Back to What I Like to Remember + Favorite Things (Hints of Spring)

These pictures are of my still bleak yard, but showing promise of spring.

We are having unusually mild weather and will probably pay for it with severe, stormy weather, but I'll take it. And I hope we don't have too many buds come out only to be killed by a freeze.

But these early shoots are normal and typical for the southeast and it gets me a bit giddy thinking about warmer days and brighter, more colorful days.

All these little bitty green beginnings remind me of little bitty Andrew.

So new and so tender. I love the way they push up the pine straw that Charlie used to mulch our beds. It's amazing how things come to life every year.

Daylilies

Daylilies

Irises or Iris? Correct Plural, I don't know.

Pincushion Flowers and Purple Lilacs

being watched by Mr. Bunny

Yarrow

Sedum

And those are my pictures showing that spring is starting to wake up.

And now a few of my fifth grade diary entries. I didn't do any of January - on purpose -

They are a little too simple and mindless. My pride didn't want to reveal just what a goofy 10 year old I was - but I guess I was -

I just think that it's fun to see what I was doing that February of 1962 compared to this February of 2009, when my 4th grandchild was born. How could I have known what life would look like to me at age 57? In so many ways I still feel like that 10 year old, and I can clearly and vividly still know some of the ways she thought and felt.

Thursday February 1, 1962: Dear Diary, Today I told Jimmy Bell (a friend of my boyfriend) that Marily Mason liked him. She told my boyfriend I didn't like him. (I'm worried)

(this is what I call ultimate goofy - I remember Marilyn was mad and embarrassed that I told that - and let me just say that none of our feelings ran deep at all in regard to these boyfriends - mine certainly didn't over this particular 5th grade boyfriend - I'll have to say I was a bit "boy crazy" . Never was able to play it very cool in that regard - I needed, quite often, to have been a good bit more subtle)

Friday February 2, 1962: Dear Diary, Today I played with Jeannie Knox Livings. We went for a ride with her mother, daddy, and little brother, Jeffrey.

Saturday February 3, 1962: Dear Diary, Today I played with Jane White. Mr. Hart (a man on Williams St.) found a woodpecker in his car. He gave it to Jane.

Sunday February 4, 1962: Dear Diary, Today I pulled a tooth. It was the 4th one from the back left, on the bottom. I don't have my 12 yr. molar. (There is a tape stain in my diary page where I once had the tooth taped on the page)

Monday February 5, 1962: Dear Diary Today I pulled another tooth. It's the 3rd one from the back on the bottom left.

Tuesday February 6, 1962: Dear Diary, Today Miss McMillan (my teacher) had to get out of school for a while. Mother taught us while she was out.

(Let me just say that I remember that day - and mother didn't actually teach. She was not a school teacher by any stretch of the imagination. She just sat in there for maybe an hour or two. Neither am I a school teacher, and I remember having to do the same thing for Laura Beth's 6th grade class, once. I was so nervous and I went in with bags of candy bribing them to be so nice and in control - I could never be a school teacher.)

Wednesday February 7, 1962: Dear Diary, Today is Mary Claire's birthday. She's my cousin. I went to see her. She is 1 year old. She is so cute.

(Again - amazing - Mary Claire now lives in Birmingham with her husband and 3 children who are now teenagers. Her oldest daughter is about to graduate from high school - Mary Claire's mother is my Aunt Mary. Mary is the youngest of the four Northcutt girls. I've written about them in other blogs.)

Thursday February 8, 1962: Dear Diary, Today Ann Key and Willard Livingston(Ann Key is daddy's cousin) dropped in to see Daddy and Mother.

(I remember that day - I can see them coming in the door - and Daddy was so excited. Apparently this cousin of his, was in his same age bracket and they had been quite close. He called her Ann Key - but I know she was Ann Key Livingston - married to this Willard Livingston. I suppose I wrote about it in my diary because the visit caused Daddy to be quite animated - He told how when they were young, the two of them were really good dancers - probably during the swing band era - and they enjoyed dancing together at so many events. - I loved that story and thinking about Daddy dancing so good.)

Friday February 9, 1962: Dear Diary, Today after school I played with Jane White and Jeannie Knox Livings. We didn't have homework.

Saturday February 10, 1962: Dear Diary, Today I went to the circus. Ella, my grandmother, and Jeannie Knox, my friend, went with us. A lady and a man were shot out of a cannon.

(There are no words to describe that fun fun day. It was in Montgomery at the colliseum. I am surprised I invited Jeannie Knox instead of Jane White. Jeannie Knox was quite attached to her mother and we weren't nearly as connected as Jane and I. Who knows? Or my cousin, Rachel. Why didn't I invite her? There must have been reasons. I'm guessing for Mother and Daddy it would have been much easier with Jane or Rachel.)