Garden Seed Catalogs--It's a Giddy Time!

The garden seed catalogs have arrived! For those of us who love to plant, nurture, grow, and harvest the seeds found in those catalogs, it's a giddy time indeed!

Looking through a seed catalog now is akin to my perusing the pages of a Sears Christmas catalog as a child. Just as the Christmas catalog got more dog-eared as Christmas drew nearer, the gardening season calendar can be measured by the more and more ragged pages of the numerous seed catalogs that accompany me throughout my day. Page after colorful page of luscious lettuces, cherry-red radishes, tantalizing tomatoes, and herbs of every imaginable aroma and taste. Gardens of flowers, from delicate snow drops to towering sunflowers grace those pages of gardening bliss.

The snow may fall, the chilling winds may blow and the icicles may extend off our gutters to dizzying lengths, but there's a warm, cozy little garden being planted on the planning board at my desk--I can almost smell the fragrance.  

Resolution Revolution

Made those resolutions for 2015? Me either.

 Well, I guess that's not completely accurate. I'm acting on a resolution I made to myself back earlier this summer. It actually takes on more of the form of a resolution revolution. While push mowing grass at my sister's -in-law home back in August, I had some time all to myself to nothing much more than think. And, as I was pondering over our eventual return to our home and lifestyle, it occurred to me that I no longer wanted to be a jack of all trades/master of few. No, I made a resolution at that moment to decrease my ambitions to a nice, neat little grouping.  Like one of my favorite authors once said, "Simplify, simplify, simplify".

Becoming less ambitious...it's a thrilling experience.

For years, my ambitions were, well, just way too ambitious. I always joked that when anyone asked me what I liked, I could simply answer, "Yes." It was exhausting. I liked too many things and wanted to learn too many things. My days pretty much became endless scenarios of  "mile wide/inch deep" experiences. Literally being away from my sources of hobbies/learning/experiences this summer truly helped me  refocus on what really matters to me. More inch wide/mile deep--true passions in life.

Writing, for example--so writing gets much more attention these days. Every day, as a matter of fact. 

Come spring, gardening  gets much more of my attention. In the meantime, the seed catalogs are getting pretty dog-eared.

Photography--a connection of the two passions.

And, so, on this  dawn of a fresh new year, my revolution has begun. No massive list of goals; no list at all. Just a joy that comes with each word I pen, each plant I nurture, each photo I capture.

Viva la revolution!