soooooooooo Ready for Spring...

I know, I know....it's still February. A month until the 'official' dawn of Springtime. (and that's subject to interpretation here in the PNW, anyway...) But my oh my, this chick is ready for Spring to arrive. It will bring with it the fields of daffodils I love so much, followed by the tulips...


I could have had a jump on spring this past weekend and headed to the Flower & Garden Show, but I've been fighting a lousy sinus infection & earache. yuck. Dear Saucy, I feel your pain. Literally. (It's the pressure changes when weather systems blow through here that cause it, so I'll be one very happy camper when winter's storms are past and Spring settles in.) This is the first year in ages that I've missed the Flower Show.... a few years back, I fell in love with the garden that was presented by Christiansen's Nursery. They had a retail booth next to it, and it looked like this:

OMG, I know. That palace of a gazebo just took my breath away! Can't you just imagine it as the centerpiece of a cutting garden? Admittedly a BIG cutting garden. This thing is gargantuan. Tea, anyone? sigh. Since seeing it then, I just crave it. Love love love it. Pine for it. Dream of it. These photos of it are even in my 'wish journal'.

So this afternoon, when the hubs and I went over to the hardware store to grab a can of white paint (we are making an effort to purchase from local merchants whenever possible - even if we do pay a few dollars more for things), we walk in the door and.......oh.my.heavens......there it IS. Smack dab in the center of our very own ACE Hardware store. In all its curly swoopy statuesque Edwardian beauty.

I know my pace slowed as I gazed at it, and my jaw must have dropped as well, for the gentleman behind the counter smiled and said '14nineninetynine', then lifted his eyebrows and mouthed 'fifteenTHOUSANDdollars' at me...kind of like 'dream all you want missy, you ain't never gonna' get it'. I bet he says that a lot. To all of the women who walk in and gape and stare and have googly eyes when they see this grand gazebo.

I asked, of course, and he said, yes, of course, it was indeed the same one that Christiansens used at the Flower & Garden Show. So there it is, sitting there, not five miles from my house and my garden-to-be, just waiting for me. Has been all along, just like my house was. I really hope he is working the day I walk in with a wad of cash to buy it. I'll look at him and mouth the words 'Fifteenthousanddollars is nothing to God, and God is Goooooooood!' to him. ;0)

In the meantime, I have some little primroses that are popping up in the yard along with the daffodil sprouts. Spring is on it's way...the signs are everywhere. Funny, that's how I feel about a lot of things right now. I don't need to see them to know they are coming. Faith is knowing that the seed precedes the flower....and the flower will come when the time is right.