Rose Bouquet

A dozen roses wrapped in cellophane and tissue paper…or maybe in a large crinkly glass vase with a florist's bow.  I like the ones that: 

• Are the colors of the sunrise. There are so many colors to choose from and it is not even necessary to use a florist; larger grocery stores have a selection.
• Smell like roses. This is more challenging. Somehow the breeding for beauty and durability has reducing the fragrance in most cases.
• Start out as slightly opened buds and then unfurl. The partially open flower is the most beautiful to me but I also like the flowers to unfurl and drop their petals so that I can scatter them in a favorite flowerbed.
• Have healthy stems. It is always a disappointment when the stem begins to bend just a few inches below the flower - either from the weight of the flower or because of some damage to that part of the stem. I cut the stem past the flower end of the bend and float the flower with its shortened stem in a bowl of water.

They are a welcome occasional gift; I’d not appreciate them as much if they were bought too frequently. As it is, I get them once or twice a year and they act as a spark to remember the event.

I like roses on their bush even more. I enjoyed a trek through the rose garden in Tyler, Texas a few years ago even though it was a very cold morning (and I did not have a coat with me). And the rose garden is one of my favorite parts of Brookside Gardens….but that will be another post and will have to wait until the roses start their 2012 blooming.

Personal Rhythms - Annual

This blog item is the fourth in a series about the rhythms we choose for our lives. Today the topic is annual rhythms.

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What activities do you do every year? I find that putting these on a calendar (either electronic or paper) is very worthwhile - so that I don’t forget. I’ve listed some examples below.

• Birthdays/anniversaries/other yearly celebrations. I set up a re-occurring item on my electronic calendar for these.
• Vacation. Taking at least a week off to do something completely different than the other weeks of the year helps sustain your focus on what is truly important in your life. Generally I reserve the days on my calendar well before I know for certain what I am going to do.
• Physical/medical checkup. Most medical plans encourage some kind of annual checkup. Use the data to make appropriate life style changes (and minimize medication over the long term).
• Thorough house cleaning. Many people still do ‘spring cleaning’ because it works to keep the home in great shape. Some elements of thorough house cleaning (that aren’t part of weekly or monthly cleanings) might be:
  • Cleaning windows inside and out
  • Taking everything out of a storage area, cleaning it, putting back only what is still needed, donating/trashing the rest
  • Getting all the spiderwebs and debris from the garage floor and ceiling
  • Cleaning under furniture (may involve moving the furniture)
  • Checking the pantry for old/forgotten/expired cans or boxes of food
  • Emptying the refrigerator, cleaning the shelves (hopefully not finding any long lost items that should have been eaten or thrown away long ago)
• Resolutions. Most people do this at the beginning of the year but it can be done any time. The idea is to set some longer term goals…and the ways you will measure them for the next 12 months.

 Are there other things that should be added to this list for annual consideration?

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Previous posts in this series about personal rhythms can be found here: monthly, weekly, daily.

February Celebrations

February starts tomorrow. What do you celebrate in February? Here are some ideas:

1. Valentine’s Day. This is a holiday to celebrate as a twosome rather than with a larger group. Think about something that you would both enjoy…good food, warmth, favorite music. Savor how fabulous it is to be a couple. Alternatively - celebrate as a family and articulate the love you share. Chocolates and flowers are the tradition but they are just the glitz; think deeper and you may realize it is more about spending time together than purchasing a gift. Note: If you are planning an ‘out to eat’ be aware that many restaurants are crowded on the 14th. Consider designating another day (such as the monthly anniversary of your wedding or meeting) as your day to celebrate.
2. Winter. February may be winter’s last hurrah so celebrate it.  If you ski - February is a good time. If a snow storm is forecast, have the makings for snow ice cream on hand and wood by the door for the fireplace; make sure you know where the coats, boots, and sleds are.
3. Harbinger’s of Spring. Celebrate the crocus and hyacinths peeking through the garden soil. They may even bloom in February if the winter has been particularly mild where you live. 

January Extremes in Howard County, Maryland

Within less than a week, we’ve had the extremes of weather for January. The first was a few days in the 20s with wintery mix on the ground. As it started to slowly warm up there was lots of fog in the neighborhood and back into the forest. The deer were in the yards noshing on the grass and anything else that wasn’t covered by the ice.

The warming trend culminated in a day that was more like March than January; the temperature actually reached 60 degrees F and the flags were fluttering wildly in the wind as I walked into my local library. There is a new-to-me mural on the side of the building near the athletic fields. Looks like spring…but it’s not quite that time yet.

The Luxuries in Life

What is your unique perception of luxury? Suspend the outside influences on your perception (and there are a lot of them so this can take some effort).

When I did this for myself recently – I was surprised that the luxuries of my life are plentiful and often easily achieved. Here’s my list: 

1. Seeing a beautiful sunrise or sunset and not having to rushing off to some other activity (picture at right is a rainbow at sunset)
2. Confident enough of food availability to not eat excessively – ever
3. Dark chocolate for breakfast
4. Visiting my daughter on my birthday
5. Hot tea on a cold day
6. Having time to celebrate or grieve rather than soldiering on bravely
7. Spending the majority of my day on things I choose
8. A new computer that is working exactly the way I want it to
9. Beauty and function in the same object like the leaf coaster I have in my office (picture on right)
10. Naturally long fingernails  

Analyzing my list of 10, I discovered some themes: 

• Food (2, 3, 5)
• Relationships (4, 6)
• Visual beauty (1, 9, 10)
• Choices (7,8) 

Recognizing and acknowledging the luxury in life is closely linked to feelings of thankfulness and happiness for me. Maybe this exercise of taking a snapshot of luxuries is worth doing more often!

