Around Here

Around here, spring is springing and I AM HERE FOR IT.

These early spring blooms are a joy to behold. A real sight for sore eyes.

Around here, another thing I love about this time of year is the excitement and anticipation of seeing my tulip bulbs getting ready to bloom and the other perennials around my yard starting to sprout.

Around here, Tripp and I celebrated the first official day of spring by going to visit the cherry trees at the Gathering Place.

They have planted more than 70 trees to date which is the largest collection of cherry trees in Oklahoma!

I loved seeing everyone with their phones out taking photos and selfies in front of trees.

In case you were wondering, Tripp was slightly less enthralled with the cherry blossoms, but I bribed him to come with me by promising we could get ice cream from the Williams Lodge afterwards.

If you look closely you can see that some of the blossoms look a little worse for the wear (or “bedraggled” as my mom would say) from being beaten and blown by the wind.

Because around here, the main story of past week or so has been the wind.

The kind of wind that roars and whooshes through the tree tops and rattles and hums throughout the house.

Why yes I was listening to U2 recently, why do you ask? <<wink>>

All joking aside, it’s been the kind of wind that carries dust from Texas and smell of smoke from the wildfires out west of us. Many of my fellow Okies have lost their homes and livelihoods from the terrible wildfires this past week.

For those of us who would like to help, the Red Cross is providing aid during the recovery. As someone whose family received assistance from the Red Cross after a terrible storm, I believe in the good work they do.

Around here, for those of us not in the direct path of wildfires, it was a good week to stay inside.

While Poppy snoozed in my chair downstairs, I got ahead on some photography projects and other work. While I was taking photos, I thanked myself for cleaning up my photography space a couple of weeks ago.

You might recall that a couple of years ago, I fixed up this space as place to corral the little bits and bobs that I tend to collect. But since then, a several of the illustrations I taped up had come off and my picture had fallen off the wall. Not to mention all the new stuff and piles of shit I had accumulated.

So if felt good to reclaim a little bit of order back in this space where I spend a lot of time working for my actual job as a photographer and also where I enjoy creative playtime for myself.

As I wrap up this post, I am filled with gratitude. I took a few minutes to read those older blog posts. Remembering how hard those years were while Tripp was commuting to Kansas City for work every week. How unsettled life felt. So it is true to say that I am grateful to have that really hard chapter of my story behind me.

But it’s not just that.

During those challenging years, my faith was the thing holding me together. But now when I revisit that part of my story from this perspective, I can see how God’s grace was working behind the scenes to bring me to this good place. I like to call this “capital G” Gratitude.

The other thing I am feeling grateful for today is this space – my teeny corner of the interwebs – where I am able to sort out my feelings. It’s almost like the physical act of writing and organizing my thoughts on a page (albeit a virtual one) helps me to make sense of thing I am writing about. If that makes any sense at all. And my sincere hope is that sharing these parts of my life might make you feel a little less alone and encourage you in whatever challenging seasons you might be going through.

Love, Kelly