Home With Mommy: It's Spring to Me!!!

It still very much looks like winter and the weather report doesn't show much change. But, it's Spring to me! We all have a reference for the start of a new season. Some people strictly stick to the official date. Others prefer to use holidays as a reference. St. Patrick's Day will start spring for some people followed by Memorial Day for summer, Labor Day for fall, and Thanksgiving for winter. I decorate on the first of the month every month. That means that today, March 1st, is spring. June 1st will be summer, September 1st will be fall, and December 1st was the start of winter.

I recently did a post about how we each have our own ways of finding spring even before the first flower has appeared. It's a survival mechanism. Those in year-round warm climates have been enjoying teasing those of use from farther north on facebook with comments about how cold 75 degrees is and pictures of their landscape. We'll have the last laugh in July when suddenly the intense heat is never ending and unbearable. We might be flying south for the winter but they fly north for the summer. Up here, we count down until spring at this time of year and remind ourselves "it won't be much longer". If history repeats itself we'll have three more weeks of never-ending cold with the occasional warm day sprinkled in before it becomes bearable around the 24th.

The March Decorating Day is special to me for two reasons. The first one is probably obvious if you look at my picture. There is a lot of Irish in my family. It's nice to look around and see Shamrocks everywhere. Mixed in are some spring themes. Zach loves to help me decorate. Just like he shares my three other hobbies: cooking, drawing, and gardening.

It might not be a lot but it does make a difference. In November and December, I did a two - part post on the things that change from fall into winter. The November blog post includes the Decorating Day checklist.

http://homewithmommy-fran.blogspot.com/2013/11/what-november-looks-like.html

http://homewithmommy-fran.blogspot.com/2013/12/now-its-december.html

Now, it's time for spring. I wouldn't normally do a Decorating blog post so soon after a previous decorating blog post but this winter has been so brutal. I hope that this post will help inspire others to bring out more then just their St. Patrick's Day decorations. I hope others bring spring into their homes now because it does help with surviving the rest of what I call "Scientific Winter". I chose that name because the seasons are determined by the position of the Earth to the Sun. That's part of Astronomy and Astronomy is a field of science. I have to separate the two since Zach is still learning about the official seasonal changes in school. I don't want him to get confused. But the more spring we can soak up the better! It doesn't matter what the "official" date says. Welcome to SPRING!!!

My Dresser Decoration. This is a monthly change

These hand towels are only for decoration. It's hard to read but they say "Happy Spring" These get changed every month

This is the hand towel that we use. It is also a monthly change and this one reads "Welcome Spring"

The soap pump in the bathroom is a seasonal decoration. Rabbits are my favorite animal. I try to look for generic rabbits even for my April decorations. I wish they were easier to find.

The bathroom night light is a seasonal change. I'll take any flower I can get right now!

We have a piece of furniture with a few drawers in the kitchen we call the "pantry". This is the space on top of that. These candles are a seasonal change.

These are the kitchen table decorations. They get changed every month

These are the placemats and napkins we use on most days. They are a seasonal change. I have a tablecloth set and a separate set of nice placemats for when we have company. The guest table linins are seasonal

The bottom shelf in our kitchen gets changed each month. For great Irish decorations go to http://www.shopirish.com

The couch pillows are a seasonal change. This is STILL Zach's favorite thing to change. We got all of our seasonal pillows at Kohl's but it's been a few years since they have had this style. New buyers can really screw up good stores!

This is the coffee table. It's draws the eye when you enter the apartment. The tablecloth gets changed each season and the decorations get changed each month. This was the second easiest month to collect the right decorations for. October was the easiest and my first. You'd be surprised how hard it was to find the right decorations for December!

This is Zach's shelf in the living room. It gets changed each month. The only reason I offered him a shelf was because I had enough decorations in the garage for it.

I asked Josh after doing that "Finding Spring" post what he does to bring spring early. He said he really doesn't do anything. I think it's because he doesn't have to. There are already so many changes made around him that he doesn't need to do anything else to feel like spring is near. I leave you with the current pictures of our gardens. The Cabbage are dead but between the extreme cold and the snow I haven't been able to throw them out yet. I also had to dig some of the wires out of the snow to make the change. I'll take different pictures when the snow is completely melted but that will probably be after the 24th at this rate. In the meantime, something is better then nothing.

I'm going to give a shout out to my Dad for the rabbit. It was a window decoration but I haven't been able to find a nice light-up yard decoration that isn't solar powered. The rabbit that was posted before was made from a window decoration. I had gotten the purple light branches in October. When lit, they look like branches with flowers on them. During the day, they blend in so it's easy to focus on the rabbits and cabbage.

This has happened before. In December, I started off with presents in front of my snowflake decorations. I liked it but there was something that wasn't quite right about them. Everything clicked when I moved the presents to Zach's garden and added the Candy Canes. This time, I put the branches in my garden and moved the mushroom to Zach's garden. I looks right. It's hard to find a nice spring light-up yard decoration. Everything I have seen has been solar powered. I need a plug-in. But the branches look good.