Friday, May 24, 2013

Has Spring finally arrived?

Dare I hope so? Has it really and truly happened?

It seems as just a very short time ago I was lamenting the fact that winter was outstaying its welcome. April was cold and snowy and cold. Trees that usually begin to show signs of new life were still dormant at the beginning of May. My nephew calls the bare-branched trees "stick-y trees"--because the branches are sticks. It was depressing, I tell ya. Any flower that had hopefully peeked out from beneath the frozen soil was soon smooshed into oblivion by heavy snows or frozen to death by the plunging temps of late April and early May. I started to become crabby and irritable.
Then, before I could even register what was happening, I noticed trees had leaves and lawns were green and  my furnace was no longer kicking on in the morning. Had it happened? Had spring and its accompanying warmer temps really and truly arrived?

My friends, I think the answer might be "yes". But don't say it too loud or too often. Mother Nature likes to have her fun with us humans. So I will enjoy the warm days when I can, and pedicure my toes in hope of sandals and flip flop weather. :)

Thursday, May 2, 2013

A to Z April blogging challenge - Reflections

This was my second year doing the challenge and I think my posts this year were better than last year's posts overall. The challenge for me was subject matter. Coming up with subjects to blog about is difficult as it is, but trying to fit something you feel you can talk about for at least a few paragraphs that is letter-specific is definitely challenging. (See what I did there?) Then, when you start getting to the end of the alphabet and the not-so-commonly-used letters and trying to find subjects for those letters, the challenge intensifies. Or it did for me.

As I look back over the statistics of the posts in this year's challenge, it's interesting to me to see which ones got the most traffic. This one had the most views: K is for Kindness followed second by this one: P is for Perfect. I'm not sure if they resonated with people, or if those were just the quirks of having a blog and some days just getting more traffic than others regardless of topic.

I enjoyed the challenge, though. I realize that I express myself best when I write. I don't do too bad in person, but if I can take time to think about what I want to say, I find myself to be able to express my intent more clearly and be more eloquent for sure.

Will I do the A to Z challenge again? I most probably will. And I phrase it that way because you never quite know where life will lead you in a year's time. It's certainly my intention to do it again. I think the more I write, the better I become at it and it feels good to complete something like this. It gives me a sense of accomplishment and pride that I followed through with the whole month's worth of writing. I got behind a few days, but I did post for all the letters.

I can't wait to read the other reflection posts to see how others feel about it. There is such a vast array of  people who take a part in the challenge that I'm sure the experiences will cover a broad spectrum. This is one of the reasons I love the A to Z challenge so much--getting to see others' blogs I might not normally see and learn and grow through the reading of those different kinds of blogs.