happiness creativity begets.

or, creativity happiness begets. it's a gorgeous cycle.

i haven't been posting much on my blog this year. it's been kind of an interesting season, ever since i came back from europe in november. winters are always similar but never the same. it's hardly snowed a bit. it's april already. i'm glad.

i've said it before, but spring is such an enlivening season. i adore it. suddenly it's warm enough to stop dreading each dusk how cold the next morning may dawn. suddenly the sky is blue and the sun is blazing lukewarm rays onto your skin and sprouting the most delicate of freckles. suddenly the tulips are shooting up from under the ground! blessed resurrection! our daffodils bloomed for the first time today. there have been two watermelon-pink tulips flashing their showy faces and licorice-black centers, and glory of glories, today their younger sister, a beautiful yellow-gold tulip with fuschia striped petals and coal-black middle erupted in flaming beauty. oh yes. the trees are the brightest of greens with new life shooting forth from sky-stretched twigs, and the willows, well, the willows are my favorite still. the willows, it seems, are the first to flash forth color onto this vast neutral palette of prairie. their branches turn the most fascinating yellow-green. and when you see that color, you know that aslan is on the move.

i could carry on in raptures of lilacs in bud or cherry blossoms across the way or unfurling rhubarb or bees on the paths or lilies-of-the-valley slyly and shyly springing forth behind the evergreens. i could go on and on, and never stop. oh spring. you're so alive.

today i took my nephews for a long walk in the fresh morning air. we mosied along at a blissful snail's pace, clearing the path of sticks whilst filling our hands with things to fling off the bridge into the clear shallow river. we picked nearly every dandelion in sight, and left them as tribute on the bandshell steps. we glimpsed johnny-jump-ups on the riverbank, and found some on the way home to lovingly and wrinkledly deliver to grandma. my brother and i took a bike ride along the outskirts of town, working with all our might against the wind on the way out, and practically sailing our way home. the windows are open just a bit, and the smell of my brother's expert charcoal grilling is wafting in with sounds of delight from the backyard soccer game.

i made bread today for the first time in a long while too. i've been away for nearly three weeks, in southern california for two, and the windy city for a long weekend, with a laundry day in between and a nephew sleepover ever since. it's refreshing and invigorating to get away, and adventurous and exciting, stimulating the mind and the senses and the heart with new vigor and perspective.

Fresh air for the lungs, fresh scenes for the eye, are fully healing and helpful only when the mind, too, is taken into account, and the jaded brain is spoon-fed, as it were, with new ideas. This is why foreign travel is delightful... [CM Mason]

so while it's practically my favourite thing to get away, it's not an unfavourite to return home once again. and to make bread. we wracked [or racked, either are correct] our brains last night to think of the best possible easter meal. we concluded that homemade bread would be a treat. first it was a soft white, then it was back to the beloved standard ciabatta, and then wait! it's easter! and that means challah.

so i've racked brains, cracked eggs [eight, actually], put on my favourite apron, and washed a few sinkfuls of dishes. of course, the bread shall not be baked till saturday night, but there is something so wonderful, so inexpressibly gloriously fulfilling about using my hands to make bread that i had to post on my blog. it's a blessed triumvirate, you see, the bike, the bread, and the blog. it is springtime, after all, so it's bound to happen.

also, i cannot say enough for the delightful enjoyment of heart and soul in reading an LM Montgomery book [which is practically springtime itself!], or partaking in a thoughtful conversation with head and heart. let us bring these winter mindsets out of hibernation and put on our springtime wonder! there is living to be done, and in doing and living these delightful things, our spirits being fed by simple-hearted time in the Word and prayer, let us walk in newness of life! death and the grave could not hold our dear and blessed Savior, so He rose up on that glorious morning, pronouncing life everlasting. choose life! and live it abundantly.