Sunday, April 17, 2011

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Tonight's picture was taken in March of 2006. As you can see Mattie was playing with his car carrier and cars. There was a train (believe his name was Gordon) involved in this scene as well. However, play close attention to the reddish stuff Mattie had on the cars and was stuffing into the car carrier! That was playdoh! Though I was NOT a playdoh fan, Mattie loved it. He loved making a mess with it and I learned early on that playdoh loved rugs and furniture. It loved our things so much it was impossible to get it off. So when playdoh came out, I tried to quarantine the play area. Looking back, I am happy I allowed all the messes, the opportunity for Mattie to be creative, and to have fun.

Quote of the day: We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~ Kenji Miyazawa

Peter and I had a quiet day at home. Since the sun was out today, after major down pours yesterday, we decided to spend the day on our deck and planted all of our flower boxes. As you can see in this picture, we placed many of our indoor plants and lemon tree on top of our shed. I received this lemon tree as a birthday gift from my sister-in-law at least six years ago. The tree was shipped to us from Florida in a tiny tube. It is hard to believe how it has flourished over the years, and it is quite a producer of meyer lemons!

One of our hummingbird feeders is up and awaiting a visitor. We planted all sorts of flowers and herbs today!

What you can't see here is Mattie's fountain. It sits in the center of the flowers. Peter is fixing it, but when it is up and operational, it makes the deck a very special place to be. You can probably see in the lower right hand corner of this picture, the tip of Speedy Red. Speedy is still with us, and though Peter has tried to talk with me about donating it, I am not ready for that yet. So for now, Speedy is enjoying the deck. For those of you just joining our story, Speedy Red is a ride-on car that Mattie requested weeks before he died.

I snapped this picture so you could see Mattie's chimes that I can hear from inside. The blue fish chime, we bought together near Key West. The other chime, which looks orange and red with silver butterflies was a gift Mattie gave me for my birthday.

The last picture I would like to share with you is that of my kitchen windowsill. I planted gerber daisies in all my ceramic pots. I LOVE gerber daisies. They scream out happiness to me. Maybe because I view their flower as a happy and smiling face. Either case, I plant them on my windowsill, so that they will be one of the first things I see each morning.