Love Notes

Brains are such funny things.  I had my head in my hands noodling over what direction I could lean into for a marvelous Mothers Day note ... one worthy of all the wonderful women in your life,  and sensitive to and celebratory of our sisters who drew a short stick.   

This isn't that.  I talked myself off this week's deadline ledge by saying, "Go softly.   Doucement.  Gentle on you."  I gave myself permission to relax and enjoy the end of my week.  I dawdled through three garden centers looking for geraniums in just the shade of pink I like.  I drove 40 minutes to a farmers market and 40 home to get strawberries.  I had some girlfriends over for dinner - I made a salad.     I throttled back and relaxed.   

It felt really good.  I decided to focus on soft colors.  I told myself "just have fun with it".  I walked into the studio to play around with a new earring in soft pink that's been on the drawing board for awhile.  And almost without thinking, two new earrings emerged.   READ MORE

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Each season has its hinge.   It's not a particular date on the calendar, it's more like we become forest creatures and just know.  For me, it's the moment I slip the yard man an extra $20 to drag my tangerine tree from the sunroom out onto the patio.  Literally six inches from where it lives all winter, just the other side of the window pane, but with it comes a completely different social life.  The garden once again becomes my living room.

I read somewhere recently about the dawn of iced coffee season.  (You know I liked that.)  Even though I'm a hot coffee year round kind of gal.  Even when it's a hundred degrees with swamp-like humidity here in Washington.  Then there's my wonderful college roommate Nanny, who lives on the oft frozen north shore of Boston, but is a twelve-months-a-year disciple of Dunkin Donuts iced coffee.   What is it with New Englanders and Dunkin Donuts?   And why is it that the only donut I like, the butternut, is only sold in their New England stores?  Maybe that's actually a good thing for me. 

Where was I ... honoring the hinge.  Which reminds me of my dad.  READ MORE

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I was at a cocktail party this week, and my lovely former neighbor Blair asked how I get ideas for the Love Notes.  I admitted to being a little worried about this one.   Historic Garden Week made for a busy week, and I had yet to even pick up a pen.  Worse still, I confessed I had zero ideas.   

But that is what I love about this weekly missive.  It forces me to look a little harder, and sometimes sends me out on a vigilant and assiduous hunt for little bits of life that just might be worth sharing here. 

Then my dear friend Ruth walked over, who had just run into someone she knew from Georgetown Visitation - where her daughters had gone to school.  The conversation turned to what it's like to go to a school with a religious affiliation different from your own.  Visitation, or Visy as it is known, is an all girls Catholic high school on a beautiful 45 acre campus in the heart of Georgetown, immediately north of Georgetown University.*

I had never heard of the Salesian tradition, which informs the school motto: be who you are and be that well.   READ MORE

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Next week is a very garden club centric week for me -  we have our Alexandria house and garden tour on Saturday (info here), flower arranging at all the houses on Friday (one of my favorite days of the year), and on Sunday, I'll be on a 7 a.m. train to NYC for the Garden Club of America's annual meeting, (not to mention this week's garden club related zoom meetings.   If you know me, you know I'm not a fan of zoom meetings.)  

And all my  MCD goodies will be at the Spring Marketplace at the Atheneum in Alexandria on Saturday - my ace ambassadresses Marianne and Susan will be pinch hitting for me while I'm on garden tour hostess duty that day.  Come say hello.

So I'm trying a little something different for today's note.  Last month's revisit to Gilligan's Island was a hit (here), so in a similar vein, today we'll be joining the March sisters as they move to Manhattan.   Do you remember these lovely characters?  Four sisters, each with unique facets, strengths and weaknesses.  READ MORE

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Consider the corner turned.  Spring is in bloom, we are dancing with the daffodils and tiptoeing through the tulips.  How inspired is this arrangement of rhubarb and ranunculus?  Miss Rhubarb - look at you.  Stepping into the chorus line, center stage across the table - instead of a Pyrex into the oven.  Hat's off, girlie!

This is the moment when everything starts to show off a little bit.  Nature's own version of  fireworks.  

I love hearing what's doing in everyone's garden, and noticing how far apart we all are.  Here's what's going on in mine, in Alexandria Virginia (zone 7):  a second wave of daffodils,  lilacs just opening, mid season tulips and Carolina jasmine in bloom.  Camellias have faded as the dogwoods begin to pop.    The azalea buds sit with lips pursed, about to burst into a technicolor wave of pink.   READ MORE

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