It may seem a tad abnormal, but I love wintertime! Fall is probably my favorite season, but I really like the winter too. I relish being wrapped up in plaids, jackets and sweaters, bundled into coats, and swathed in colorful shawls with frosty air nipping my nose and the possibility that I will be able to look out of my kitchen window and watch the snowflakes fluttering down through the bare grey limbs of the sugar maples behind the house.
But as March steals onto the scene with gusty winds and bright skies, I do enjoy seeing the succession of bulb plants that begin to bloom this time of year: crocuses, daffodils, tulips, hyacinths and irises. To see them sending deep green shoots through the stiff, brown grass cannot help but remind you that the earth is beginning to awake and make itself ready for spring and for Easter.
I especially like daffodils and they never fail to remind me of one of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets, William Wordsworth –
I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud"
(also commonly known as "Daffodils" or "The Daffodils")
I wandered lonely as a Cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and Hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden Daffodils;
Beside the Lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:-
A Poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed---and gazed---but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the Daffodils.
Published in Collected Poems, 1815
(I somehow identify with the “in vacant or in pensive mood” line....)
Uncle R’s dad knew that poem by heart, having learned it in school when he was a child in North Dakota. It’s so amazing to me that he carried that poem in his heart and mind for some 80 years or so and when I would ask him about it – he would give me a toothy grin and begin reciting. As with so many talents and traits of his - I loved that!
Just in the way the Lord sends rainbows as a continual reminder of one of His promises, I think that the soft green leaves emerging on trees and sharp blades of green emerging from frozen soil can remind us of His continual renewal of our hearts when they remain open.
You send forth Your Spirit, they are created; And You renew the face of the ground.
Psalm 104:30
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.
Auntie J.
Easter is such a fun time for little girls - getting new dresses and shoes, wearing hats, wearing gloves. We enjoy coloring and hiding Easter eggs and getting baskets of candy.
Now that we have been moved for almost a month, the boys seem to be settling into our new home. 
