Spring

It's was cold out today, for the second full day of spring. It is really disappointing for me. I want to get out in my yard and see the daffodils piercing the ground, reaching for the warm sunlight. Watch as the rhododendrons buds swell like a sponge in water and then explode as if a firework in the air.
All the plants start emerging from their long winter naps and stretch their stems. They lift their arms upward and finally express their love of summer with beautiful flowers of all shapes, sizes and colors. I'll move some of them to new homes, divide some and share with friends and still others will be new additions from the nursery.
Working in my yard is truly a labor of love. Such satisfaction comes from making such beautiful beautiful plants happy. It is a love I inherited from my dad. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts at Stockbridge. The first in his family to graduate college. He instilled this love of the yard in me, and I am so very thankful for it.
Soon I will be out among the plants, plotting out a new bed or two, weeding others, adding mulch, moving plants that were originally transplanted from my dad's yard and enjoying every minute of it! I can't wait for spring to actually emerge.

Restless

I am restless today. I'm anxious. My head has a thousand thoughts and my body is not interested in any of them.  I'm feeling like I am wasting time on my days off. I just finished working Thursday - Friday 7 AM-9 PM ( if I leave on time ) and Sunday 7 AM-5 PM all with an hour commute each way. It was a taxing 4 days that started with month end and not leaving the dealership until 11 PM. That added up to 63.5 hours working or driving in a 96 hour span. Leaving 32.5 hours for getting ready to go to work and sleeping.

I have found myself lately, not turning off the store while I am home. That is my precious free time, to be a Dad, a husband, to be a person outside of work. I sit here typing with the sun cascading through the window and flowing over me and I keep glancing outside and wishing it was summer so I could get some "therapy" working in my yard. I feel like it is a metaphor for my life with the weeds being my personal demons and the flowers being me, as simple as a seed and yet as complicated as their many varieties.

Do not get me wrong, I love my job, love where I work, and, a little self congratulation, I am damn good at it! But it is a highly demanding and stressful job that starts over and over again each month.  Awesome job, you hit your projections for January and as you read this email congratulating you on that accomplishment you begin to fall behind for February!

Balance is the thing I feel I am lacking lately. I have a job I love, a family life that is awesome and an overall life that I cannot complain about. I need to learn to let go of work and engulf myself in home while I am there. I am trying.

I shut off my work email on my phone today. The place survived 9 years without me I'm pretty sure it can survive a day more!

I'm going to go and have some of my photos printed today, I will enjoy the camera shop and browse equipment I long for. I am really enjoying Twitter and all the artists I have connected with. I continue to evolve everyday, Hopefully growing to sun and not being choked out by the weeds.