My thoughts have turned to spring-fueled in part by the fact that I hosted a wedding shower this Saturday for my soon-to-be daughter-in-law. My “leftovers” from the shower include two vases of lavender, yellow and white tulips, carrot cake, and peach flavored champagne–more than enough to turn any girl’s fancy to spring.

Most of the wedding showers I’ve been to lately have been very formal affairs held at restaurants, but my son’s bride-to-be wanted something more intimate and fun, and her guest list was one that I could accommodate in my house. She and I downloaded games from the Internet. Her favorite game was “How Well Do you Know the Bride?” (Much to my embarrassment, I got a very low score on that one, but I know more about her now, including her favorite movie star, Joachim Phoenix, book, “Harry Potter,” and rock band, Metallica).

My contributions to the games were a word-scramble and a list of famous romantic couples with one of the names blanked out. (Who would have thought?) The word that they had the most difficulty with was “rocitman.” Other words that gave them trouble were: “gertproophag,” “uncentanmeno,” “tyshailer,” and “trager.” In the famous couples category, the duos that gave them the most trouble were Napoleon and ______________ and Fibber McGee and ________________. (However, one of the young ladies was able to successfully research Fibber McGee on her Blackberry.)

Romance is definitely in the air at my house, but when I think back on the things that I’ve associated with spring in the past, romance hasn’t always played a role. So today, while I was sipping peach flavored champagne and eating just one more very thin slice of carrot cake, I made a list of what I’ve associated with spring.

1. Easter Sunday clothes. My earliest memories of spring are all aboat Easter Sunday and a new wardrobe. My mom always used to make sure that my sister and I had new shoes, a new dress and coat, and, of course, a new hat to wear to church on Easter Sunday. (Does anyone still buy a new Easter hat?) The change of wardrobe was a real ritual in my childhood–and one that I didn’t continue with my own children. Of course, I have three sons–so hats, shoes and new clothes were not anything they were interested in. Add to that the fact that my marriage took me from Detroit, Michigan, to upstate New York (a place where brutal winter changes to summer overnight) and I even gave up buying myself new clothes for spring.

2. Easter egg hunts. My mom made a big deal of these. My sister and I got to color the eggs, but she hid them, and she was a really good hider. This is a ritual that I did carry on with my children for a very long time. As they grew older, they “hunted” for clues that would eventually lead them to a modest prize of money rather than candy.

3. Spring cleaning. I used to be very big on this. My mother certainly was. But lately, I’ve become a slacker. However, the wedding shower motivated me to step up to the plate, and I have to say that I’m really liking the way my house looks. My walls are freshly painted, my garage is cleaned out, and even my office is temporarily clutter free. Plus, there are the tulips.

4. Forsythia bushes. If you’re not familiar with them, they’re the bushes that bloom in early spring with yellow leaf-like flowers. Then the yellow leaves turn green. I like lilacs too, and they always make me think of spring. But forsythias bloom first, and there was a bush in the backyard of the house I grew up in. Two years ago, I planted two forsythia bushes, and I can see the buds already.

5. March madness NCAA basketball. I live in Syracuse, New York, and I have three sons–what can I say? Saturday night after the shower, when two of my sons and my brother were allowed to return to my house, I got to watch West Virginia beat Kentucky. I’m not saying I’m a fan–but one year I wowed my sons and my husband but filling out one of those tournament grid “thingies’ where you slot in all the teams until the final four and I had more winning teams than anyone in my house!

Those are the spring things I’ve been thinking about today. Do you have any “spring rituals” to share? And if you can get five words right on my word scramble, I’ll send you an autographed copy of my upcoming May Blaze, “Led Into Temptation.” Happy Spring!

This entry was posted on Monday, March 29th, 2010 at 7:43 am and is filed under Cara Summers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.