decemberthirty | Entries tagged with house

What is it about spring that makes me want to do nothing but take photos? Perhaps it's the loveliness of these buds that appeared on my next door neighbor's tree, seemingly bursting into being sometime between last night and this morning. Our hawthorn tree has been slowly putting out leaves for weeks now, but the tree next door was utterly dormant until it was suddenly covered in these pink buds.

Or maybe it's the lightness of sitting around the house right now in bare feet and a linen t-shirt--finally free of all the winter layers. Or the lightness I feel knowing that tomorrow I will teach my last class of the semester. After that, I'll just have to wrap up the grading and then I'm done. Although I've been frustrated at times by the irregular schedule of this class, I've enjoyed it more than any other teaching gig I've had. I'll be glad to be done for the summer, sure, but I feel so much less end-of-semester burnout than I've ever felt before. But it will be good to be done--I've almost entirely shelved my own writing while I've been teaching, so it's time to start getting back to that.

Or maybe it's this little bit of loveliness: new leaves I spotted today on a plant I had given up for dead.

( What else has been going on? )

One of the many new things that I gained when we bought our house was a pair of window boxes. Despite nearly ten years of apartment living, none of my apartments in either Philadelphia or State College ever had window boxes. I've always thought that they were cute, though, so I'm excited to have them.

Right now, they don't look very different than they did when we bought the house: both the little round shrub and the pale green foliage plant (anyone know what it is?) were planted by the previous owners. The arrangement is a bit stiff and formal for my taste--I'm fond of sprawling, messy gardens--but everything about the previous owners' style was stiffer and more formal than ours. I stuck some pansies in for color and to loosen things up a bit, but I haven't quite been able to bring myself to pull out perfectly healthy plants and do away with them! I guess they may not change much for a while, then.

Nevertheless, I brought the camera with me while out walking through our neighborhood today, and took some photos of some of my favorite window boxes. I'm always interested in what other gardeners do in this highly urban environment, and often impressed by the creativity I see when I pay attention.

( Philadelphia window boxes )

Do you have window boxes? If so, show me!

Grey and cool today, with the promise of rain in the afternoon. Promise or threat? We had an intense storm over the weekend; rain fell for hours, cycling back with renewed force after each brief slackening, turning to thunder and lightening in the evening. I was suddenly very aware of the age of this house, as though I could feel the water searching with prying fingers for any crack where it could enter. I don't think I've ever felt so strongly that a house was being put to the test by the weather. We passed the test, mainly--a few drips here and there, but otherwise dry.

After the storm, I washed my kitchen windows, and I love how clear they are now. Even on a grey day I can see the difference. This is the sort of work I've been doing on the house lately: small projects, the sort I can finish in an afternoon. There are bigger project yet to be done, of course, but right now I like the feeling of completion I get from these tasks. Planting pansies in the window boxes, or doing a bit of deep cleaning, or painting a piece of furniture.

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i'm a very very complex person

i try to improve but you see how i worsen

Entries tagged with house

Picture pages

The art of the window box

Many small things

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