Here in North Texas, spring can sometimes stretch for a month and a half and sometimes it goes by in a couple of weeks. The lesson? Savor it while it is here!

A few weeks ago, our temps hit 90 degrees – in March! Today, it’s a gorgeous 60 out this morning after a spring thunderstorm.

Everywhere I go, I see roses, roses, roses and green, green, green trees and lush foliage. I am in heaven feeling these amazing creatures’ energies!

Not much more to share, but wanted to share some photos for all of you who still have snow on the ground. Spring is coming!

This long stem rose bush is a pure delight. I bought this beauty on the side of the road when we went to Tyler, Texas (Rose Capitol of the World). Stuck her in the ground and she has been blooming like crazy ever since. With help from Gene last year, we gave her a little haircut and she is blooming even more rapidly this year!

At the back of our yard, at the end of pool area (see our silver pool tarp), these pink and red roses have tripled in size from last year. Thank you again, Master Horticulurist, Gene Morrissey! I’ll share more photos of our wild teacup roses that are in full bloom despite the hail storm last night!

I went to the dentist last week, and the receptionist typed in my birthday wrong so on my record it said I was 57 years old. When the dentist came out to the lobby, he looked around and was confused – where was the 57 year old?

He called my name, I responded and we walked back to the patient area. There, another assistant looked at me in a puzzled way. She said, “How old are you?” And I replied, “I’m 40.”

She looked at the screen, looked at me again, and said, “When is your birthday?” I gave her my digits as she updated the record, then she looked at me again. “How old did you say you are?”

“I’m 40,” I said. “I’m sure you were really confused looking for a 57 year old!”

The other dentist said, “I thought, wow, way to go – looking good for nearly 60!”

Then the assistant said, “You look like you are in your late 20s – possibly early 30s, but certainly not 40 and not anywhere near 57!”

We laughed as I shared various stories about how people have asked me if I’ve ‘ever’ stepped out into the sun a day in my life.

All vanity aside, sometimes it is nice to have these experiences where people who have no clue who you are, have no idea about what you care about simply say…good job. No one seemed to bring up the idea that I’m overweight…or that I was there because my crown broke a tooth (lovely)…or that I had thrown my hair up into a bun that day without much thought.

It makes me think about how sometimes we can only see what we want to see. See, what isn’t right, what isn’t perfect, what isn’t real…and just as easily, we can see what is beautiful. YOU are beautiful…just like this sweet, sweet lady… can you see her beautiful spirit?

I remember when I was a kid, my grandmother would take me to the nursing home with her. This was long, long before the swanky retirement villages of today – many of these people were very ill and very old. I remember how comfortable I felt there – and how safe I felt. Perhaps it was partly due to my grandmother, but I believe it was more that these people had an incredible amount of love to share and I didn’t want anything from them – we could just ‘be’ ourselves together. Me, hugging them and loving them just for who they were, and them loving me and loving me for who I was. This photo reminds me of those people…and of my grandmother when she got much, much older lost to Alzheimers and talking about stuffed bunnies that bite. If we are lucky, we too, someday will grow very, very old.