A Farewell to Winter

Shifting Seasons

Despite this winter having been especially harsh and stormy, I will take with me some really cozy moments being snowed in with the family and cuddled up on the couch watching pleasant kids shows like Puffin Rock, Curious George, and Guess How Much I Love You.

That doesn’t diminish my happiness from spring’s long awaited arrival. There’s a lingering cold but I can smell the change in the air, familiar and missed. The soil is thawing and damp. The snowdrops have blossomed and the daffodils and tulips are bravely pushing their way up.

My weekends lately have been amply occupied by kids’ birthdays. Now that Rowy is two and at the age where we are beginning to get invitations to celebrate with friends from daycare, we find ourselves having double-header weekends where each kids has a party to attend.

It’s made weekends go quickly, leaving us not quite rested. Weekdays have detached from my perception of time as I’ve been busy at work, ending each day feeling like done a lot and yet usually not the things I’d set out to do. Last I looked up I was freezing my face off in the doldrums of early February, then suddenly I was freezing my face off a week from the start of spring, and now I’m still too cold for my liking at the beginning of the season. In this high tide of activity, I’ve been anchored by a few things that have brought me welcome escape or connection:

• I’ve continued to read the Dungeon Crawler Carl series, bringing the huge hardcover books with me on my commutes.

• I’ve had a friend hang and a couple of sister hangs.

• I’ve been frustrated by a new clay body and that frustration has re-energized me to want to be on the potter’s wheel.

• We got a Switch 2, and have been playing both Pokopia with Jasper and the new Mario Kart on random late nights.

• I’ve felt helpful toward my parents’ life admin tasks, recently having successfully nudged my dad into getting a checkup, arranging for and accompanying him to a social security appointment.

  
  

Pottery

I fired up the kiln for the first time in 2026 on the Lunar New Year, and for the second time on the last day of February. That wonderful, zippy production pace I’d briefly attained while off from work during Twixmas is well behind me, and I’m back to stealing sleep time for pottery.

My first cone 6 glaze firing was on March 7th and at this point I’m not certain that a second one will happen in April. This week, all that I’ve managed are a few chain links a night for a made-to-order pedestal bowl. I’m taking as a small win the fact that I kept it up nightly despite feeling drained by the time I could get to it.

I’m struggling to finish a bag of low fire clay. I wanted to work through the entire 25 lb block of it making wall altars. I have finished (and sold, thankfully) several, with another batch in progress. But now that I’ve gotten down to the last pound or so, my sculpting pace has slowed by a lot. I can’t wait to move to other clay and other designs for my handbuilding soon.

Garden Window

A part of me re-awakens each year as spring approaches. With a mental eye on the expected last frost date (April 1st according to the Farmer’s Almanac), I cataloged all of my seeds and added a few new packets to my inventory.

I completed my first round of indoor sowing at the end of February, which included mostly flowers alongside some very old bell pepper and cherry tomato seeds just to see if there’s any chance they’re still viable. Poppy seeds can be “snow sown” and I scattered a packet of them in the snow underneath the azalea bush.

Each week in March, I’ve started additional rounds of seeds and filled in where previous plantings didn’t germinate. This year I’m growing some dahlia from seed. In addition, I’m seriously toying with the idea of cultivating the strips of dirt on the sidewalks outside of our house. I’ve seen neighbors do this and I’d love to take advantage of a few more square feet of growing space. I’m also piqued by the prospect of propagating my lilac tree and hydrangeas - maybe even my forsythia, roses, and fig tree - though I don’t have any space for a proliferation of these main character-type plants.

There is so much to do for the garden, so much to cultivate, experiment with, and hopefully eventually delight in. I can’t wait.

Et Alia

• PSA: The Chinese superstition to avoid cutting your hair on Lunar New Year officially ended on 3/19. Maybe after this hectic month I’ll treat myself to a salon visit.

• We’ve booked our first international trip for the family in May. It’ll be the boys’ first time on a plane, and I’m both excited and daunted by the mental work ahead of prepping and packing for an extended trip.

• Our boiler broke in early February, and a multi-thousand dollar replacement was a surprise expense. We also discovered we had mice in the garage, something I’ve since had to deal with, and I am now holding my breath hoping it’s behind us. No thank you.

• Daylight savings time messed my sleep schedule up big time, though it was already holding onto acceptability by a gossamer thread. Revenge late nights are a habit I return to when I feel my days are out of control, and that’s where I find myself lately.

• Fodder for flower nerds: The Dahlia Experiment - Floret Flowers