Day 45

“Hello, my name is Kerry and I haven’t been in a big box home improvement store in 46 days.”

Psst: This is where you say, “HELLLLO, KERRY”.

Or at least that is how it goes on TV, I’ve never actually been to any 12-step meeting (not that I couldn’t have used it at various stages in my life).

It is an annual rite of spring, the suburbanites Saturday morning pilgrimage to  Home Depot to buy flats of colorful annuals and impulse items like new gardening gloves and hummingbird feeders.  To me, there is nothing more satisfying than the instant gratification of planting dozens of already blooming petunias and snapdragons.

But this year, I have to duck my head and rush through the front door of our local grocery store so that I don’t make eye contact with all of the gorgeous baskets of floral finery.   So far, I have actually had  a harder time not buying those kind of things than anything else.

I did anticipate this problem and several weeks ago the kids and I planted some seed packets.  We have zinnias, cosmos and  bok choy in our flower beds (I was limited to what I had on hand).  But it is so hard to have this:

And this:

When you really are used to this:

The entrance to our local grocery store

Patience–that is another lesson for this year.  Eventually these little seedling will be spectacular, maybe not as fast as I would like, but it will happen.  (I’ll keep you posted) And to be perfectly honest, we do have lovely perennials in our yard like this.

Yet I STILL have to resist the urge not to snatch and grab  my neighbor’s flower boxes.