Thursday Notes: #2
First things first. Is that an azalea OR WHAT? I know I’ve talked about this else-web, but, part of the charm and delight of our first year in a new home is finding out what’s in the garden. Mark and I are both avid gardeners, and when we chose this house, we knew it had lovely grounds…but we moved here last fall, and then it quickly became winter, and so quite a bit of what’s showing up now is a complete surprise.
We were so sure it was going to be pink.
_________________
When I bought my Portland house, it was the same thing, except I moved there alone, and though I had a lot of thoughts about wanting to be a gardener, I had basically no experience of gardening. I moved in during the month of June, but Life was Very Busy and Very Distracting, and I ignored whatever was going on in my yard until my second year there.
Then, my method of gardening was to buy a plant that I thought was cool, and plant it somewhere.
But one thing that became clear, back in Portland, was that the former owner of that house…loved pink. Looooooved pink. Half the interior walls were painted pepto-bismol pink, with a darker pink trim. (I’m NOT kidding.) And every single flowering plant in the garden…was pink.
I’ve just spent ten minutes searching for a photo of those pepto-bismol walls. I lived in that house eight years, and I apparently never took a photo of any of them. That can’t be an accident. The pink peonies in the front yard, however, were lovely.
And pink.
________________
Anyway, when we moved here last fall, all we saw in the yard were a riot of pink rock geraniums. And, given that and a few other clues, we were quite certain that everything that came up this year was going to be Portland Pink.
So imagine our delight when that azalea burst into lavender blooms.
There’s wisteria on the back deck: so that’ll be more purple. There’s a huge old rhododendron out front, not yet open but showing signs of…okay, pink. Maybe next week it’ll be ready for its closeup. (Rhodies are in bloom all over the rest of the island! We’re just a bit slow up here, I guess.)
_________________
“But Shannon, what else is going on?” you may ask. “I’m so glad you asked!” I may answer. I’ve got a book coming out in a few weeks–May 15, to be precise–and I just got the first paperback proof a few days ago. I’ll tell you more about the book in next week’s Note, but here’s the artifact itself, in my hot little hand. The character’s face came out a little too red (hmm, she looks like me after kayaking to Yellow Island yesterday and forgetting sunscreen…), so my in-house illustrator toned that down and we’ve ordered another proof. Meanwhile, if e-books are your thing, you can pre-order it for Kindle, or wait till the 15th and get it for other platforms.
Yay book!
Talk to you next week! Thanks for reading!