the beauty of it

We have been blessed to share dinner on two occasions this week with various friends.  I could get used to this.  Good friends are such a balm to the soul.  The time I share with them always leaves me feeling fulfilled.  I cherish those friends that make me want to be a better person just by the way they live in each moment.

Friends (you know who you are), you are inspiring.  Thank you.

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Here is my garden.  Maybe you remember that we were expanding it?  It is three times the size that it was last year.  It has a newly completed fence (with a gate!!).  The soil has been amended with all sorts of organic materials and I'm hoping to plant this week.

 

I have daydreamed about this garden since last year and have had a lot of time to brainstorm and plan.  Here is what I will try to grow this year:

• sunflowers
• corn
• sweet peas
• zucchini
• cucumbers
• green beans
• carrots
• beets
• broccoli
• spinach
• chard
• kale
• pumpkins (2 varieties)
• spaghetti squash
• tomatoes
• sweet peppers
• potatoes
• sweet potatoes
• onion
• garlic
• ginger
• wildflowers

Once things start growing you may find me out there, close to the dirt, amazed at the tiny miracles.  As much as I could try to be chill about it, there's no way I can pretend that growing a garden is not one of the coolest things ever.

There is a lot of work to be done.  I am going to construct two more potato towers to add to the one I made last year.  I'll grow two towers of mixed variety potatoes and one tower of sweet potatoes.  I am going to make an A-frame trellis for peas and cucumbers and a tee-pee style trellis for green beans.  Stay tuned for pictures!

As if to encourage and inspire the garden, the cherry tree has begun blossoming.  It's delicate blossoms are so beautiful.

 

 

 

 

I'm reading a fantastic book right now.  Maybe you've heard of it?

 

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

 

 

 

I began reading it and immediately had to grab my notebook and pen.  I was moved to tears while reading the following passages:

 

"I can imagine what kind of conversation God and Danielle will have, how she'll sit and tell God the favorite parts of the story he gave her.  You get a feeling when you look back on a life that that's all God really wants from us, to live inside a body he made and enjoy the story and bond with us through the experience."

 

"I wonder if that's what we'll do with God when we are through with all of this, if he'll show us around heaven, all the light coming in through the windows a thousand miles away, all the fields sweeping down to a couple chairs under a tree, in a field outside the city.  And we'll sit and tell him our stories, and he'll smile and tell us what they mean."

 

"If I have a hope, it's that God sat over the dark nothing and wrote you and me, specifically, into the story, and put us in with the sunset and the rainstorm as though to say, 'Enjoy your place in my story.  The beauty of it means you matter.'"

 

 

 

Have a beautiful day!