I sat down at my computer and pondered on what it means to be a mother while hoping some profound words would emerge from my fingertips as they danced across the keyboard.

Just so you have the perfect visual, please know that somehow I got through a whole bunch of formal schooling without ever learning the proper typing technique that is now called keyboarding. So, my typing and dancing fingers can be likened to the chicken dance. I’m chuckling because I know that song will be stuck in your head the rest of the live-long day, but I digress.

It all came to me and I typed it up as quickly as my fingers would move: Motherhood is hard. That’s it. That’s all she wrote.

Then I stared at my literary masterpiece in all its splendor. It was a beautiful moment up until I realized I had come up with three whole words and needed roughly 550 more to pass muster with one Mr. Adam Yanelli, high-ranking official at The Sun. Talk about pressure. The things I do for you people.

I pondered and chicken danced some more.

Author Elizabeth Stone summed it all up far better than I could: “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”  Wearing one’s heart on one’s sleeve has got nothing on mommas!

And at least in my experience, it’s easy when children are young to be all squishy as we learn to yield to the demands.  They’re so cute when they’re sleeping . . . shoot, when they’re awake, too. The innocence and the dependence are intoxicating . . . most of the time.

It’s rewarding and exhausting work. I’ve been on top of the world and back down to the hole I dug in the ground when things didn’t go according to plan. It takes a strong breed to withstand the extremes that punctuate the monotony of the daily grind.

Then those cute little puppies turn into dogs. Weird things start happening. They (and their demands) get bigger.  Oh, and they learn to negotiate like the finest of litigators.

The role changes and I think we all strive to be that soft place to fall, but let’s face it: There’s a hard outer shell that forms.  That’s what happens when we feel the sting of being tenderized and having someone or something come along and pour salt in that open, exposed heart.

It’s a difficult, but necessary balance to strike while trying to prepare those precious babies for the rigors of real, life-isn’t-always-fair life.

And it’s out of a great deal of love we put on the armor and head into battle. Even harder is having to switch back and forth between fighting for and then against. I lay awake at night strategizing—choosing my battles and weapons carefully while weighing the consequences of the various options.

A lot of times I don’t want to be the hardened warrior, but when your heart walks around outside your body you learn all to quickly it’s just plain hard to be soft.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

Well, I’ve written about him (Shadow) many times since and you all know he weaseled his way into our family (and hearts) and took reign over the Whatley Estate grounds where he collects “trophies” . . . not the least of which was a squirrel he proudly carried in his jowls and laid at my feet which were standing INSIDE my home.  He looked so dejected when I became angered over that bloody, flopping mess, but that’s a story for a different day.

When it became apparent Shadow had no plans of moving along he and I discussed the conditions of his adoption. Then I headed off to the vet to get the kitten’s health in order.

 Much to my surprise he was no kitten, but rather a wormy and malnourished six-pound full-gown cat. Some hefty coinage, food, and vast amounts of TLC later the vet deemed him “recovered” and in tip-top shape—a lean, mean nine-pound fighting machine.

Currently weighing in at just over 20 pounds, he resembles a small panther. He’s strong, stealthy and still fast enough —even with his expanded girth—to catch whatever he decides to go after.

So imagine my surprise when all the sudden our version of the lion king is apparently afraid to go outside. Something is lurking, or maybe as I suspect, swooping, and giving him the what for.

We noticed him pacing back and forth at the back door and in time he even started growling as he paced.

We’d open the door to let him after his prey only to watch him poke his head just past the door frame, then back up and slink away up the stairs and far away from . . . who knows exactly what.

I was sympathetic to his plight right up until he decided my front-entry rug would double as a litter box. (He’s never used a litter box and has always taken care of his business outdoors.)

Catching him one time too many squatting on my rug, I picked his big behind up and deposited him on the back patio.

We raced back to the door and I had to hold him out with my foot as I tried to close the door. After I got it closed, he stood up on his hind legs and clawed at the door looking panic-stricken. I’d never seen anything look quite so pitiful or terrified. It was akin to full grown man running and screaming like a little girl.

He started “crying”. I folded. He darted in and hid behind my legs.

I wonder if the mighty hunter has lost his marbles. I’d call his manhood into question, but that was taken away as a condition of his staying.  Or maybe mockingbirds, which are territorial, mean and hatching young’uns in our bushes and trees, have taken to harassing him.

