Spring.  Spring, spring, spring!

I love the sun.  The sun follows the pattern.  The sun is consistent.  Those fickle clouds can hide it when they want, but they can't keep it from angling higher northward in the sky and rising earlier each spring day to vanquish the cold of morning and winter.

Literal tons of snow covered the ground, and lay in mountains not long ago.  I often pondered what it would take to remove one of those piles.  A bulldozer?  A jack hammer?  A crane?  And what damage would the grass and earth suffer?  What repair would it need?  Ah, but the sun!  Leave it to the sun and watch your mountain turn hill turn mound turn bump turn popsicle turn frisbee field, all in a matter of days.  The sun is timely. The sun vanquishes.  The sun stays.  The sun penetrates.  The sun transforms.  It even gardens.

Dawn in spring, my alarm clock from apathy and sleep.  My dreamlike visitor calls my name aloud in the silence of my mind, and beckons me out, out, into the newborn day, come and talk, come weep, come sing, come awaken to new life once again.  In my dreamy haze, I do not see myself donning jeans and tennis shoes.  The woman rushing out has no stained work coat, messy hair or baggy eyes, no.  The voice of the sun creates another picture, of fairy land and princesses.  Long, flowing golden locks swish back on the glowing white night gown and silk-lined cape, as the mysterious someone calls her out to the shadowy mist, for love and everything noble, gentle, and grand.

That soft, piercing pink-orange glow, it somehow forgets all dirt and warts and spring mess.  Instead, the heart, the life, the beauty and curves and lines and contrasts and shadows explode!  Enchantment is reality, and passion beyond measure is everywhere.  The heart of a thing is exposed, and it glows so bright its casing vanishes as the glass of a bulb.  Instantly all people are connected, unhidden, related, helped and hurt, indifferent or zealous, but all flowing together one a river of time.  As the voice of the sun shines in my mind, it does in others, my distant neighbors across the fields, the acquaintances in nearby towns, lost friends a world away.  They seem near, they seem alive and people once again.  Their hearts beat and their days flow as mine, they are one small prayer, one thought, one tear away.

On canvas the sun is hard to recreate.  I think of orange and yellow and the sharp painful light, to which you shield your eyes.  My paints are insufficient.  A bit of yellow mixed with white, the color of lilies, a pale easter yellow, eggshell, then white.  Where is the glow?  Where is the sharpness?  How large must the white be to seem brighter in the center?  It occurs to me that the effect of one's lashes as they shield their eyes plays a part in how brightness appears, but also -- and what I discovered in time to paint it -- was contrast.  The sun's distinguishing characteristic is it's far superior brightness than anything around it.  It's light is the source of all color and shape on the earth.  So the edges of my canvas took on reds and oranges and dark yellows, fading and brightening and reaching straight and unwavering toward one point.  That point, that whiteness had the palest yellow poking into it, reaching, but being extinguished next to the outstretching ball of whiteness.  The effect turned out pretty good, but still nothing compared to the true sun, the cradle and blankets in which God placed this small earth.

I gotta admit, I put alot of work into this Valentine's Day.  Weeks ahead of time I planned all the dishes for a special Polish dinner for us (No, we're not Polish, but last time we had Polish it was great!).  I researched all the recipes, went on a special shopping trip for good ingredients.  Then yesterday I  cooked nonstop from 10:30am to 7pm, but I did it!  Dan, Eddy and I feasted over candlelight on Pierogies, Golumpkies, boiled potatoes with Dill, and the best Polish pound cake you've never seen! =)

By the end of the day, the end of the meal, the end of dessert, I was beginning to wonder whether Danny had anything in store for me at all.  Right when my anxiety began to rise noticeably, Danny disappeared upstairs and came back with a very large flat package wrapped in brown paper.  "Don't wreck the front," he said.  It was A foot-and-a-half wide and 3 FEET tall.  I carefully removed the paper to reveal a particle board artist's painting of a caricatured blues trumpet player! (pictures to come)

He said when he visited New Orleans on his way home from buying our car, he ran across a whole bunch of artists in progress on very New Orleans style pieces.  This artist sold his paintings for less because he put them on less expensive materials, such as particle board.  But they were just as good or better than half the other paintings for sale!  Wow!  With this, and my uncle's blues painting, I have the makings of the perfect music room!  My husband sure knows what I like!  A perfect surprise for a perfect Valentine's.

I hope your Valentine's was just as special.  Tell me about it!

Dan went home to Afton last night.  Eddy and I are staying in Eau Claire for the week.  We have lots to do!  Today we started our projects off with a bang and a rush and a lot of errand-running!  The sun shone and we trekked from store to store, gathering really random supplies for gifts and events and meals and gardening and money-saving adventures.  It was a tough job, but somebody had to do it!