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Showing posts with label 10 On The 10th. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 10 On The 10th. Show all posts
The first day of Spring was yesterday, and we celebrated by going outside to play in several inches of snow. For a couple weeks I have been trying to fill out the prompts for this linkup about Spring, but literally every time I planned to work on it, it would snow and put me out of my springtime mood. But today I'm going to just ignore the weather, spray some lilac-scented room freshener to get in the spirit, and share some spring musings!
- List your favorite thing about spring. Which season do you like best?
My favorite thing about spring the last couple years has been the moment when the birds return to our house. Sometime between March and May, the trees around our house fill with songbirds, and the noise is loud enough to actually wake me up in the morning. You would think that would be annoying, but it's not at all - I love waking up to birdsong. I do not love waking up to woodpeckers, however, and unfortunately they tend to return with the rest of our winged friends.
Aside from my love for the birds, springtime is actually not particularly pleasant at high elevation - our "spring" according to nature typically doesn't occur until May, and then it happens all at once a week before summer. In the meantime, it's just an endless cycle of mud, which freezes when it snows, then melts the next week and gets tracked all over my house. I would love to visit a state that actually has magical (or at least pleasant) springs - which states are those? Please comment and tell me.
My favorite season in the mountains is most certainly fall. That's when the magic happens.
- What puts spring in your step? What does your favorite pair of shoes look like? When do you wear them?
The scattered days of warm weather put a spring in my step, along with the fact that this is the first spring in the last two years that is normal! No lockdowns (ugh, 2020), no masks (ugh, 2021). I feel free and light as a feather!
Unfortunately I can't tell you what my spring-y steps look like these days, because I don't currently have a favorite pair of shoes. Even though I've updated many things in my wardrobe over the last five years, shoes is not one of those things, and it's starting to show. My winter/spring shoes are all grungy looking or literally falling apart, but I'm limping them along. I do have some nice summer shoes though, so I'll probably continue to not buy new winter footwear for as long as I can get away with it. Eventually I'm going to have to shell out.
- Around St. Patrick’s Day we see invitations to ‘kiss me, I’m Irish’ on graphic tees and images everywhere. Are you Irish? If not, what would your graphic tee read? ‘Kiss me, I’m…”
I actually do have some Irish way back there somewhere, along with German (a quarter), English (probably a sizable fraction since it's coming from all sides of my family), and Polish. I'd like to get one of those DNA tests sometime, because apparently even siblings can have a different mix of ethnicities in their DNA. Have any of you had your DNA tested?
- What flowers would make up your perfect spring bouquet? What is your favorite floral fragrance?
Oh, I love the scent of lilac, and then probably honeysuckle, roses, or jasmine. I'm not sure how all that would smell together though. My ideal floral fragrance would certainly have to include a hint of woodiness. I like to feel like I'm walking through the woods while smelling my odd flower bouquet.
- Spring cleaning? A necessary evil or overrated? What’s your favorite cleaning tip? Cleaning product?
I tend to do some cleaning out whenever I switch out the kids' clothes for the seasons, which is in the early summer and early fall - I'll get rid of old clothes and toys at that time. As far as deep cleaning the rest of the house, I don't do that in the spring necessarily, but whenever I have time to do it over the course of the year! Since we homeschool, deep cleaning happens alot in the summer when we don't have school work. My favorite cleaning products are Mrs. Meyers, and don't say anything to me about their toxicity or whatever - I like the way they smell, and I'm going to keep using them!
- Slinkies are coiled spring toys. Did you ever have a Slinky? Silly Putty? What was your favorite toy as a child?
I did have a Slinky and Silly Putty, and a bunch of other toys! I particularly remember Pogs in elementary school. Does anyone know how to actually play the Pogs game? We just collected them when I was a kid, but I know there was supposed to be some way to play with them. I also went through a Crazy Bones collecting phase in middle school, and once again there was a "game" you were supposed to do with them, but I strongly suspect the games were just a pretense for both of those toys.
My favorite toy as a child was certainly my teddy bear though. I still have it in my baby box.
- When we ‘spring forward’ on March 13, what do you hope to do in that extra daylight?
Okay, against my better judgement...let's talk about what they are currently trying to do with Daylight Savings Time. Have you heard that the Senate passed a bill to put the country permanently on Daylight Savings Time?
I am strongly against this.
Where I live, staying permanently on DST will mean that sunrise won't happen until 8:21 AM in the winter. That is absurd to me. We try to start school at 8 AM, so now you're telling me that I may have to wake my kids up and get them started on school before the sun even rises? NO!! Why are they doing this to us?
I know that alot of people hate changing the clocks in the Spring and Fall with a passion (I cannot relate to this, I don't understand why it's such a big huge deal). But in the end, there is a reason we've been doing it this way for a hundred years - to avoid 8:21 sunrises in the winter (way too late), and 4:30 sunrises in the summer (way too early). So I personally think we should just stick with the current system, because it is more convenient. However, if we are going to eliminate the switch in the spring and fall, at least put us back on Standard Time! Why should we permanently go onto artificial time (which is what DST is) - why not go back to the time that more closely aligns with the natural clock, ie. the time that brings the sun closest to straight up at noon? That would be Standard Time. There are also apparently studies that suggest more sunlight in the morning is much better for your circadian rhythms than more sun in the evening (you have to look up the studies yourself, I need to finish this post).
Bottom line - just say no to permanent Daylight Savings Time! Write your senator.
What was the original question? Oh, nothing. I woke up with the sun, and adjusted my kids' bedtime and did nothing with the extra hour of daylight, because in reality, we had the exact same amount of daylight we would have had if we didn't switch the clocks!
- The following colors will be trending for spring soft lilac, canary yellow, hot pink, salted caramel, scarlet, sky blue. Will you be styling any of these? Is there a color you will avoid?
It's so funny to me that there are colors that are on trend for different seasons - I want to know who decides these things! I will say that I have loved all the sky blue in the stores lately. I did purchase a soft lilac top at Target, but I'm on the fence on whether I want to keep it or not. I'm also on board for the scarlet, I don't hate the salted caramel, and the other two I probably won't buy because they won't fit in nicely with my wardrobe (though I do love those colors in theory)!
- What will you be reading this spring? Do you have a favorite devotional or quiet time routine?
I am deep into rereading The Return Of The King right now. It's been a bit of a stressful month for our family, and I needed to go back to something comforting, and the Lord Of The Rings is that for me right now. I also plan to read Perelandra by C. S. Lewis in the next couple weeks. As for quiet time reading, after my Bible, I am reading The Gospel Comes With A Housekey by Rosaria Butterfield, and I just started Far Above Rubies: The Life Of Bethan Lloyd-Jones by Lynette Clark. Bethan is the wife of Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and if you don't know who that is, go fix that right now.
- Share an inspirational thought or spring quote. Why does this speak to you?
Speaking of Lord Of The Rings:
"Other evils there are that may come...Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."-J. R. R. Tolkien, Gandalf in The Return Of The King
I highlighted this paragraph when I was reading the book the other day, because it reminded me that I can't worry about what the future will be like for my kids. I can shield them while they are young, till the soil of their hearts for the gospel, uproot the evil around me where I can, and trust the Lord to take care of what conditions they'll find in the future. The future is God's. It's not mine to rule, and worrying about it won't change anything.
It's also rather a springtime-y quote, don't you think? And succor means "assistance or support in times of hardship and distress" in case that vocabulary word never cemented itself into your brain (I had to look it up).
How has your springtime been, friends?
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