Whatever it is, our big, bad panther-like kitty has suffered a cataclysmic event. Something in the shadows has turned him into a fraidy cat.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

My dear friends, I have stumbled once again and been lured into a torrid relationship with yet another word game: Words with Friends.

 If you haven’t heard, it’s a multi-player word game where players take turns building words crossword-puzzle style with an opponent in a manner similar to the classic board game Scrabble. The rules of the games are similar but Words with Friends is not officially associated with Scrabble.

Decades of reading, writing, and playing word games has gifted me with a better than average (no bragging intended) vocabulary that aids me tremendously in annoying my offspring. I have been duly chastised for speaking in terms they don’t even want to know and forcing them to befriend a dictionary to figure out exactly what I mean. What can I say? It’s the little things in life that give me a charge.

But moving along, this is the same game that caused Alec Baldwin to be booted from a recent flight when he refused to shut down his electronic gadget because that meant being away from the game. In my pre-Words days I thought that whole episode was just silly. Now I understand . . . a little too well.   

I haven’t had my transportation disrupted, yet, but I know what it’s like having a big play all planned out and waiting for your turn. To be cut off at such a crucial moment is . . . well, torture.  The word inhumane comes to mind, too.

Still my problem has been of a little different variety.

After having my posterior handed to me on a gleaming silver platter one time too many I started looking into the game and reading tips from top strategists.

Ended up I was making some huge mistakes, the first of which was believing my ample vocabulary gave me an edge. It did not.

More than anything when it comes down to scoring the most points and winning the game, Words with Friends is about math.  My word knowledge doesn’t really mean diddly squat. And by the way, math is not my strong suit.

So, I’ve had to learn strategize – play a good offense as well as defense, which also means holding back some seemingly amazing word plays to avoid setting up my opponent for an even bigger score.  And I’ve never been one to hold back my words. It’s quite the challenge.

But odder is going nose-to-nose with “friends” and having it turn contemptuous. I’m even learning to trash-talk. Is it any big surprise my mouth writes checks my ultimate gaming skills can’t cash because sometimes I’ve got such a great word to flout that the numbers just be darned?  

The makers of the game got the name all wrong because once you get going it’s Math with Enemies not Words with Friends, but I’m counting down the minutes until I get to play again.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

Several times this past week I listened to stressed adults lament “not having enough time” to accomplish and/or participate in all they desired.  I have certainly felt their pain.

But it wasn’t until my 13-year-old daughter stood before me with large tears on the cusp of falling out of her even larger beautiful brown eyes that something quite profound dawned on me: For all the time we humans in this day and age spend on “education” (I’m talking basic book-learning here), we seem to be failing miserably in the basics of how to navigate real life.

It struck me as I was about to impart some time-management wisdom on my darling teary-eyed cherub, while recalling all the grown-up wailing and gnashing of teeth, that too many of us just don’t get it: Time is finite and not one of us gets to do it all. And who really wants to?

Yes, some will nearly die trying and annoy the heck out of those around them with all the nasty side effects of overextending one’s self.  To each his own, but I do get a tad miffed when such often intentional behavior encroaches on my world and inconveniences me.

However, and getting back to my sad, stressed little angel, I realized it was time to impart some motherly advice and I even ended up shedding a few tears of my own. Thank the heavens above for Granny Adcox who keeps us well supplied with hankies!

I explained how we all have the same number of hours in a day —some of us ending up with a longer string of days than others—and how quite simply choices must be made. And let’s face it: Sometimes it just stinks to choose one thing over another.  But somehow we have to grasp the totality of the here and now and weigh those options. Oh, and doesn’t it stink far worse when the scales hang in perfect balance, not making a decision clear?

Previously in her life, I made decisions for her by simply saying no to too many activities. I suppose it was my loosening of those reins that caused her to feel the strain. Not to mention, her brothers helped me figure out that allowing (or maybe it was forcing) them to choose based on time constraints (theirs and mine) also made them responsible for what came next. And there was no more blaming me for less-than-pleasing outcomes.

