Sunshine on my shoulder...

You know how you wait through the bleakness and the cold and the insane snowfalls of winter, dreaming of spring? Well, it's here, and every muscle in my body hurts to prove it. Why do we have to go out and buy forty seven plants and fertilizer and topsoil and bend over to plant all these and to walk around and pick up fallen branches and twigs on the lawn and then decide that it needs a little trim here and there so it looks well groomed and then as if that's not enough, one MUST put posies in large pots at the front door and in front of the garage or else heavens! It will look like we're not in the spirit of things! Well, I mean to tell you -- I haven't bent and stretched and lifted and climbed and lugged the whole winter, and my body is on strike! I can barely walk today. What ever possessed me?!

But you know how cute pansies can be. They're like puppies, or kittens if you're of that persuasion, and you just can't pass them by without envisioning how adorable they will be in their tub, greeting all who come to your door. No matter that it's mostly the UPS lady, and that she drops and runs because the dogs are always barking just inches away behind the front door.

But I fell sway to my fantasies and planted some yesterday anyway. The sun is shining today on them, making each dear little scrunched up face look like it's blinking to keep from getting blinded. Like every proud mama, I had to take a picture: here they are, my kinder flora (interpret that as flower children).


I am also happy to say that I finally put some holes in one of the walls in this new house and hung a sunflower and chickadee quilt that I made some time ago.

Hmmm. You can't see how cute the little birdhouses are around the periphery with their wooden buttons for doors. Here's another, closer shot. There, that's better.

The sunflower and birds are appliqued, and the birdhouses are rectangles and prairie points sewn into one of the borders. The pattern is called Sunflower Cafe by Sue Harvey and Sandy Boobar. It can be found in the August 2008 Quilter's World magazine. My friend, Mary, made one of these and put it in her powder room. After I saw it, I just had to go out and buy that magazine (about a year later!) and make one for myself!