The Year of Little Snow (so far)

Here we are past mid-January and we have gotten almost no snow in Maryland so far. On Friday night it was forecast. I woke up at 2 AM and I got up like a child wondering if Santa had indeed arrived; yes - indeed - the skylight was covered. I crept back to bed.

I was up a little before my alarm and dressed for the day quickly so I could see more of the snow. I was taking pictures on the deck in the darkness a bit after 6! The snow had already turned to ‘wintery mix’ as forecast so the icy top crunched underneath my feet. 

And then the dawn came. It was a gradual increase in light without the sun actually making its appearance through the gray clouds. There was no color associated with the sunrise but it did make the crystals of ice easier to see. These were on the front step.

Once the trees got a bit of flocking, is stayed in place the rest of the day with the temperature only getting up to freezing and the stillness of the day doing nothing to dislodge the accumulation. The tulip polars and cherry tree (below) seemed to catch the most; the maples have more verticle branches.

Quote of the Day - 1/19/2012

I live in the tame and visit the wild and never forget the difference between the two. - Janice Emily Bowers (books)

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What an elegant way of articulating what is true for the relationship most of us have with wild environments. It is our preference to feel safe from the wild world where we live while appreciating that the wild still thrives. We want to tame - to control - so that we feel safe and secure. Our control of the wild is minimal; we are less confident that we will always survive or even understand what it contains.

Still - there are occasions where the wild world can be viewed from the security of our tame life:

• Deer coming into the backyard, seen from a window 3 stories above
• A woodpecker in the top of a tree with dead branches on a walk through a formal garden
• Jack-in-the-Pulpits beside a boardwalk through a scrap of woods
• The rosy light of dawn on the winter trees seen from the kitchen window

And those add a blessing to the day.

Quote of the Day 1/12/2012

“Calories don’t count if they’re connected to a celebration. Everyone knows this.” - Janet Evanovich, Hard Eight

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Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum novels are fun reads (or listens…Hard Eight keep me alert, and sometimes laughing, as I drove long hours on my recent road trip). While being entertained by these books, sometimes there is a sentence that just stands out - one that resonates with your own sometimes convoluted logic. The quote today is one of those points of resonance for me.

Great food is a key component to every celebration for me and my family. From November to mid-January there seems to be something to celebrate: birthdays, Thanksgiving, Christmas, wedding anniversaries, the New Year. Every year I brace myself to gain a little weight during the holidays but I don’t ever follow through to forego any of the treats. My rationalization is exactly “Calories don’t count if they’re connected to a celebration.”

Logically I know that they do count - so maybe my philosophy is really “Don’t worry about calories connected to a celebration” which could lead to carefully defining “celebration” and thereby escaping the holidays without added weight (note to self  - think about next November).

Celebrating January 2012

What do you celebration in January? Here are some ideas:

• It's the beginning of the year. Celebrate by being awake in its first moments - wishing family and friends a 'Happy New Year!'
• Alternatively - go to bed at a normal time and get up to see the sunrise on the first day of the year to celebrate new beginnings. This year I was driving east between Texas and Maryland for that first dawn of the year. It was not a very photogenic sunrise but the one a few days later the sunrise was spectacular and I've attached a photo of it below.

• Snow is cause for celebration - even more so now that it does not seem to come as often. Change your schedule to avoid the travel/commute nightmare (i.e. take a vacation day, work at home) and simply enjoy the impromptu day that snow made different. I'll post my recipe for snow ice cream when the first significant snow comes to my area. Sometimes getting colder by eating snow ice cream is not my preference - so I keep hot chocolate and spiced tea on hand as well.
• Celebrate that the flurry of the winter holidays are over. The calm after all the activity is something to savor. Do it with a good book or a walk in a favorite favorite garden (bundled up if it is cold) or a quiet out-to-lunch with a friend.

Gleanings of the Week Ending December 31, 2011

The items below were ‘the cream’ of the articles I read this past week:

To those who are lonely at Christmas - a poem from Joanna Paterson....it applies to other special holidays as well.

Birding in the National Parks - National Parks Traveler summary of articles on this topic during 2011

eBird - A site hosted by the Cornell Ornithology Department and National Audubon Society. I found it via a ‘Birding in the National Parks’ article. The site is well organized and useful for serious birders as well as more casual observers.

Holiday Guide to Ruse and Recycling - Now that the holiday is waning….time to clean up.

Was 2011 the Year of the Mega-Fire? - A retrospective the large fires of 2011 and a look at the future potential for mega-fires

7 Actions for Becoming More Like Yourself in 2012 - Food for thought as you plan your 2012

Visualizing Asian Energy Consumption - Good graphics showing worldwide energy consumption.

Traveler’s Checklists for 11 National Parks - If you are planning a trip to Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, Kings Mountain National Military Park, Crater Lake National Park, Fort Sumter National Monument, Zion National Park, Wright Brothers National Memorial, Gettysburg National Military Park, Cape Lookout National Seashore, Petersburg National Battlefield or Jefferson National Expansion Memorial…these can help you get the most from you visit.

Circumnavigating the Svalbard Archipelago in the Arctic Circle - Longish post with lots of pictures and associated commentary