I eventually saw a smile on that pretty little face. Even though she hadn’t emerged from between the proverbial rock and hard place, the weight of the world had been lifted from her tiny shoulders. She was relieved to learn that she was not at all alone in her conflict – that I, and others, struggled, too.  

How to live out our time . . . it’s timeless.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

Billed as one of the deadliest peacetime maritime accidents, its maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City claimed the lives of 1,514 people.

Passengers included some of the wealthiest people in the world, as well as over a thousand emigrants from Great Britain, Scandinavia, Ireland and elsewhere seeking a new life in North America.

While I knew of Titanic and its sinking, it was never much an interest to me until I got verbally sassy one day and a gentleman jokingly told me to “watch your tone young lady”.

His tone reminded me of my mother calling me Miss Astor as a young girl when I let my, shall I say “spirited”, attitude surface.

So I took off on a little research voyage of my own.

 I learned that my grandmother and great-grandmother called their daughters that, too. See, I can’t help my “spunkiness”; it’s apparently engrained in my DNA. Shame on the stunning Linda Rowe for trying to temper that; who did she think she was?  Miss Astor?

 Then I found that my supposed namesake, Madeleine Force Astor, was a Titanic survivor. There were many Astor women from which to choose, but the consensus among some internet material was that Madeleine was the source of calling women “Miss Astor”.  

Oh goodie, I thought. Knowing the one hundredth anniversary was coming up, I tucked it all away in a first-class cabin in the Whatley passenger liner Natanic. Your sense of foreboding at this point is probably not off the mark.

Nineteen-year-old, American citizen, and five-months-pregnant Madeleine boarded Titanic in France with her millionaire husband John Jacob Astor IV. They were headed home to New York from a lengthy honeymoon abroad.

John, 47, and Madeleine, 19, had married the previous September amid scandal. He was one of the wealthiest men in the world and recently divorced. She was a young socialite who caught his eye.

To make a long story short, as a woman she was afforded a spot on a lifeboat while John had to stay behind. She became a wealthy young widow.

Following her life to her death in 1940, I didn’t find anything that was really deserving of what being called a Miss Astor actually turned out to be: snobbish and uppity . . . mainly because of being born and bred into more money than any of us could imagine.  And even more Astor women who could’ve potentially worn those labels surfaced. My ship was a-sinking. My idea didn’t hold water, either.

Then by sheer accident —no iceberg involved—I ran across Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, who would have been Madeleine’s mother in law had she not passed away in 1908.

This woman took the cake. She was THE New York socialite of her era. Wealthy beyond anything I can comprehend which is fine, really, but she came up with a list simply titled, “The Four Hundred”.

To be included in the list, one had to be basically as well off as her, and here’s the kicker: One could not be from “earned” money; one had to be from “old” or inherited money. If you weren’t on “the list”, why you were nothing and not fit to breathe the same air.

And, while there were other Astor ladies of distinction, she demanded to be called and/or referred to as, “The Mrs. Astor”.  As I took in more of her, I could think of a few other names, but since I’m in polite company . . .

So you see my column-ship sank.  Like a good captain though, I went down with it. And that, my friends, is something a Miss Astor would never do!

 © 2012 Natalie Whatley

But as my week progressed, the heat of life here in present-day 2012 stood in the way and I became a puddle of goo.

 Picture a chocolate bunny left in a hot car: My eyes are where my tail used to be and I think my tail is sliding into my feet. Somewhere between the two big ears lies a brain. It’s overheated and I’m sorry to report not quite functional.

Thankfully, I had a Plan B before the meltdown.

With spring in full bloom I have been enjoying all the beautiful, vibrant colors blossoming all about the land. And during some internet travels I landed on www.blogthings.com where I learned that my preference in flowers may actually point to some personality traits.  (That site has all sorts of fun little quizzes if you’re inclined to waste time on the addiction it becomes.)

The major floral players are listed below for your enjoyment and perusal. 

Tulips say you’re very positive, popular, and universally admired. You are often hopelessly in love, and connect to others easily. You are a naturally cheerful and upbeat person with an amazing smile. You have a fresh perspective and a different way of looking at the world.

Carnations:  You’re very likeable and have a distinct style—one that many people find fascinating. You are charming and alluring. People are drawn to you. You never forget a name or a face. And the people you love are always on your mind. Some may accuse you of being out of touch, but you’re truly a classic.

