Delightful Surprises

Yesterday, Sept. 29th, was my 42nd birthday. I didn't tell anyone because I like low-key birthdays. Imagine my surprise when I received a package in the mail from Catherine Holman, a blogging friend and the folk artist at Pigment of Your Imagination. She didn't know it was my birthday, but her timing couldn't have been better if she'd planned it. Inside, I found a print of one of her paintings (it's one of my favorites) and an adorable handmade kitty card featuring another print of her work.

Cathie is amazingly talented. If you haven't been to her blog yet, you really need to go and just browse a while to enjoy the art she creates.

Thank you, again, Cathie for your wonderful serendipitous birthday gift! It brought such joy to my heart, and I'm still smiling.

Then today, I received another delightful surprise from Annie at Annalunda (a wonderfully romantic Swedish blog with gorgeous photos of roses and other wonderful scenes). I feel very honored to receive this award from Annie, because it is HER blog that inspires my romantic senses so often. And isn't this award just lovely to look at?

I am passing this award along to ALL of you! Each one of you inspires me in your own unique and specifically important way. At lunch yesterday with my mom, I was telling her how much I appreciate my blogging friends. Because of all of you, you have helped me feel connections that I haven't really had before. Each of you has helped me feel like less of a loner in this world--less like the odd one out. Each of you has brought me a sense of belonging. I've written before that Hubby has likened this phenomenon of the "blog-o-sphere" or "bloglandia" to a 21st century version of a Jane Austen village--a village that spans the globe and brings kindred souls together that otherwise would never have lived in close enough proximity to one another to become acquainted. Thank you to all of you for the gifts you give me everyday that have awakened my creativity after a very long dormancy and connected me with who I really am so that I can openly say, "I am a pink-obsessed, rose-sniffing, animal-loving, sledgehammer-toting, retro-spirited woman, that is a photographer, a gardener, an artist, a writer... and anything else I want to be." Thank you!!!!!

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Little Things

I've been thinking today about the little things that are beautiful and wonderful, like this tiny little linaria blossom that is only about 3/8 of an inch (7 mm) tall. This tiny little blossom would go unnoticed if I didn't look closely. And it is so exquisite with its deep burgundy red petals and yellow and white throat. It looks like a teeny tiny snapdragon to me.

Despite its diminutive size, its a hardy little thing having wintered over in a pot in the front garden. I didn't expect it to still be here. It was just one of those plants I bought to fill in a mixed container planting arrangement. Interestingly, everything else in the pot except the heuchera and the linaria is long gone.

I've been outside in the back garden the past two days sledgehammering concrete for a major project I've undertaken. I truly enjoy this sort of manual labor because it is so basic and simple. I can swing away at the concrete and then throw the big chunks around. In the end, I get a great deal of satisfaction from something so basic.

Being a time-consuming task, this manual exertion also affords me the opportunity to spend hours in my favorite place in the whole world--my garden. As I work, I am aware of the little things around me like the earthworms that I find under the concrete pad I'm breaking up. I take the time to gently pick each one up, put them in a small pot of dirt specifically intended for earthworm rescue, and then I transfer the earthworms to my vegetable planters when I get enough in the little pot. Why is it that finding earthworms and putting them in my vegetable garden is such a fulfilling thing for me? It's such a little thing, but has such big rewards for me.

And as I sit here and type this, yet another little thing is making me very satisfied and content. My studio windows are open, letting in the sounds of Pacific tree frogs ribbeting and croaking by the pond. I marvel at how such tiny little creatures can make such big sounds. Each one is less than an inch long (about 20 mm), but they make such an impressive sound. As they serenade me with their annual nighttime mating calls, I find myself feeling very grateful for all the little things that make life rich and rewarding.