Time to un-hibernate

The weather in this corner of the northeast has been a real challenge. Since January 1 we've accumulated 4 school snow day cancellations; thank goodness this week was a school vacation week or we'd be adding at least one more snow day to the list.Spending your vacation at home is not very exciting. Yes, we got some things accomplished, but there were no adventures for us this week. Unless you find shoveling heavy, wet snow up and over your head onto snowbanks the size of Mount Washington adventuresome. Or you think chipping 3 inches of ice off the driveway is fun.It is hard to be spiritually uplifted when everything around you is the color of slate, crusted with sand and embedded with the roadside detritus tossed by commuters on the way to somewhere. The endless supply of grey, overcast sky seems to be a constant lately.Yesterday, badly in need of a break from all this winter ambience, I took a detour from my to-do list of errands and ended up at a local garden greenhouse, miraculously open at this time of year. Oh, the beauty of the greens - ferns, prayer plants, coleus, African violets. There is something about the smell of the wet soil that is heavenly.And so, I've declared this the end of my winter hibernation. We are moving toward spring, even if the spring is within the walls of a greenhouse.And my soul is filled with promise and hope.