In the In Between

I thought perhaps the arrival of baby number four and girl number one aka, Ivey Beth Reeves, would help me ignore my hatred of winter this year, but as joyous as having the little diva is, my mind still wanders off to warm sunny afternoons in my back yard with shirtless little boys on the run.I have so little tolerance for this time between Christmas and glorious Springtime. I have found some consolation in the pages of my Burpee catalog, though.Seed catalogs make for wonderful afternoons of daydreaming. I can so easily imagine myself hands in the wet dirt, warm sun on my neck, beautiful things all around, things I created right out of the ground. I'd love to meet the person whose job it is to name the different varieties of flowers offered in the catalogs. Dwarf Morning Glories called "The Enchantment Mix" or a Cosmos called "The Pink Popsicle". What a great job to have! To sit in a garden somewhere naming flowers! So this is how I've spent the last few afternoons. Dreaming over my catalog. However, the small voice of negativity in the back of my mind whispers that nothing I attempt to grow each spring makes it very far past May, but Springtime is the greatest of all hopes, so that voice is easily silenced by the stronger idea that this year will be different. I was encouraged last year when the boys all successfully started a little veggie garden with nothing more than dirt and some old rinsed out egg shells. The little plants popped up in the window sill with in two weeks and were easily transplanted outside a few weeks later, where everything thrived all summer. Maybe the green thumb skipped a generation with me. My grandmother Pearl could take a twig, wrap it in a wet paper towel apparently do some kind of hoodoo on it and the next spring have a Hydrangea the size of a Volkswagen growing beside her porch! My mother and I however kill pretty much every plant we touch. Still, despite years of proof to the contrary, this will be the year, that I make something beautiful grow.