A Happy New Year to you all.  Our wish for all of us in 2015 is that we all see and seize opportunity, nurture hope where there is despair and discover the wondrous sides of things and people that might otherwise go unnoticed in the haste of our everyday lives.

For all the plant lovers out there, keep the faith. Winter will not prevail.  The days are now gradually getting longer.  Although we have recently been locked in an arctic deep freeze, the seed catalogs keep arriving in our mailboxes, and in a few weeks we will actually be able to feel that the sun’s rays are getting stronger at mid-day.

One of the reasons I appreciate harsh Minnesota winters is that when spring finally comes, I have an incredibly heightened sense of wonder as new life emerges all around.  The sense of wonder I experience as I watch the spring growth flush is hard to beat.  Every time I experience that sense of wonder, it takes me back to when I was a child, and everything was new, everything was a discovery, and it was all wondrous.  Part of the secret of enjoying life as an adult is allowing ourselves to see the world once again through the eyes of our inner child.  We need only to slow down, take in our surroundings and discover the miraculous wonder in the everyday things, moments and people that surround us.

Best wishes to you all for a Happy New Year full of awe and wonder!