What to do when the snow isn't stopping...

I am sure that March will not disappoint us in helping us climb upwards in the stats of snowiest winters on record. Instead of despairing, I've turned my mind to tomatoes, peas, carrots, basil, zucchini, and other crops that we will plant in the yard not too long from now. Spring will come, dammit, so I ordered me some seeds as an act of late-February hopefulness.

Red

The amaryllis bloomed about at week late for Valentine's Day this year, but the beautiful red arrived with yet another big snowstorm. I love red things in general, but I especially love them in February - a little passion after months of cold.

Brothers

Everyone was game to take pictures tonight (even the more surly of us) so I got to update the family portraits. I think of these guys as my little rock band.

A Little Bit of the Tiger Mother...

Me: "Ellis, You didn't follow instructions on your spelling homework. You were supposed to do at least ten sentences or write a paragraph. You only wrote six sentences."
Ellis: "But I used all the words."
Me: "It's a good thing to be smart, but you have to work hard, too. You have to follow instructions. Do you want to fix this with me tonight?"
Ellis: "No, I'll just turn it in like that."
Me: "Why? Because the quality of your work doesn't matter to you?"
Ells: "No I just think the instructions say something different."
Me: "Well, ask your teacher, and if it's not okay, bring it home again so we can fix it."
Charlie: (chiming up from the back seat) "Hey, Mom! I did my spelling homework all right!"
Ellis: "That's good, Charlie. Then Mom won't kill you."
(We all burst out laughing)

Warmth

I don't know how I forgot about Como Conservatory as a way to cheat winter. It really is the perfect tropical antidote to winter for the price of a two dollar at will donation. It is warm, humid and verdant. The minute I started photographing the flowers I was overwhelmed by how much I had missed doing that. And then there is the koi pond. Delightful for the children and endlessly fascinating for this photographer. In fact it was a double koi pond day since we ate dinner at Mai Village. I still wonder about the fate of the koi in that pond that gobbled up Charlie's pacifier that dropped from his mouth when we dined there about a year ago.

A Marriage

I don’t have a single photograph of our wedding day on January 26, 2009. I forgot my camera when we left for the Ramsey County Courthouse. The temperature was below zero and Charlie was sick, throwing up on me at least three times that day. It was appropriate because we didn’t want our wedding to be a big deal. We chose a Monday in January and wore clothes that were already in our closet. The only thing nearing significant about the day was that it happened to be Chinese New Year – the Year of the Ox, which is my sign and a good solid down to earth one at that.

If I had one word of advice about marriage I would say to marry someone you can do hard things with. There are many people in the world with whom you will enjoy spending time, but for running the great machine that is a family, pounding out the miles of everyday life, and dealing with the times when things go really wrong you need someone you can trust implicitly to stick with you with an unwavering steadfastness and shared commitment. If we had written our own wedding vows, Josh and I would have promised each other a life of squalor and misery and pledged to always fight back to back. I know that when I fall apart, he’s got it covered, and I also know that I will dig down deeper into my well of resources to make sure I’m doing my part for him. Because of this, I believe, we laugh more frequently, savor the deliciousness of simple joys, and want to be home more than any place else. Because we are focused on giving everything that we are to each other, we get more out of our relationship than anything else.

Happy anniversary to my husband, my best friend, and the only person in the world who never sucks.

Indoors

Yes, it really was -15 degrees today. I kept my promise to myself and went out anyway. The adventure today was a trip to the camera store to get a flash to increase the quality of my indoor photos. While there, I also bought myself a very happy-making macro lens that I will practice with during these indoorsy months so I'm ready to get up close and personal with the wildflowers when they return in the spring. Taking pictures this week got me out of the severe January funk I was in, and if I am going to take pictures of something besides snow, I needed to make some enhancements to my equipment.

Wow! Look at how beautiful things are around my house since I fed my inner artist (who, I have to admit, is a bastard of Picasso-esque proportions).