On my family’s pilgrimage to Wisconsin the day my Grandma died, I do believe that Grandma told God to make a beautiful sunset for us.  The picture is a tad blurry due to the fact that I took it in a moving car.  I actually think the picture is pretty that way, in an artsy kind of manner.  When I look at this picture now, I realize that it couldn’t have captured the emotion I felt seeing it in person.  The colors were amazingly vibrant, and the peace that this nature-display emitted soothed my broken heart.  It’s the kind of sunset about which I knew my Grandma would talk for minutes on end.  I can even hear her voice raise in pitch slightly as she exhaled in amazement, “Oh, my land!  Would you look at that?!”  Her hushed and humbled excitement at such things was truly contagious.  I do believe that I inherited her love and amazement for the little things in life.

I almost called this post “My Weed Garden,” but then I quickly realized that the title could have terrible and misleading implications.  As a Kentuckian, I already have to deal with enough idiotic stereotypes.  I don’t want to have to start dealing with the notion that I would be home-growing illegal substances, please.

But I digress.  Even though you know I love the color green, I do not declare that I have a green thumb.  I don’t really have enough experience in gardening to know, but I don’t really have a deep-rooted interest in it, anyway.  (Sadly, that pun was most certainly intended.)  But as I was helping my mom weed her flowerbed in anticipation of planting new flowers, I found some little weeds that I thought were really pretty.  So I decided to try to save the lives of a couple of poor botanical pests:

One of them looks a whole lot like flat leaf parsley to me.  (It’s not, though.  I tasted it.)  The other reminds me of some sort of clover.  I’ll probably end up accidentally killing them anyway, but I wanted to offer them a second chance at life.  I am often a fountain of stupid ideas, and I’m afraid that this is one of them.  I’m going to put the planter inside by the kitchen french doors and see what happens.  I’ll keep you updated.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I’m going to take–or create– the opportunity to share a bit about my favorite color green. As you might soon realize, I love the color green…maybe a little too much.

Last month, my girlfriend and I were able to spend part of the weekend in Tennessee with her parents. It was like a mini-vacation in the middle of the semester. I took a few pictures, and I thought I’d post a couple here that show that nature must really know me. Amidst the mostly gray-brown, dry, winter landscape there were several pops of the most beautiful green color! I just can’t get over the golden hues of green, especially when nature smacks them in my face.

Sigh. What can I say…I love the color green. And those hues? That’s me.