The One With Lots of Feelings

Yesterday, when I said April was a hard month, I wasn't just referring Snow-pocalypse 2013.

This year, it's been a month filled with illness and the cognitive dissonance that comes preparing for (eventual) change. It's also a month I associate with losing loved ones. Yesterday marked the ten-year anniversary of the suicide of one of my brother's childhood friends. So strange to think that the boy who was 16 when he shot himself would have been a 26-year-old young adult today.

It's a hard month all around and yesterday, it got a little harder. 

I don't have much insight to share about yesterday's tragedy at the Boston Marathon, but my heart certainly goes out to all those effected by yet another senseless act of violence. I think we're all feeling a little numb and worn.

It's so hard to know how to respond to events like those yesterday, especially when you're far removed and there's no obvious way you personally can make things better. In times of national sadness, it can feel as though we're trapped in a hopeless, endless slate gray sort of day. The repetitive barrage of facts and figures from the news media helps us understand events like yesterday's bombings, but do little to heal our hearts.

So I was heartened when a friend shared this status from the Boston Museum of Fine Arts on their Facebook wall:

"MFA admission will be free today. We hope the Museum will be a place of respite for our community."

Oh art. You crafty devil. We love to cut your funding and pretend that capitalism heals all, but when we're really down at the mouth, there's nothing better for the soul than art.

So rather than feel helpless in the wake of yesterday, I urge you to make something beautiful. Just a little something. But do it today.

Write a poem. Sing a song. Do a dance. Arrange a bouquet. Knit a hat. Paint a picture. Send a letter. Bake a cake. Visit a garden. Tell a story. Find your way to fill the world with beauty and color. 

When we create something beautiful, we create peace in ourselves and when we create peace in ourselves, we create peace in the world.

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Etsy Flash Sale - Because I Said So!

If you didn't already know that T.S. Eliot was from the Midwest, this quote surely gives him away, "April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain." 

I've never cared for April much. In northern MN, April's nothing but a cruel tease, where spring hopes are dashed with dull, frozen reality. And this April has been hard. Governor Dayton just declared this week "Severe Weather Awareness Week" because our April blizzards aren't slated to stop until sometime next week. (Here that clanking sound? That's every Minnesotan throwing down their snow shovels in disgust.)

So I'm throwing a sale over at Yes Sir, Yes Sir! Why? Because I said so!

I think we all need to shake these April blahs, so take part in some retail therapy and stock up on owl cozies (now available in orange!) and more. From now until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday, April 21, save 25% on your entire order when you apply the coupon code "APRILSNOW" at check out. What a great way to spend part of your tax refund. (I'm so thoughtful like that. ;P)  

There are several new items in shop, including a selection of owl tea wallets. If you're an avid tea drinker, you know there's nothing more frustrating than throwing a tea bag in your purse to use at the office, only to find it in disgusting shape when you pulled it out for your morning or afternoon tea break. These little knit pouches protect your tea until you're ready to use it and also work wonderfully for organizing jewelry in your travel bags or keeping little items in your purse safe from harm. Comes in a small size (which fits narrow tea bags like Lipton's and are pictured below) or large (which fits Twinnings, Tazo, and Celestial Seasonings.)

Gold Owl Tea Wallet - $5.95

I also now have a selection of simple gift card sleeves available. Personally, I love receiving gift cards, but they're not exactly the most exciting present to opem. You can add some personality to your gift card by using one of these gift "card-igans." The small knit sleeves also work as small wallets to hold only your most essential items (credit/debit card, driver's license, and some cash.) 

Purple and Pink Gift Card Sleeve - $5.95

Blue Shades Gift Card Sleeve - $5.95

I only do a couple sales a year, so be sure to head over to the shop and take advantage of coupon code: APRILSNOW
 

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Easter Monday Greetings

Did everyone have a lovely Easter and/or weekend?

I have to admit, I'm in the midst of a particularly murky Monday. May be a bit hungover from copious amounts of jellybeans and chocolate consumed over the weekend. (Good-bye Lent, hullllloooooo chocolate!)

