Pollyanna Day 21

I guess that means I've kept this up for three whole weeks now.   I'm seriously impressing myself.

If you grow up in the Mormon church, there are certain songs that you sing so often as a small child and know so well by the age of twelve that you can sing them in your sleep...while standing on your head...while juggling flashlights.   One of them is a song about blossoming trees.

Popcorn popping.  

I looked out the window and what did I see?
Popcorn popping on the apricot tree.
Spring had brought me such a nice surprise...
blossoms popping right before my eyes.


I can take an armful and make a treat...
a popcorn ball that would smell so sweet.


It wasn't really so, but it seemed to me...
popcorn popping on the apricot tree.

Living nearly my entire life in the desert, I never really picked up on the significance of this song.  In Arizona, things go from brown to green.  Not much drama or fanfare (or popping) involved in the process.

Now, being in a place with four actual seasons,  I get it.  I get what this little ditty has been trying to convey all these years.  Trees come to life in the spring!  So do flowers and bushes and plants and even grass.

This is my second spring here and I think I'm more in awe this time around than I was last year.  What a blessing it is, after enduring a long, cold winter when everything goes gray and dormant, to see every color of the rainbow  popping up on lawns and in parks almost overnight.

Tulips are my new favorites.  My daughter said to me the other day, "Mommy, I always thought tulips were just pretend; that they were just made-up flowers in movies.  I didn't think they really existed."   How sad is the life of a desert rat?   The poor kid thought tulips were the Easter Bunny of the plant kingdom.

I love spring in my new home.  Everything is green and vibrant with color.  The pictures above are of a tree in my back yard.  It looks a lot like popcorn popping, don't you think?

I suddenly feel like writing a song...