I know It's Coming!

Eventually!  Spring will be here.....eventually.  The weather has finally begun to warm up and the 6 foot snow banks in my front and back yards are beginning to melt away.  I am very grateful for the fact that we have a sump pump that we installed 2 years ago.  We are gonna need it!

In the meantime I am preparing myself for the surge that happens to me every spring.  I get the garden goobledygooks!  That's right.  I think that it is somewhat equivalent to, and yet much more mild than, "Farmer Fever".  I am itching to get into the garden and greet the flowers as they pop up and express themselves in the most luscious and aromatic ways.  The bright colors of the Tulips and the deep rich colors of the Monk's Hoods, and everything in between.

I have also decided to put some of my photos of my garden flowers onto canvas!  That way I can enjoy them throughout the year.  I can hang them in my bedroom, in my living room, in my kitchen, in my bathrooms and so on and always have my garden with me.  That just might help me keep my sanity when we get another long and harsh winter like the one we just came through.
I may even decide to sell some of the canvases and share the vibrations of the medicine of flowers with whomever wishes to embrace it.
I am curious is anyone else out there has the garden goobledygooks?

Spirals have often been in my life.  Spirals are actually what make up the cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth.  Since I was a small child I have been attracted to spirals.  I remember the first time that I saw my mother carve a spiral design into the pastry for the top crust of a pie.  It was fascinating!  I then made spirals out of my mud pies, set up my toy towns in spirals, and even began dancing to music in spirals.  Things were completely spiraling out of control!

In winter, I like to make a spiral in the snow to walk.  This winter it has been impossible, as the amount of snow we have received, when piled up, is over my head in places.  Imagine trying to cut a spiral path out of that!  So I have been missing the spirals.

The spiral in this photo, however, is at my front door in a garden ornament that we decided to just leave outside this year.  I love it.  It catches the light and sparkles and shines and reminds me of my spiral nature.  It also gives me hope that next winter may be different in terms of the amounts of snow.  Perhaps I will get my snow peace spiral again...

Farewell Dear Friend!

I have often said that Pumpkin Pie is my favorite desert next to ice cream.....RIGHT next to ice cream!  It continues to be my favorite desert, which is a problem.  You see, I have had to change my eating habits.  This is frustrating.  The first thing that I had to do was to change the groceries I was buying.  If I were living alone, that would not have been such a big deal.  But the reason I am changing my eating habits is because I have found that I have food sensitivities that I did not realize I had.  Ignorance was indeed bliss.....for 49 years!
Now, I realize that I have what is called "Leaky Gut Syndrome"  Sounds just as ugly as it is.
So here I am, for the first time in history, READING LABELS in the store to make sure that stuff doesn't contain dairy, soy, peanuts, corn, sugar, eggs, gluten etc.  It took me three times as long to shop for groceries!  First off, since when is it legal to have ingredients on labels in micro-print????  My neck hurt from positioning myself so that I could see through my bifocals!  Secondly, when it says that something "May contain traces of peanuts", then is it safe or not?  I don't take the chance.  I have found ONE almond butter brand that does not contain ANYTHING other than almonds and water, and I am NOT telling which one it is because the store I get it from is constantly running out of the stuff.  I think others have found it, but I have not found them at the store as yet and when I do there is gonna be a scuffle!  And then there is the moment when, once you have it completely cased as to where you go in which store to find whichever product is compatible with your body.......the STORE REARRANGES THEIR SHELVES!!!!
It feels at times like a three ring circus.  And to top it off, when you are one of more than just one person living in your home, and the other person doesn't need/want to make the switch, it gets costly to by two kinds of things.  The good thing is that we are now down to just a couple of those things.  My Love is perfectly willing to use rice flour instead of wheat flour, and rice pasta instead of gluten pasta.  So that is awesome!  She still "Needs her milk chocolate to keep her color", so I buy milk chocolate for her and Dark Chocolate for me.  Now THAT was an adventure!  Dark Chocolate covered Almonds.  I was completely unsure as to whether or not I would even be able to stomach the bitterness of Dark Chocolate, but I guess that my system had done enough self-diagnostic cleaning that my taste buds had changed.  Even though I had all my wisdom teeth removed last month, before I even had that done (I was convinced that they WERE my sweet teeth), I no longer craved sweet stuff!  So Dark Chocolate it is!
And then there is the fact that I am losing weight in the process!  I knew that there HAD to be some benefits to all this hassle!  Now I need to go and find smaller pants to wear.  Shopping trip, here I come!
As for Pumpkin Pie.....farewell, dear friend!  Until I can find someone who can make you without dairy or soy in the pastry, I will just have to eat your out of the can!