I’m full of pent-up energy – so eager to do everything that I’m having a hard time focusing on getting anything done. I just had a month full of health care appointments (with each test/imaging leading to another possible problem resulting in multiplying appointments) and cold, mostly-cloudy weather. Weather forecasters are saying that tonight will be the last night with temperatures around freezing. Father Frost doesn’t seem to know that the last date for frost in my neighborhood is the end of April – he has visited nightly for close to a week.

As I sit in my purple reading room at 8:00 am, having just returned from a lung scan, I sit and enjoy the sun coming through the blinds and the framed spray of purple flowers made by twilling paper, by artists in Viet Nam. This was last year’s Mother’s Day card from my son and I have enjoyed it so much during the past year that I decided to get it framed to hang in this perfect spot for viewing.

As I sit in my warm room I keep glancing to my left, looking out two big windows onto the porch with my purple porch swing. Outdoors is calling me even though it is barely 40 degrees F. so I grab my second cup of coffee and…

I haven’t spent much time on my purple porch swing this spring because of the clouds covering the sun on most recent mornings – the sun that warms me when the air temperature is just above freezing. This morning is beautiful with a very warm sun and I spend time studying my garden down below the porch, thinking about where to put newly purchased perennials and reading the seed package of Zinnias yet again, for information it doesn’t provide – like is it warm enough to sow the seeds now.

I also look at the old and faded quilt I made when I started quilting again after finishing university and had more time. It is hanging over the back of the swing to dry from melted frost collected as it covered a new shrub clematis I planted too early. Jim normally uses it as a cover to protect the front fender as he leans over to fiddle with the engine. He mentioned that it is a beautiful quilt and I had to agree. I have always loved this quilt because the pattern has the same movement as the “storm at sea” pattern. I’ve been studying the contrasts of light and medium dark pieces that make straight lines look curved. This is going to be my next project after I finish two or three other projects I have in process. I will probably start picking fabrics for it and will want to find some purples to match the swing. I find it interesting that I have never purchased many purples so I think a trip to a quilting store will be a part of my future (says my private fortune telling cookie).

I am enjoying my purple pansies that I planted about a week ago. They do best in cooler weather and I usually buy them too late, just before hot weather hits so they don’t last long. This year when the pansies decide they have had enough heat of early summer, I think I will replace them with some of the beautiful new petunias. I planned on planting annuals in pots on the back deck on Wednesday, then Thursday, and then Friday, as the weather forecaster kept adding one more night of cold in the 30’s. I got impatient with this long cold snap in May and planted them yesterday – hoping that pulling them up close to the house at night would protect them from damage. This morning there was frost on the neighbor’s roof but my plants seem to be okay.

I bought three “heavenly blue” morning glory plants last week knowing full well that they should be planted at the end of May. I am enjoying watching them grow as they sit in the sun on my sewing table and just may plant them next week when the temps are suppose to get into the 70’s. Last year was a dismal failure without a single bloom but I read that morning glories do best in poor soil with minimal watering. So this year they are on their own. I also planted some marigolds in little pots but they haven’t sprouted. They are seeds I collected from last year’s plants and I have plenty to sow outside when I plant the zinnia seeds. All of this is to say that I am really into the working with the flowers in my flower garden this year after focusing on eradicating weeds last year. This spring I am still fighting weeds and rapid spreading perennials but last year’s work made a big difference in what I have to deal with this year.

I also also focused my writing of this post on Jude’s Life in Colour: Purple for the month of May. If your life doesn’t have enough purple in it, maybe you need to visit me and enter through my purple door – or, if more convenient check out other photographer’s samples of purple by visiting Jude. Tell her I said hi.