Herbs and Easter

You've probably noticed that the aesthetics of this blog have periodically changed: a new thing here, an old thing gone, a different picture, things in a different order. It's kind of like tweaking the decor in a room in your house: switching this lamp for that lamp, getting a new picture frame, a new throw blanket, trading the armchair for the love-seat. It just keeps things interesting. :) Hope it doesn't bother you! It doesn't bother me! Change is good.

Holy Moses, where did February go?? Anyone seen it? Tomorrow is March 1st, and the *official* first day of Spring is right around the corner: Saturday, March 20th. I desperately want to trade my boots for flip-flops, my sweaters for tank tops. My current wardrobe is ever-so-tired. Isn't it awesome that God knew we would need seasons to keep from going stir-crazy (among other reasons)? So that things weren't the same ol' same ol' all the time? Ah, He's so smart. One thing I really want to do this Spring is grow fresh herbs on my porch. I hate buying fresh herbs at the grocery store--the bunches are always way too much and therefore more money than you want to spend on a few sprigs of thyme or rosemary or whatever. There was an awesome tiered terra-cotta planter in March's Martha Stewart Living, ("Tower of Herbs" p. 46), that I'm going to try to recreate. If it doesn't work, or it's too expensive or too large, I'll just plant in individual pots, like in the photo below. I want to plant thyme, rosemary, mint, basil, maybe oregano--and I'll see what else is out there. Parsley, perhaps. Maybe cilantro. Mmm, oh--to be a rabbit and nibble on herbs day in and day out.

Photo courtesy marthastewart.com

Speaking of rabbits, Easter is just two shakes away, as well: Sunday, April 4th. As I recall, one thing that was very important to me as a kid was to get an "Easter dress". I always loved getting an Easter dress, because I knew it would be just the most wonderful and beautiful new dress to wear to church on Easter Sunday. Of course, it was always a horrifying pastel or flowered something, with too-tight sleeves, and a propensity for only matching equally horrifying white shoes. And sometimes, if I were a lucky girl, there would be a wide-brimmed hat with a large silk flower hot-glued to the front. Usually, Jessica and Noah--when we were little enough that our outfits were still dictated by Mama--were wearing some version of the same: pastel, a floppy hat, camel-colored suede oxfords, and a handful of garden roses, newly shorn stems wrapped in a wet paper towel and crinkly tin foil. Oh, the agony and the ecstasy of Easter outfits. The church I grew up in always and forever has held Easter services outdoors in a big white tent at Boone Hall Plantation, right next to the softly sloping riverbank lined with moss-laden, sentinel oaks--a more beautiful sight you've never seen! During the service, the young children would venture to the front to find a wooden cross covered in chicken wire in order to secure bouquets of flowers in the holes--and by the end, a few plain four by fours would be bursting with blooms of all colors, sizes, and species. Deluge or sunshine, freezing or sweltering, no-see-ums or not--every Easter, there will always be a big white tent and a wooden cross to be adorned with flowers timidly brought forth by Easter's eager children. And there, amongst the oaks and the flowered cross, a few thousand or so of heaven's saints would sing praises to the One who changed everything. Amazing love, how could it be?/that you, my King, would die for me?

And so, without further ado, have a wonderful, restful Sunday evening.