so i am throwing away the remains of an enormous 80th birthday bouquet my mother gifted to me prior to her two-week vacation in florida. i think to myself  “i like these spent stems. i think i’ll use them for still blog today.” then my twelve year old son wanders by and says “mom, it’s spring outside. why are you taking a winter photo?” and i panic. he’s right. spring happens so fast at this latitude. in one more week it will look and feel like summer already. and all those delicate new-growth colors–those colors that are expressing themselves right now, as we speak–will have turned into the monochromatic grass green of summer. i know i can’t even begin to capture it all. why am i squandering an entire spring day’s STILL blog shoot with dying cut flowers? joe is absolutely right. he is such a wise and perceptive kid. i should probably acknowledge this. i turn to him. and i say, joe: ‘go outside and play.’

remnants of my mother’s 80th birthday bouquet

that pile of downy fluff could belong to any of a number of birds. but those white tipped blue feathers only belong to one animal. it has got me thinking, what is my identifying feature? for my gorgeous friend talin it is definitely her eyebrows. for my friend kristin, it is her brown-haired/blue-eyed combo. for my son joseph, it is the cleft in his chin he inherited from his grandpa (my dad). when i was younger, i would have said it was my turned up nose. the neighbors–the parents mind you, not the kids–used to tease me saying i “would drown if i went out in the rain”. today, my identifying feature would probably be the dark circle under my eyes i also inherited from my romanian father. thanks dad! good thing i had all that practice coping with a pug nose as a kid, because raccoon eyes are way worse.

mallard feathers

vadnais lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

an interviewer recently asked me what the best piece of advice i ever received was. i couldn’t decide. it was either, “be careful what you’re good at,” or “ask forgiveness, not permission,” or “do good work and put it where people can see it.” tell me yours. i’ll frame it in forsythia.

forsythia

saint paul, minnesota

because it’s april 12, and my husband is a tax preparer and i had one too many things on my plate today, my son joseph is guest blogging for one night. take it away, joe:

am i the only one who thinks this looks like a monster? look closely, don’t the three red catkins look like lips and a tongue,  and the cones to the right look like eyes, glasses actually, maybe it’s a monster that reads a lot.

male alder flower catkins on the right, last year’s female catkins center, and fruit on left

sucker lake trail, saint paul, minnesota

when threatened, i tend to retreat into a shell of routine and immediate family. no matter what the world throws at me, a fire, a glass of wine, the couch, the dog, my hubby and my kids make me feel invulnerable to the sharp beaks and prying claws of the world.

painted turtle shells

shoreview, minnesota