If daisies are your favorites you’re very resilient with a spirit of pure optimism. Your view of the world is eternally cheerful. You are bold, vibrant, incredibly striking and always stand out in a crowd. You are adaptable and flexible. You can thrive in almost any situation and you’re often underestimated. Your critics and enemies are in for a surprise.

Iris:  You are very spiritual and incredibly hopeful and courageous. Even when you’ve been challenged in life, you have faith that everything will work out. Your feelings run deep, and you are a very grateful person. You are very affected by the world around you and thankful for the life you lead.

Orchids say you’re very elegant. You are exotic and intricately beautiful while possessing a unique grace that’s both delicate and strong. You are thoughtful and refined—the definition of class.
Some people may find you unapproachable, but it’s only their lack of confidence speaking.

A lily says you’re very enticing: playful, flirty, and friendly. You easily light up a room or someone’s heart. Your unique personality attracts a lot of attention, but your cute ways get you in trouble. People can’t help but be a little jealous of you.

Roses: You’re very affectionate— a classic romantic who believes in true love. You often experience deep emotions and feel warmth towards almost everyone. You are a bundle of positive feelings and sweetness, but easily hurt. People should be careful with your heart.

Sunflowers say you’re very buoyant. You are a truly warm person with amazing bursts of energy who brings happiness to everyone around you. You are bright, bold, cheery, and adored by many. Friends are nourished by your optimism as you rise to the occasion whenever needed. You have boundless enthusiasm.

Which one am I? Even a blooming idiot knows to keep some things secret. I can’t have you folks digging around in my inner-most psyche. Even if I could find my tulips in the puddle, I bet they’re melted shut.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

I never realized how much I moved my head until now. Who knew I bobbed such a catchy tune?

Aside from acting foolish, I aim to do something quite serious. Someone I absolutely adore was born on this very day. Yep, April Fools’ Day, and I can’t begin to tell you how appropriate that is.

If you happen to know my grandmother, Ms. Ruby Watson, go on up and personally deliver happy birthday wishes. Tell her I sent you.

I’ll refrain from giving her age, but know she has been mistaken for my mother, and my mother mistaken for my sister.  I can only hope their genetics play a massive role in my own aging, but let’s get off the topic of my impending wrinkles.

The origins of this light-hearted “holiday” (it’s not an official one) also referred to as All Fools’ Day are a little shadowy, but many people still recognize it with all sorts of good-humored foolishness.

Way back in the Middle Ages, New Year’s Day was celebrated on March 25, and in some areas New Years was a weeklong celebration ending April 1. It has been suggested that April Fools originated because the folks who started celebrating the new year on January 1 were making fun of those who celebrated on other days.

But the day may also have roots in the Roman festival of Hilaria (yes, our English word “hilarious” traces back) which was also held on March 25.

In those times, the days prior to Hilaria were spent in tears and mourning. Without going too deeply into subject matter I’m no expert on, castration rituals were performed on the eve of “The Day of Joy”. I don’t know the whys and wherefores, but I suspect we can all discern the origin of that sadness.

Anyway, on the following day it was no longer proper to be in a mournful state.

I imagine people got creative and found ways to make each other laugh and smile. The human condition being what it is and has been I bet they got a chuckle out of much the same of what we do today.

All of that said I’m so glad to have the aforementioned Ruby Watson, the best April fool, in my life. She has always made me smile.

“Fool” can be interpreted in a less than flattering way, but make no mistake, she has never been one to lack wisdom or common sense. Quite the contrary. She just knows when and how it’s OK to be silly.

I’ve said before, I’m a first-born, practical, mostly-take-life-too-seriously stick in the mud. She taught me how to have fun and how to be silly.

I stayed with her and my granddad many times as a child. At times, she was all business – things needed to be done. But when the work was done, we played.

One time we gathered a bunch of acorns. I didn’t know what I’d do with them, and don’t even remember what we collected them in, but later that day she showed me how to make little people out of them.

We drew faces and the little cap on top made them look like they were wearing hats. I think we somehow glued bodies together but my clearest memory is of their happy little faces and sitting next to her with markers in hand.

I guarantee my creative streak, although in shown a different medium (I work in words, not acorns or any of the other things she was good at creating with) came from her.

