watchfully and tenderly

Happy Earth Day!
As you can see out my window, the trees are donning their green and the air is fresh and warm.

I updated the mantle as part of my spring cleaning. That painting with mixed media was made by a good friend of mine, actually one of the dearest friends to my heart. It says "My Life Is Changing", which is a mantra I began long ago and which she and I chant to one another as the years go by.
It is never not true.

And here is the sweet little lace trim peeking out of the pocket of my apron. Now that it is done I am anxious to bake a cake while wearing it.
I do have my eye on a recipe for a Fig Cake. I imagine I might make it tomorrow, to welcome home Mimi and Gen, who have been away for nearly a week.

Because the weather was finally warm and not windy today Natalie and Luke came over and we worked in the garden. I battled some spearmint but they are really the ones that did the work. They brought over the seedlings they watchfully and tenderly grew at home, and they transplanted the tomatoes and onions into the garden.

Like I mentioned, we battled the spearmint. Here's Natalie, showing the remains of our plunders.

I'm reading "Something I've Been Meaning to Tell You," a collection of short stories by Alice Munro, whom I love. Her work is the best example of ideal fiction I could imagine. She writes with such simplicity, but the reader can plainly see how carefully her words have been chosen. Sometimes I pause at a short paragraph, wondering exactly why she found it necessary to add those sentences. What do they mean in relation to the rest of the story? What weight could a cherry pound cake wrapped doubly in wax paper and newspaper carry in a story about romance or the lack of?
When I read her words I feel that I need not ever try to write my own fiction, because she has already written exactly what I would hope to convey. It's a feeling both comforting and disconcerting.