friday five: are we blooming yet?

For this week's RevGals Friday five Deb invites us to share:


1. Your favorite spring flower. (Is it blooming yet? If so, share the joy by posting a picture of that loveliness with those of us still waiting!)

 Daffodils in the 'hood

I adore both daffodils and tulips, but in my section of the south the heat tends to be too much for tulips. Although I keep intending to plant dafs, our late fall cycle of weather tends to go from 80 to 40 overnight, making it difficult to find the right time to get those suckers planted. Maybe this year I'll go by the calendar and not the thermometer.

2. Your spring cleaning routine. Do you have one? Is there a family memory or tradition around it?

I don't have a spring cleaning routine. With three dogs cleaning is a constant necessity, the timeliness of which I fail on a regular basis.

3. A personal area of growth where you have seen some success lately. It can be personal, physical, spiritual or familial.

Since I have started a new business (canine massage) I am confronting my tendency to procrastinate or not take necessary action. I've been reflecting lately on the fear of success, or at least asking myself the hard questions about why I'm not taking the action I know would help propel me forward in positive ways. It's not easy inner work, and although I don't know if I've seen any particular growth, I'm going to go out on a limb and be grateful that at least I'm probing more deeply in this area than in the past. A breakthrough might prove interesting.

4. When does “spring” usually arrive in your area? Are you holding out for late May? Or are you one of the lucky ones who has already put away her sweaters and mittens?

 In St. Louis a few years ago

As a native Yankee I'm conditioned for a late spring--the aforementioned dafs and tulips appearing in April. Here in Tennessee (where I've been for 15 years) I still can't used to seeing daffodils emerge at the end of February. This year they are quite late, having just bloomed (and by our front walk, a lonely volunteer is in full bloom). Our temperatures, like elsewhere, have swung wildly, so t-shirts as well as winter coats are at the ready.

5. A verse or set of verses from Scripture that speaks “new growth” to you. 

This may seem like an odd choice, but it is a favorite. It is the gospel passage read at our wedding, reflecting that a marriage, a new expression of a relationship, was like new wine. "Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved." (Mt 9:17)