One day after treating myself to four wish list books using a gift certificate, hoarded for weeks while trying to decide which books were most worthy of purchase, I discover a book that I really must have right now. Well, of course I can’t have it RIGHT NOW, so in the meantime, I am enjoying the website.

What is making me happy today:

1. About 20 different kinds of daffodils blooming in the yard:

2. A funky little green vase:

3. Singing (or screeching, whatever you want to call it) along with Hotel Yorba by The White Stripes while driving to work.

4. Birthdays (tomorrow, actually, but why not start celebrating early?)

5. Memories of last weeks’ Hot Melting Chocolate Soufflé

Maybe you’ve heard that there’s been a lot of rain in California this year. Maybe, if you live in the north or the east you think we’re all a bunch of crybabies for even mentioning it. That’s probably true. I mostly like the rain, because it means that we have all kinds of beautiful things growing in our yard. Unfortunetely we also have a lot of really big weeds growing too. But lets focus on the positive, why don’t we. Here is a tiny bouquet I picked the other day:

Muscari (grape hyacinth), anemones and tiny daffodils! I can’t pick a favorite flower. The Dutch in me loves tulips, but who can resist voluptuous peonies-such a rare sight around here. And the daffodils we have blooming everywhere! I think we have nearly every variety represented. I just got the latest Martha Stewart Living, and looking at the pictures included in an article about daffodils, I recognized most of them. We have tiny violets blooming here and there and the rosemary is more blue than green with all the flowers covering it. And in the summer we’ll have hollyhocks and sunflowers and oceans of petunias and lavender. Sigh. I love flowers. I don’t mean to complain, but it sure would be nice to have a weekend without rain so I can spend some quality time outside with my flowers.

I worked like crazy on my work space over the weekend:

How beautiful is that floor? It just needs a little sweeping. I still have to tackle that pile on the end of my desk. Well, that and the organized piles I made in the other part of the guest house as I pulled all the junk out:

There are a few more piles that you can’t see too. I’ll go through a stack every night and it shouldn’t be too painful. It feels so good in my little room. I just sat in there for a while last night going through a magazine and tearing out pages and planning new projects and feeling creative.

Also, Bear would like you to know that he has a stick:

And Spring has come to Pine Valley:

Since I don’t have any new and interesting creations to share, here is a picture of the only big quilt I’ve made so far:

I used all those little bits of random fabrics and sample swatches that are not quite big enough for other things. The husband actually cut out most of those squares, and that’s a lot of squares! Most impressive, however, is that I hand quilted the entire thing. It took weeks and weeks of evening and weekend quilting. I should try to take a picture of the stitching. I can’t believe I actually did that. It’s since been moved over to be centered above the bed. How annoying is that off-centeredness?

I also recently finished a hat for my sweet niece, Emma, who requested a red hat:

Red is very difficult to photograph. It looks sort of hot pink, but it really is a true red. I did this almost entirely during my Tuesday lunchtime knitting classes recently. Now to get it in the mail…