And happy little faces . . . imagine mine on the day of my fourth birthday party getting a Barbie-doll cake handmade by my grandmother to show off and share with my friends. The cake portion was a beautiful pink ball gown and the top was a real Barbie body wearing that cake dress.  My face still gets happy remembering that day. I was so proud.

From one impressed birthday girl to another, happy birthday Grandmother!

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

To make up for subjecting you all to such unladylike posturing, this will drip syrupy, pure, sweetness and light. Sugar, spice and everything nice.

But know I’m suffering a bit of performance anxiety as Sun Managing Editor went and called me a real columnist who skillfully and consistently plies my craft. Thanks, Adam, for giving my now inflated ego the jitters. 

I forgive you because you held all of us Sun columnists up discussing a great cause—Baytown’s ultra-successful Relay for Life—and your winning the battle. We’re glad you’re here and healthy.

Deep breath, some sort of pharmaceutical tranquilizer, and on with the show!

Like I knew would be the case this being a national election year, politicking is in full swing. There are no escapes.

And by the time my days have been inundated with national radio and television programming making sure the national candidates —and the issues said programming aims to push—are front and center in my thought process, I’m done. Finished. Cooked, and near burning mad.

Then the local candidates come out and visit my personal home.

 Of what they speak, I have a better handle on because I live here and see it all up close and personal-like. Most of them don’t realize I know who they are and what they’re about before introductions are made.

I sit back rather demurely in my little corner of the world and observe. And my appearance must scream, or maybe giggle, “Like, I don’t have a clue whatsoever!”

You will never know the delight I take in opening up a diatribe about the bees flying about in my political bonnet.  The look of utter shock is priceless and well worth what I paid for admission: paying attention to real life . . . not the fabricated “issues” and non-“solutions” politicians and pundits pose as THE only options available. It’s laughable and disheartening.

Political candidates have agendas: some good, some bad, and others downright ugly. The real feat is ferreting out that agenda when a voting record clearly shows one thing, while a voice speaking states another. 

Many bank on the fact that it’s all so mired in contradiction that folks don’t have the time, patience, or intestinal fortitude to wade through it all. For this, newcomers have an edge with me as I don’t always have as much to consider. But often, they too take their place in having to bend to the will of someone or something big enough.

Yes, I know I reneged on my vow at the beginning of this to exude sweetness. Gotcha.

Today is International Waffle Day. I kid you not. (Originated in Sweden and coincides with the start of spring and the Feast of the Annunciation which celebrates the Archangel Gabriel telling Mary she was pregnant. Yes, breakfast waffles are the celebratory food of choice.)

In the sprit being a smart aleck I usurped and twisted its innocent meaning in honor of all the wafflers.  I wanted to promise one thing and deliver another all while speaking words that ultimately say nothing.

Go ahead politickers, butter me up. Pour sappy sweetness all over me before you eat me alive. But don’t for one second think I don’t know what you’re up to . . . I see the Eggo on your faces!

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

Some years ago I enjoyed the benefits of a cold/allergy medication called Actifed.

The stuff —pseudoephedrine hydrochloride 60 mg and triprolidine hydrochloride 2.5 mg—just worked when my sniffer was having issues and together we had about a 25-year (no) run, as in . . . there isn’t a  lady-like way to put this, no excessive snot.

Then some moron criminals figured out that my favorite, legal drug of choice could be used to make their favorite, illegal drug of choice.  I can’t be bothered in the middle of my hissy fit to research it, but believe it was methamphetamines.

It got to where every visit to any store only led to empty shelves.

I decided supply wasn’t able to keep up with demand and that I’d have to find a replacement.  I searched many labels for a similar product. Those medications were missing from shelves as well.

I marched right up, got in line, and proceeded to wait for near eternity in a local, very large retailer’s pharmacy line for answers.

“We can’t keep it on the shelf. We order, put it out, and within an hour it’s all gone. And inventory tracking shows the products are not being scanned at the checkouts.  It’s all being stolen and authorities across the nation believe being used to make other illegal drugs.”

Fast forward a few months and I hit upon the mother lode one day—four boxes of 24-count Antihistabs, which were a generic, but worked just as well. I was giddy as I completed my shopping. Snot free days were in my immediate future.

