Alternate Plans

This morning as I headed out to school it started raining.  It wasn't just the pleasant pitter patter of a spring rain, it was a downpour.  I knew it had set in for the day.  Why today? 

Today  was to be our Mardi Gras party day, complete with King cakes, costumes, masks, Cajun music and a parade with lots of beads and doubloons being thrown and caught.  Why did it have to rain today?

Well, it was going to rain and we were going to have a party... slightly altered.  As the children came into the room I told them they could take out any toy they wanted, and I pulled out a few things they had never seen.   We all love unexpected surprises.

I took out glue bottles and leftover sequins and glitter.  Everyone had the chance to decorate a second mask.   The children hardly noticed we were missing playground time.  We cut the King cake and enjoyed a sugary snack before preparing for our parade.

Wonderful volunteers brought costumes to our room and we quickly dressed as clowns, superheros, princesses and ballerinas.  With our Headmistress leading, instruments in little hands, we danced down an alternate parade route, ending up in the Youth Hall eager to catch beads and doubloons.  Everyone returned with lots of treasures and smiles.

Frequently we  wake up to realize rain has begun to fall.  Our lives no longer will go as planned.   Many times the changes needed will be more life altering than rerouting a parade, but I think we can still learn from the children.   Hopefully, we have nurtured wonderful friends to bring us what we need and help us find alternate routes.  The only thing that really matters is how the story ends.

Shrove Tuesday

Tomorrow will be Fat Tuesday... Mardi Gras... Shrove Tuesday.   It is the last day of the festival season before we enter the forty days of Lent.  Everyone celebrates the day a little differently.

I've always enjoyed the traditional pancake supper.  So on this night I'll take out the flour, sugar, butter and maple syrup and we will enjoy a stack of these light golden cakes.

Perfect Pancakes

2 eggs (room temperature)

1 cup milk

2 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons butter, melted

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/4 cups flour

3 rounded teaspoons baking powder

3 teaspoons sugar

3/4 teaspoon salt

Beat eggs until light; add milk, oil, butter and vanilla.  Sift together dry ingredients and beat into liquid ingredients.  Cook on a dry (not greased) griddle.  Heat griddle very hot; then turn to low and  let cool to low temperature before cooking cakes.
 (leftovers freeze really well)

Bon Appetit

Putting Winter Behind Me!

"You know you've read a good book when you turn the last page and feel a little as if you have lost a friend."  Paul Sweeney

Spring is sixteen days away, give or take an hour or two.  I could actually add a couple of books to my list if I waited until the actual turn of the clock, but I am feeling a little impatient these days.  You would think I could have really flown through several titles with all the days out of school for snow, but I didn't.  I think I have spent too much time daydreaming about spring, perusing garden books and magazines and reading all the wonderful blogs I've found and follow.  Anyway, short as it may be, here is my winter reading list.

 The Wives of Henry Oades, Johanna Moran

(I enjoyed it, interesting story, fairly predictable)

The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis

(totally off my radar and I loved it)

The Woman in White, Willkie Collins

(I don't know how I feel about this book.  The characters are

 fabulous, great story; tedious reading.  I just love saying 

saying the name, Count Fosco)

Elizabeth Street, Fabian Laurie

(another off my radar books and loved it)

Waves, Virginia Woolf

(I probably didn't give this book the time it deserved.  I couldn't 

get a good grasp of the story, so I read it as I would poetry.

I read it for the words and the way the words were put together.)

 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

(you already know my crazy experience with Alice)

Take a break from digging, pour yourself a glass of ice tea and join me on the garden bench with a good book.

I want to hear what you are reading.

Camellias

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you...

I could walk through my garden forever."  

Alfred Lord Tennyson

 

 

I adore camellias.  I do not have a green thumb when it comes to growing them, but I do adore them.  I think I love camellias so much because my mother loved them.  Mother liked flowers, but I don't think she really enjoyed flower gardening.  I'm  not for sure where I got this gene.

I was in the fifth grade when Mother and Daddy bought a farm and moved us to the country.  I know it was my dad's dream, and I just assume it was Mother's as well.  It was a small house on a nice piece of acreage.  There were barns for the horses. There was a pecan orchard, fruit trees and established grapevines.  And, there was a fabulous oak tree just calling for a tree house (another story for another time).

The house set back off the road, with a fabulous rambling garden in front.  There was always something blooming.  Directly in front of the house were two weeping forsythias.   Bridal wreaths bordered the yard at the road.  Every tree was encircled with jonquils.  Louisiana iris edged the complete front garden and random gladiola surprised us  along the fence line each summer.   Against the house were the large flowered azaleas.  In the back was a freestanding wisteria and fragrant sweet peas transported from my grandmother's yard in Tennessee.  And, anchoring one corner of the house was the tallest and most beautiful camellia.

One by one everything disappeared with the exception of the camellia, blooming without fail every January.  I remember feeling a little sad when all the pretty flowers disappeared without really knowing why.  I think the camellia survived because Mother loved this flower and it just took care of itself.

I wish my camellias could take care of themselves.  These are  the first blooms in three years.  I first planted them in large pots to frame my front door.  They did beautifully, most of the time.  One outgrew the other and we decided to move them to the backyard.  They immediately became bug infested and disease ridden.  This weekend I am planning on going out in search of larger pots and transplanting my trees with new soil.

Watching these blooms burst open this year makes me very happy.  I look at them and remember my beautiful mother cutting a bouquet for the table, to float in a crystal bowl or to wrap in a wet  paper towel and aluminum foil for a teacher; for a moment I miss her a little less.   And I am blessed.