Dear Reader:

After all the adventures in the first week of March at Pawleys…I am ready to settle back down and take refuge in my garden, visiting my neighbors, and walking farther distances around the neighborhoods adjacent to Miler.

So when Honey sent me this simple little message yesterday with the following question  (excerpted from the book Small Graces by Kent Nerburn) it really struck a chord with me. It is right where I am at the moment…it is time to return to “the quiet gifts of everyday life.”

“Do we really need much more than this? To honor the dawn? To visit a garden? To talk to a friend? To contemplate a cloud? To cherish a meal? To bow our heads before the mystery of the day? Are these not enough?”  Kent Neburn

After reading this paragraph…I found myself talking back to myself…answering with a resounded “No”…we don’t need more than this…it is enough.

Neburn concludes his message with these three powerful lines:

“To do justice. To love mercy. To walk humbly with our God.

To bring peace to the old. To have trust in our friends. To cherish the young.

Sometimes, it seems, we ask too much. Sometimes we forget that the small graces are enough.”

One reader, David Doane, commented on the entire article with this insightful and powerful response:

“All that is, living and not living, is God incarnate, and is a gift and a grace.  The gifts or graces are everything, including this day, my every breath, my every heart beat, my hand, the ability to move and think and feel, the ability to see, hear, taste, smell, and touch, other people, a glass of water, a butterfly, my cat, a tree, a rock, a lifetime, the entire world in which I live.  It is difficult for me to differentiate between small and great graces.  I think all graces are both small and great.  What helps me value and treasure the graces in my life is knowing how precarious and temporary they are and how little control I have.  What helps me feel complete with the graces in my life is being aware of and grateful for them.”(Awakin Readings)

So yesterday I grabbed my Iphone and started taking pictures of the garden and how it has changed in one week…looking at what is and what my future dreams for the garden holds…It was enough. Peace and happiness.

Looking out my “office window” the azaleas bushes are smiling back at me…they make up one small section of what I call Azalea Alley now…I even park my car in the other driveway so cars driving by can see the gorgeous azalea bushes blooming all the way down my driveway.

My view from my computer…I type and then daydream…lazily staring out at the beauty on the other side of the window…so close to me.

I love my two Anemones…the purple and red…they are gorgeous!

Susan and Kaitlyn…the Amanda Rose just produced its first rose of the season…Spectacular!…I hope this is going to be a great season for roses –  See below.

(* The J&C rose (Jo and Colby) has just produced its first bud…picture coming soon of its first bloom too.)

I must have dropped these three marigolds when I was separating them into the three pots…they managed to root and bloom all by themselves. When I returned from Pawleys there they were. I just might add some more and have a little marigold patch by the fence. A lesson for us all…life finds a way to survive.

I asked Mandy if Eva Cate had a plain drawing of a garden or flower or tree since the essence of this message today is to enjoy the simple beauty all around us. Mandy found this old drawing in her bedroom and sen…t since Eva Cate was playing with a friend elsewhere.

What is remarkable about children’s drawing, at different ages, are the subtle awareness developments evolving in their perceptions of life. At first glance, it looks like a simple flower, with a sun in one corner and a butterfly in the other…but children’s drawings teach us a lesson.

Children live in the moment…the beautiful blooming flower is the highlight of the picture…where the child’s attention is drawn, the sun is no longer just yellow but oranges and reds are being added, and the butterfly has antennae and more developed wing spreads. It is how a seven-year-old sees nature. Simply beautiful at the moment.

*I wish Archibald Rutledge and Kent Neburn could have met before Rutledge’s death in the early seventies…their minds thought alike.

“I do not need some tremendous miracle to give me Faith in God; a violet would do, or a spire of goldenrod, or a daisy or two. But if I had to have magic and wonder, to render any doubts asunder, to prove God true…It would be you.”  (I wonder if ‘they just don’t make’em like that any more? 🙂  )

Yesterday was a ‘eating out and lovin’ it’ day. I met Doodle, Lassie, and Carrie for lunch at the tea room…Delicious and made more fun with just being with all the Dingle girls. Thank you Doodle for the invitation…so much fun catching up!

And speaking of catching up…Anne and I have been doing lots of different things taking each of us in crazy directions but Anne’s invitation for supper last night worked…the best. I told her Five Star…chicken, new potatoes, and asparagus, key lime pie for dessert and a wonderful fig spread on crackers…I think Anne needs to open a tea room too. I brought Nala treats and she was very happy also.

Anne’s talents never cease to amaze me…she needed a gate to keep Nala on the deck…so she studied it awhile and then just made one. Good grief Charlie Brown! Artist, musician, gourmet cook, educator, and now a wood craftsman/woman?

Thanks for a fabulous dinner last night friend! 🙂

Don’t forget! It’s Spring Daylight Savings Time. We lose an hour of sleep but gain an extra hour of sunlight at the end of the day.

Set your clock up one hour and enjoy the day longer.