She's Laughing Again

Was it Emerson that said, Earth laughs in flowers? Why, yes. Yes he did.

Oh, my......flowers. Ahhhhhhh. I love 'em. Just love 'em. In my pre-Sjogren's days, I always had masses of flowers in my garden and yard. There was nothing I loved better than to be outdoors in the sunshine and up to my elbows in potting soil, but over the past few years I've noticed that as my disease became more active, I've been less inclined to put on my gardening gloves. I just haven't felt like it. Gardening took too much of my energy and being out in the sun for any length of time made me feel crummy.

So I was surprised over the weekend as I found myself pushing a wheelbarrow full of flowers, with garden gloves on, and sporting my dumb stupid sunhat. It happened without giving things a second thought. I saw a beautiful day....I had picked out some annuals for John to put in.....and suddenly I was out there arranging plants and pulling weeds with gusto.

Whoa. As the awareness of what I was doing sunk in, I sat back on my heels and put down my garden trowel. I wiped my brow with my sleeve and made a tentative assessment: sweating? Yup. But not overly much. Quivery? Nope. Cold Icy Face feeling? Nope. Tired? A little.

Well, now. I went over to my hammock swing and rested a bit, mulling over this latest unexpected energy burst. It seemed too good to be true. I rocked gently in the swing, waiting for the familiar after-exercise crash to appear, but it didn't.

It didn't.

I slid out of the swing and decided to push things a bit further. I put my gloves back on and headed out into the sunshine to pull some pesky weeds out of my blueberry patch. Dumb stupid weeds. As I yanked out an impressive pile of greenery, I was astonished. This felt so good. So NORMAL. So.......Julia. So OLD Julia.

And, just like OLD Julia, I completely disregarded those signals that my body was sending me and before long, ended up back in my hammock drenched in sweat with muscles quivering. Rats.  It didn't take long before sjoggie Julia made her return, but what a treat those energy-filled few minutes were.

Dang. I hope that the old Julia returns soon.

Notice the cute little Ladybug tag on my garden shoes? And notice that they're CHEWED? I wonder by whom......

Gosh. What a doggone mystery.