With great expectations I piled my booty onto the counter and watched my prizes scanned and bagged.

But wait, there was a problem: A special, “I’ll have to call the manager” problem. There was a secret code and a flashing light. Store management was on me and my loaded basket lickety-split.

“I’m sorry ma’am but we can’t sell you all four boxes of the Antihistabs AND that bottle of children’s cough syrup. You will have to put two of those packages back.”

I had to contain my outrage lest I wanted a pair of silver bracelets and a chauffeured escort to BPD’s Crossbar Hotel.

The drug-making morons could walk right out the front door with enough to last them through the Armageddon, but I—honest PAYING customer with a snotty nose (and attitude at that point)—could not!

The Statute of Limitations has run out, so I’ll admit to stopping at another store on the way home and buying not one, but two cough syrups. I might have been inconvenienced, but not deterred. Take that, Mr. Store Manager who treated ME like the criminal!

Go forward another few months and to get anything even remotely helpful in the cold/allergy department, we were required to scan our driver’s license at the pharmacy where the over-the-counter meds requiring no prescription were now behind-the-counter. And, by the way, purchases were (still are) tracked by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) and don’t go over your “allotment”. Or else.

Try taking care of allergy-ridden or sick kiddos who are not old enough to have a driver’s license and take care of yourself. I can personally attest: not possible at the height of allergy season when five people are popping pills. Like any mother would do, I have done without  . . . the drugs, but not my own snot.

By now I’m sure you’re wondering just what my problem is.

This past week it’s been all over the news how Tide laundry detergent is being stolen, sold on the black market, and possibly tied to the illegal drug trade by no fault of its maker, Proctor & Gamble. An FBI spokesman likened what has been happening to that same scenario with the cold/flu/allergy drugs just a few years back. Task forces are being formed, the problem and what to do about it studied.

It snot cool to mess with my world, thieves!

If I catch a one of you, why you’ll have one snotty woman on your hands!

© 2012 Natalie Whatley

The getting dark early: I’m tired of it and was more than happy bidding it a fond adieu as I slumbered through the wee hours this morning.

Add to that the worst drought in decades dried out and burned up not only on my exterior dwelling, but interior as well.

Outside, my lawn and flowerbeds took a severe beating as did my pocketbook via the increased water bill as I tried to keep at least the major players hydrated. I was only mildly successful and greatly disappointed over the not-so-good return on the time and money spent.  

I’m more than thankful for the recent quenching rains that finally brought some relief, but now I’m left with death and decay surrounded by teeming, lush weeds.

A look inward shows the same. I’m more baffled by what survived versus what didn’t.

I’ve been dragging out the gardening tools and waiting impatiently for the “longer” days. I’ve never been more excited about springing forward.

Our tiny daylight savings leap into the future makes me giddy as it puts the past a little further behind me with minimal effort. Even I can’t mess anything up in the golden hour that passes in the seconds it takes to reset the clock.

While I’ve always had mixed feelings about whether or not I’d really like to see myself in the future, I woke and stole a glimpse right as we made the transition.

The vision was a non-event. I was on my side, curled up in the fetal position, possibly drooling, and I even heard a snort.  Just scary, so I did what I do: closed my eyes and hoped it would all be better when I reopened them.  Maybe I caught me at a bad time.

But the best part is that the longer days are finally here and I can get to the work of surveying what survived, assessing what’s healthy enough to salvage, and digging out all that needs replacing. Then comes the harder part of determining what to plant in the gaping vacated holes.

Some folks seem to have an eye for what would do best. Unfortunately I’m more the trial-and-error type. Heavy on the errors.

I’m reminded of a cute poem I read many years ago by Robert Fulghum entitled, “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten”.  Look it up if you have the chance. It truly brings daily life down to its most basic and the best way to get through.

I’ll have to work on my own version—something along the lines of, “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned from Gardening”—even though I’m not much of a gardener I’ve got several in my family who I’ve watched over the years. My thumbs are only green with envy.

Life really is a constant tilling up of the foundation, fertilizing, cultivating, planting, watering and pruning. The list goes on, and I probably don’t even have that all in the correct order. I may never get it right.

But I’ll get to plowing because even I can create the errant blossom once spring has sprung me from darkness.

© 2012 Natalie Whatley