On a side note, if you almost single-handedly consume an entire bag of Starburst jellybeans in a single day, you will have some pretty strange dreams that night. (Think, like "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" sort of dreams.) Not that I know from experience or anything. *cough* Anyone else indulge just a little too much in  the Easter sweets this weekend?

Once again, the Easter bunny was exceedingly good to me. Not only did he deliver a ton of chocolate, the flowers pictured above, and a beautiful apron (which I could have used when I splatter melted chocolate and butter all over my cashmere sweater while making a flourless chocolate cake on Saturday), he also brought a little companion (picture below on the right) for one of last year's Easter surprises.

For the holiday, my parents came up on Saturday afternoon and spent the night. We enjoyed the beautiful balmy weather on Saturday (50+ degrees! Sunshine! Mud!) by punting around the neighborhood and sitting on  the deck sans jackets. Yesterday morning, the weather had shifted a bit and it was cool enough for a two mile hike up to a nearby scenic overlook (where it was very, very breezy at the top) without spending the whole hike punching through melting snow. We came back for a midday meal of lamb tagine over couscous, a big salad, and chocolate cake. T'was another lovely Easter for the record books, but I have to admit that a 6+ day workweek followed by a holiday weekend was enough to take the wind right out of my sails. After my parents took off, I promptly fell asleep for over an hour. Hosting is hard work. ;)

I did rally to get the first of my seeds started. More on that later this week.

Say, wanna to win these mittens?

I'm giving away a pair on the Handmade MN blog. Click here to learn how to enter. Hint: if you follow this blog, or me on Twitter and Facebook, you've already earned yourself a few giveaway entries. I'd love to ship these off to a loyal blog reader, so don't be shy - step right up and enter!

Happy  Easter Monday and April Fools Day! May your pranks today be good-hearted and tricks pulled on you truly amusing! Side note: I really hate April Fools Day. As someone whose humor is heavily grounded in sarcasm, I've never found April Fools Day antics very funny, since they tend to hinge on ignorance. And I think we can all agree, ignorance is no laughing matter!

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Planting Seeds in the Cruelest Month

First sprout up: basil

T.S. Eliot betrayed his Midwestern roots when he wrote in the Modernist poem The Waste Land: “April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

April, if you live in northern Minnesota, is a good time of year to not be at home. Around here, the month brings lingering ice, lurking snow banks and April showers that come in the form of snow. Meanwhile, mud season makes a bold entrance, so that even as Old Man Winter refuses to give up his icy grip over the land, mud splatters pant legs and dirt get dragged indoors on shoe soles and ground into the rugs. Vacuuming becomes a twice daily chore and during the slow melt that is April, even snow grows dirty.

Throw in Tax Day and we’ve got a rip roarin’ good time up here this month.

It probably comes as no surprise after that flattering description that I try to spend as much of April away from the Ol’ North Woods as possible. Last year saw Andy and I jetting off to the Pacific Northwest and I followed that up with a reunion trip to NYC. This year I’m headed to . . . maybe the Twin Cities for a weekend?

As you might imagine, attempting to avoid an entire month is a rather expensive proposition and this year, the old wallet wasn’t up to the task.

But I’ve been planting seeds.

The very end of March and early April mark the prime time for starting the summer vegetables and flowers. Because I’m usually gone during this span of time, my seeds usually get started closer to the first week of May and those seedlings are pretty piddly and sad when it comes time for outside planting. This year, the seeds got started right on schedule.

As I planted my tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, cauliflowers and flowers Saturday I was reminded of the uncertainty that surrounds every thing we do. The directions on the little Jiffy greenhouses I purchases told me to put two to three in each little seed pod. There’s no knowing which seeds will germinate and from the seeds that do sprout, which ones will weather the transplanting into the garden and of those, which of those will produce. I tried to get nicotiana planted in the pods, the seeds so teeny they seemed to disappear on my finger tips and thought, “it’s a miracle these can amount to anything noticeable at all.”

In the misty, grey chill that is April, ennui tends to be the prevailing emotion. But if I’m going to spend the whole accursed month up here, then I might as well commit to getting 1000 words written on the current novel in progress each morning before anything else happens. Unless I keep planting seeds, I can’t expect anything to grow and blossom in the warmer months to come.

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