Tag: Hope

Happy Spring Flowers

Spring flowers are a wonderful sight to see…. their vibrant, happy faces pop out through the winter’s leftover debris of dead grass, twigs and dirt, and really stand out. Tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, scilla are all perky little reminders that spring is in the air.

My neighbor’s one daffodil. 04/04/26

Here’s a fun spring poem:

Daffydowndilly

"She wore her yellow sun-bonnet,
She wore her greenest gown;
She turned to the south wind
And curtsied up and down.
She turned to the sunlight
And shook her yellow head,
And whispered to her neighbour:
"Winter is dead." 

        - A.A. Milne from her book When We Were Very Young (1924)*
My tulips 04/03/26

Often this time of year l buy some tulips to put in a vase to bring a little spring indoors.  For several days the tulips stand perky and bright, and then the blooms open wider and their stems start to arch and bend and they take on a wild look.

04/06/26

I love it when that happens. It reminds me of the beautiful messiness of life.

Scilla siberica can be invasive. There is a lawn in Northfield covered in purple scilla…
It does look beautiful this time of year. 04/06/26
Purple Scilla…04/06/26

Spring is officially here in Minnesota, yet it usually takes longer to arrive than what the calendar says. But I’m ready for the colors of spring…tulips, daffodils, hyacinths, crocuses, scilla, forsythia…all signs of hope and rebirth.

Yellow forsythia in bloom. 04/06/26
* If you are in the U.S., you can generally post poems from A.A. Milne’s early collections—specifically When We Were Very Young (1924) and Now We Are Six (1927)—without infringement.

Anticipation Haikus

Anticipation -
Hope and joy held in the heart
Ready to burst forth.
The dawning of a new day… (Lake Superior sunrise March 2025)
Anticipation-
We’re going to Washington
To see the grandkids,

And see the parents-
We will check out museums 
Smell the cherry blooms. 

Reconnect again. 
Enjoying the company
Til’ it’s time to leave.
Anticipation-
Off to California 
To see the grandkids,

And see the parents-
We will check out the ocean
Smell the fresh breezes.

Reconnect again.
Enjoying the company
Til’ it’s time to leave.

HOPE

As the fog of the past few days slowly lifts, I think of it as a symbol of the old year fading away into a bright new year.

Looking at my glass star hanging in our bedroom window.

In looking back at 2024, I marvel at how fast it went. And so much happened. We had a fun, month-long road trip traveling many miles and visiting several friends in the southeastern part of the states. A precious, baby grand-daughter was born in the spring. We went camping with two of the grandkids, agonized over a family member’s health diagnosis, and had visitors from Norway in the summer. 

And then…we started the process of building a house in the fall. It was very stressful and fun, exhausting and exciting, all at the same time, and it changed the tempo of our lives the second half of 2024. 

Fog hangs over the field outside the back of our new home.

Now that we’ve settled some (and really are happy in our new home) I hope we can start up some of our old routines, yet create new ones too. I hope to get back to walking daily, reading and writing, going out for coffee/lunch/dinner, traveling, feeding the animals at the farm, blogging more…things I enjoy doing, along with continuing to decorate and “de-box” (new word???) our new space. 

The word hope has been so much of this past year’s prayers and dreams that I am bringing it along into the new year as my word for the year. I will continue to hope and pray for healing for others and for continued good health and new growth for myself. 

My new year’s resolution is to try a new style of journaling. Tomorrow, January 1, 2025 I plan to print the word HOPE in large letters in my new journal, as we begin another year, in all its uncertainties and wonder.

Hope

Hope, there’s that word again.

Derek Chauvin, the police officer that held his knee on George Floyd’s neck for over nine minutes almost a year ago, has been convicted of murder. Guilty…the verdict turned in from a jury of twelve, after a three week trial. This verdict stands for accountability of police officers, accountability of people in authority.

One black man, interviewed outside the courthouse after the verdict was read on Tuesday, April 20th said, “I had this much hope left” with a show of thumb and finger indicating a very small amount. Now he says he has a little more hope. I’m thinking that rang true for so many this historic day. 

May we all move forward and continue to work for peace and justice… with a little more hope than we had a week ago.

Spring = Hope

What season is it anyway? Our yard, raked clean last fall, is once again full of leaves. The snow has finally melted but it has exposed more leaves and the winds of March have blown them into our yard…as is the case in the fall. For some reason our corner lot is a collection site for the neighborhood leaves.

Daffodils are cheery and bright! These are along the path I walk in our neighborhood. (2017)

Spring in Minnesota is always welcome because our winters are long. No traces of snow or ice, longer days with sunshine and warmer temperatures are delicious, but it is not a pretty time of year in Minnesota. I wouldn’t want to show off Minnesota in the spring.

Bright red tulips on St. Olaf College campus. (2017)

True, there are the spring flowers which I love. Multi-colored tulips, white, yellow or purple crocuses, perky yellow or white daffodils and purple hyacinths, all popping up out of the ground. They add fuel for us to get past the mud and sand and brown grass and leafless trees, to summer. 

Wildflower in Nerstrand Big Woods State Park. (2017)

But the wind…the wind is not a friend. It’s hard to walk. It’s hard to bike. It’s brings in cold air. It changes the temperatures back to wind chills. It blows dirt and grime and garbage and leaves all over. It is not a pretty site.

An array of tulips in the front yard of a house on St. Olaf Avenue in Northfield. (2019)

So I need to focus on the positives of springtime. My birthday is in the spring. I always like saying my birthday is the first day of spring (because it is.) Easter, one of my favorite holidays, is always in the spring. Spring does not have the bugs of summer and in the spring, we can start to discard our jackets. It doesn’t “hurt” to go outside (as a friend likes to say) and you don’t have to put on all kinds of outdoor gear. The air is fresh and we can open the windows of our houses and let the stale air and winter sneezes out. Tress start budding. Spring is a hopeful time, and a time to dream of summer days and nights. I guess that is the best part of spring: Hope.

Snippets from this Past Week

Here are a few photos depicting life these days…

This scene captured my heart…I feel it shows the essence of this pandemic…isolation. This young man sitting alone under the tree…contemplating these crazy times I’m sure.
Our online church services, including taking communion at home.
Learning to use new technologies…Zoom became a popular connection tool. These are my wonderful bookclub friends meeting on Zoom. We use Zoom to connect with our two sons and their families too.
Sadly, this fresh milk is going down the drain on my sister-in-law’s dairy farm in Pennsylvania. Evidently there is an over supply of milk due to the massive closings of schools and restaurants. Photo by sh
Picnic areas, playgrounds, and gathering spaces fenced off.
Cool Blue and his babe Lil’ Oaty sit on our deck railing watching children walk by on the sidewalk that leads to walking paths and ponds in our neighborhood. The Teddy Bear movement is making a bear or stuffed animal visible for children to hunt for while going for a walk.
Signs of spring and hope!…daffodils recently seen on my daily walk.
…and some bright color crocus’ too.
Photo by ba
Be still and know that I am God.     Psalm 46:10