Blooming Now, Poppies in My Garden

Poppies, pink, coral and red have been putting on a show for most of the last month. For a time they were joined by delicate, pale blue love-in-mist. The effect was quite pretty. For the last week the poppies have made me think of Flanders Field--"the poppies blow, between the crosses row on row." It is so appropriate that the bloom around the time of Memorial Day. Here are a friend took yesterday with my camera when he joined me for lunch.





According to various seed sources I have consulted, poppies come in red, pink, lavender, coral, gold, purple and even white. I would like to see the whole array of colors planted and blooming somewhere.

Summer has come. The weather is warm, highs in the seventies. The windows are open letting in the most delicious breezes as well as the sounds of suburban life--doves cooing mixed with leaf blowers. Ah, well! The house is a bit stuffy in the evenings, but fairly comfortable. The transition from winter habits to summer ones goes gently, although I fear the time is coming for ice water, wet cloths around my neck and fans going to a noise level that makes me feel I will lose my mind. I hope not and am determined to enjoy this respite of near perfection for the time it lasts.

I am grateful for the poppies, the friend who planted them, who is now sailing down the coast of Ecuador to Peru with her husband on their boat. (See the link to the blog Sea of Change, if you would like to follow this adventure.) I think of her when I watch the poppies waving in the breeze.

I am thankful too, for trees, which lend their shade and soughing sound as the wind passes through to the ambiance of gentle summer days.

More Flowers

The poppies a friend planted last fall in my backyard planter box are growing and producing buds. Since the weather is finally warming up again, I am sure there will be flowers soon. I can hardly wait.

Wednesday afternoon I participated in an on-line chat with Cafepress, which is part of it's ongoing training for shopkeepers. It is fun, although slow, because the input loads slowly. This weeks chat was about social networking to promote oneself.

A yes, self-promotion, the thing I do least well. Partly it is the fault the fact that I much prefer to play with designing than selling and promoting and partly it is because everything changes so fast and I do not move or think as fast as I once did.

In addition to waiting for the flowers--the rose bushes are budding too and I hope they will wait to burst forth until my favorite photographer returns home from college in a little over a week--I am revisiting my past life. Three boxes of books went away to a friend's yard sale--I hope they do not return. More are lined up to go on Amazon for sale soon. The house will breathe again. (It is, after all, a pretty house.) Too many interests, too little time. Books on religion, history, smocking (yes smocking) and more books. I am keeping the core of my mystery library--I will read those again, knitting books, sewing books, cookbooks (probably about 500 of these) and gardening books. Old computer books were gotten rid of last summer--no point in keeping Win 98 books around when there are no Win 98 computers left in the house.

With the help of my friend C the books will go away and the ones that are left will be organized. Heaven on earth! Books and organization. (And yes, I do have books on organization, too. Sigh. Did I ever see a book I didn't want? Rarely. Amazon would love me if I could buy all the books on my wish list--but aside from the fact that, fortunately, I can't afford to do that, there wouldn't be any space in the house left to use them! Or to turn around, for that matter.

I look forward to a good weekend exploring some of this net self-promotion, setting up the first books to sell on Amazon and making banana muffins from a recipe that a friend gave me last week that will contain flaxseed meal. The first such and I expect them to be yummy. It was a good week. I am grateful.