Yesterday I went to a baby shower for my sister-in-law, Cherisse. This is the blanket I was planning on giving her. It's perfect for a little boy, which is what they are going to have, and when I finished this quilt, I thought it turned out really well!
When I took it out yesterday morning to wrap, it became suddenly obvious to both Kevin and myself that they wouldn't probably like the blanket. Oh, it's cute and everything, but they're not really a "tractor blanket" type family. They just don't have enough farmer in their blood. Or in their interior decorating.
So I scrapped (ha ha) the blanket idea, leaving me with a pack of diapers as the sister-in-law baby shower gift. She probably thinks I hate her, or at least that I give super-boring presents. The latter is true.
Not only are my presents super-boring, but I also don't wrap them well. We had some white, all-occasion paper that I thought we had enough of, but once it was cut to the right shape, it left a 3-inch gap revealing the contents. So I taped some of the scraps over that area, giving the package a hideous, patched up look. Feeling that it wasn't enough, I got some baby skin-care products out of my baby shower supply box (the only thing remaining now being the tractor blanket) and secured them to the diaper package by means of a piece of white printer paper.
Now not only was the package hideously patched together, but it was also growing a big lump out of the top.
Throughout the entire shower, I felt so embarassed about my gift. If it had been a set of clothes or a cute blanket or something, the monstrous packaging would be forgiveable. But diapers?! Not quite an exciting present. Kind of like getting white socks for Christmas.
Another girl had brought diapers, and she took them out of the bag, wrapped them with a flannel receiving blanket, tying it at the top to make a bundle that could have been dropped by the stork. Cherisse's grandma brought diapers. It was the bottom of a whole pyramid of presents-- and not the most exciting or cute one, by the way.
So as I sat there and stewed about my present, I thought of what I should have given them (and I'll just hope neither Ryan or Cherisse reads this before I actually get it to them). In China, I bought a couple cute onesies with fish on the front (we're the Fishers). Then I could make a yellow and orange goldfish quilt and package it up with a pack of Goldfish crackers. The ensemble would be much cuter, much more memorable, and much more "aunt of the baby" appropriate.

I'm living in the Secret Garden.

Especially now that spring is here, I feel like I'm Mary or Dickon running around the garden finding all these amazing things that, as of last fall, either looked dead or just plain weren't there!

Read this to see what I mean:

"Eh! the nests as'll be here come springtime," he said. "It'd be th' safest nestin' place in England. No one never comin' near an' tangles o' trees an' roses to build in. I wonder all th' birds on th' moor don't build here."
Mistress Mary put her hand on his arm again without knowing it.
"Will there be roses?" she whispered. "Can you tell? I thought perhaps they were all dead."
"Eh! No! Not them--not all of 'em!" he answered. "Look here!"
He stepped over to the nearest tree--an old, old one with gray lichen all over its bark, but upholding a curtain of tangled sprays and branches. He took a thick knife out of his Pocket and opened one of its blades.
"There's lots o' dead wood as ought to be cut out," he said. "An' there's a lot o' old wood, but it made some new last year. This here's a new bit," and he touched a shoot which looked brownish green instead of hard, dry gray. Mary touched it herself in an eager, reverent way.
"That one?" she said. "Is that one quite alive quite?"
Dickon curved his wide smiling mouth.
"It's as wick as you or me," he said; and Mary remembered that Martha had told her that "wick" meant "alive" or "lively."
"I'm glad it's wick!" she cried out in her whisper. "I want them all to be wick. Let us go round the garden and count how many wick ones there are."
She quite panted with eagerness, and Dickon was as eager as she was. They went from tree to tree and from bush to bush. Dickon carried his knife in his hand and showed her things which she thought wonderful.
"They've run wild," he said, "but th' strongest ones has fair thrived on it. The delicatest ones has died out, but th' others has growed an' growed, an' spread an' spread, till they's a wonder. See here!" and he pulled down a thick gray, dry-looking branch. "A body might think this was dead wood, but I don't believe it is--down to th' root. I'll cut it low down an' see."

That's what I do all day. I run about and exclaim over things that I find in my yard! There's green grass everywhere, whereas last year there was just dry, dead grass and lots of dust. There are tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils coming up along the driveway. There must be hundreds of them!

Then back along the banks of our little fish pond (although currently sans fish) the ground is covered in grape hyacinths. We have about a million rose bushes in various stages of overgrowth, undergrowth, or just plain trampled. Some of them bloomed last year, but others haven't been taken care of well enough to have bloomed for some time now. I'll change that!

We have a compost pile and a vegetable garden. I've planted about a third of it so far. Now we're just waiting for the danger of frost to pass, and we'll plant the rest of it near tax day. I have tomatoes and peppers and pumpkins growing indoors just waiting to be put outdoors to grow me a bumper crop! I can hardly wait to be swimming in fresh, free produce.

My mom came and visited me last week, and she brought me some plants. I've been planting them over the last couple days: chives, oregano, day lillies, and bleeding hearts. This is going to be the most beautiful house EVER!