A Trip Down Childhood Lane...

Isn't this how everyone remembers the neighborhood where they grew up? Houses decorated in bright floral fabric patterns, pink-trimmed trees, huge blooming flowers everywhere and inviting front porches which led to doors that were never locked. And of course all our friends were always waiting in their backyards where we would spend whole summer days in another world, occassionally refreshed by a glass of mom-provided iced lemonade.

Well, if that' not how it actually happened, it sure is fun to pretend that it did, isn't it? With this watercolor and ink illustration, I hoped to capture some of that imagination that ran wild in me when I was a child and to convey a feeling of carefree, endless playtime. Childhoold goes by so fast, but when you look at this piece, you can get a little of it back again, if only for a few moments.

In Preparation for Spring

I feel it - even though everything outide is still brown and the air is chilly and I'm wearing socks and sweaters constantly - an inner sense that the earth is changing. As someone who hates winter and cold with a passion (even though I live in the midwest and should be used to it by now), I always look for the earliest signs of spring, long before most other people would: tiny brownish-red buds forming on the naked brances of the trees in my yard, the sun that feels warm (not just bright) through my car's windows. And I am tempted to peek under the clumps of dead leaves in my empty flower beds for those first yellow-green spikes from early bloomers. It still feels like winter, but in only a few weeks, Spring will popping up everywhere and there will be no stopping it. Just knowing that the end of winter is in sight, puts light in my heart and a bounce in my step. I feel a new energy and my hands itch to start making lists for plans well into the summer months. Already I have some new flower bulbs lined up, ready to go into the ground as soon as it's safe. And I also am seeing my house - really seeing it - in a new and very dirty light and realizing that it's about time I gave it a thorough cleaning. One thing I always have to do to welcome a new season is buy a new silk floral arrangement - this time it was yellow dogwood blossoms on an irregular branch. It looks very lifelike and spruces up my kitchen just enough to inspire me to get going on the rest of my house.

Life goes on and on, and just when we think it's out of anything useful, it recycles it'self all over again and if we are lucky enough to be a part of that process, we should be very thankful.