spring in the desert window

Every spring, if we are lucky, for about two days at least one of the cacti in our kitchen window gives us a beautiful, delicate blossom.

It's like a visit to the desert after a rain.

If we aren't watchful the plants aim their blossoms to the sun so slyly we miss the bloom altogether.

We also have to be watchful if the cacti plants are too close to the window. The stems of the flowers grow quickly, like 3 inches in a day. If there isn't room, the blossoms smash themselves against the window, a pale pink smoosh.

Luckily, we found this blossom in bud, moved the plant out from the window and caught in with the camera before it faded and wilted away.

Isn't it pretty?

Kitchen help

By popular request, here's a photo of the project Lee and I have been working on for the past couple of months. Years ago I promised Mom I would sand off her kitchen cupboards and refinish them.

I think once I even promised to do it as a Mother's Day present or something. But I never did it. Then one day we were in the kitchen playing Hand & Foot with Mom and Dad. I just decided that we would take a few cupboard doors home that day and start the job.

We did that, and when they were done we took more. Soon the top cupboards were done. Then we did the bottom ones. Lee sanded off the old finish after removing the 50s copper knobs. His next step was to apply a thin 3-inch strip of poplar on top of the birch wood. He brought the doors to me, and I painted on three coats of clear finish.

Once the drawers went through this process, and wooden handles were added and finished on the bottom cabinets and drawers, our job was done. Dad cleverly added some wall-to-wall carpeting in the drawers as liners, and they put back all their stuff.

The sad part was how easy it was, really, to get this kitchen job done. We should have done it years ago.