and friends tell me it already is meteorological spring -- I wish they'd tell that to the weather here -- we bounce from high to low) I figured it was time to spring up the house.
In an earlier post I mentioned a lovely, early March walk to the Ditch. It was 60 degrees, sunny and perfect. The water still looked pretty cold. There's still a lot of ice, but it's breaking up and the weather was certainly helping.
Shortly after what I view as world lockdown began, March 11, 2020 (the date would no doubt vary from place to place and person to person), I began what I called "The Covid Journal." Thinking, like so many, that this change in our lifestyles would be short-lived, I chose a rather small journal I had bought two years before at Sennelier in Paris. I would record thoughts from this time in words and watercolor. It would all end neatly, when Covid and masks were a thing of the past. Not necessarily a happy ending, but an ending.
February was a wonderful month to curl up with a book and I curled up with a few good ones! The seven books I read took me from the France of Julia Child and M.F.K. Fisher to the village of Three Pines in Quebec; from the Illinois midwest to the cathedral town of Lafferton in the UK; the from wealthy homes of Paris to the farmland of Norfolk, and from war-torn London to England's Kent counry side. February's reads were well worth the time.
Rick just left after watching the finale of "Derek" (Netflix) and part of "The Darkest Hour" (a timely film to see during these challenging times). Freshly fallen snow was on the ground as he started home. It's March.
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| Calendar art by Kate McNenly |
