Speaking of flowers..

I inhaled the fragrance of a Lily of the Valley at Smith and Hawken today. What bliss for this Miss!
When I lived in Illinois, we had a big patch of them which grew along the side of our house. We also had a big cluster of peony bushes and three giant lilac shrubs in our yard. The fragrance of those three flowers casts a spell on me to this day.
It's been a good week. A tile I made in my ceramics studio class turned out well. It's always a crapshoot, even with many experienced potters, to know if your finished piece will satisfy the image formed in the mind.
Life is a bit of a crapshoot, too..isn't it? We conjure in our mind an idea, an image of what we want and how we think things should be or turn out in response to our efforts or the efforts of others. Yet, things don't always turn out as hoped for. Sometimes the disappointment is trivial, sometimes it shatterers you to your core. I'm glad most of us are made of such resiliant molecules that we can navigate through the troughs and climb out of the abyss when things go badly. I'm glad Gail is healthy and that cancer didn't win.
I'm excited that I'm going to fire my first piece using the Raku method next week. If I get time, and the piece turns out well, I'll post a picture.
My garden is starting to come into flower. The Forget-Me-Nots are a sea of tiny blue florets. I stood beside my lavender bush this week..watching the lone honey bee gather pollen. I'm worried about the decline of bees that's been reported in the news. They're sick.. why? Will they recover? Will it get worse? They're so small and unobtrusive, yet so critcal to our agricultural output. My orange trees will soon burst into bloom. The fragrance of orange blossoms is so heavenly it melts my brain. I hope it draws more bees. I hope all the flowers I have will help feed the bees and make them strong.
Some friends of mine won in a lottery pool this week! They'll get over a million after taxes. How lovely for them. They're good people. I'm glad lady luck skipped into their life. They have a grand-daughter with a profound birth defect. The money will help them assist their daughter and son-in-law to care for the little girl.
I'm turning my shoulder over to a physical therapist tomorrow. I trashed it a few months back, hitting golf balls at the driving range. Grrr. I hope this helps. I really wanted to start learning to play golf.
It feels odd talking about my life here. I've never kept a journal. Maybe I should.

I plan to inject my thoughts into this bloggo place once a week.. Aren't you glad you've been warned! :-)