The Most Wonderful

"It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year". When you hear that, can't you just hear Andy Williams crooning it on the radio? I don't mean to sound like Scrooge or the Grinch, but I beg to differ. Christmas can be a lot of fun, but it's also stressful. The demands we put on ourselves and the demands we think others are putting on us. Deadlines and trying not to forget anything. Making ourselves find time to stop and enjoy it while we're in the middle of it.

All that to say that I think spring is the "most wonderful time of the year". No pressures. No demands. The warm days, blue skies and sunshine draw you out of the house and out of your rut. You can relax on the front porch with a book or get ambitious and dig into some yard work. Just walking around and enjoying the sounds of the birds and the signs of much loved plants and flowers coming back to life gives your spirit a lift.

I always enjoyed spring time when we lived in Illinois, but up there it is tempered with fickle weather, mud and a lingering damp chill even on nice days for well into May. But here in Georgia, spring is usually getting here about this time...late February...and it is just perfect. I don't care what Punxsutawney Phil, General Beauregard Lee, Staten Island Chuck, or any other rodent has to say. I know spring is here when the Daphne Odora blooms and I see the sweet faces of the flowers on my Georgia Blue open up to face the sun. As much as I enjoy those, they are just the beginning. Riding around town, we see several types of pink trees start to bloom as well as jonquils and thrift. Very soon now the white blossoms of the Bradford Pear trees will be bursting open like popcorn. I never realize how many of those trees are around until they are blooming. So the next several weeks will delight us with an array of renewed annual color...and it all comes to a crescendo for me around the 3rd week of April when our huge azaleas show off. They take my breath away every year.

So, with all due respect to Christmas and it's sentiments, I don't see how anything can be more "wonderful" than spring.

"Consider the lilies of the field.....Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these."

-Matthew 6:28-29