Float Like a Butterfly

Thought for the day:  Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit quietly, may alight upon you.   Nathaniel Hawthorne

Butterflies are amazing creatures, aren't they? One landed on my shoulder many years ago. It was an enchanting experience. I was afraid to move, afraid to breathe, for fear of frightening it away, but it clung to my shoulder, barely moving, until we'd driven halfway from Gettysburg back to Baltimore. Yeah, I know it was probably just taking a snooze, or maybe it needed a lift to its favorite garden, but it was still a really neat experience.

I mean, a butterfly. Who doesn't love butterflies?

Some children want to BE butterflies.

Here's a poem about a butterfly, creator unknown. No known title, either, so let's just call it Let It Go

A butterfly will flutter by;
Its lovely colors catch your eye.
Let it go, let it go.
A heart may sigh as it goes by,
and you may catch it if you try.
Let it go, let it go.
It has but a few days to see the world;
It is so short a time since its wings unfurled.
Give it a chance to flutter and dance,
A few happy hours to sip at the flowers.
A butterfly will flutter by;
Its lovely colors catch your eye.
Let it go, let it go

The caterpillar does all the work, but the butterfly gets all the publicity.  George Carlin

Does your garden attract a lot of butterflies?

A butterfly garden requires full sunshine, and if possible, shelter from the wind, so the poor little things don't have to work too hard to stay on the flowers. Flowers, yes, they especially like short tubular flowers, and they like a lot of color.

Some of their favorite perennials include yarrow, milkweed, butterfly weed, asters, indigo, sedge, coreopsis, lavender, lupine, black-eyed Susan, coneflowers, goldenrod, violets, and verbena.

Fave annuals include snapdragons, cornflower, hollyhocks, sunflowers, lantana, and nasturtium.

There's another flower folks around here call a trumpet plant, and butterflies really seem to swarm to those blooms. Hummingbirds, too. But I didn't find a flower by that name in any of the butterfly garden sites I explored. Might have a more formal name.

So, what's all the chatter about butterflies, you ask? Well, the lovely Skippy of I Make Soap gave me a Butterfly Award. The rules are simple. I'm supposed to link to the person who gave it to me, which I just did, I'm supposed to answer some questions, and then I'm supposed to pass it on. And quite frankly, I didn't think y'all would care terribly much about what color I happen to like best. Ergo, I threw in a bit more info about butterflies. Y'know, to kinda make stopping by here worth your time. (Cue the song "Let Me Entertain You" )

There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly.  Richard Buckminster Fuller

So, there it is, the Butterfly Award. Pretty, isn't it? Thank you, Skippy (linked it again!) for sharing this loverly award with me, and for informing me that it's actually the symbol for lupus. I did not know that. But now I do.

And now, the questions:

• Name your favorite color: (Told ya!) I guess I really am like a butterfly here. I like a lot of colors, from the vibrant blue of the sky on a clear day to the bright yellow of a newly-opened daffodil to the green of the grass after a good rain. And lots of colors in between. The neon green of an inchworm, the lilac of a hyacinth, the many velvet colors of roses, especially red. If I really HAD to choose only one color, I guess it'd be sunshine yellow. It's a happy color.
• Name your favorite song: Oh crap. I'm even more fickle here than I am with colors. Music influences my mood, but my mood also influences what music I want to hear, and depending on that mood, what I'd consider my favorite at that particular time. If I can only pick one, I'll pick Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. 
• Name your favorite dessert: Rather than annoy you by saying I like them ALL, I'll just pick lemon meringue pie.
• Favorite pet: I mean, really. That's like asking me to pick my favorite kid. Right now, I suppose our calico Dash is my favorite. She's the most loving pet we've ever had. (But shhhh, don't tell our other cat Dot. I really like HER, too!)
• What wizzes you off? First off, I really like that word wizzes. I guess cruelty of any kind gets me the most upset.
• When I am upset, I shut down. Don't say much, and kinda draw into myself. (I know, very mature)
• Black or white? Yes. I love the dramatic contrast. Oh, what? I'm supposed to PICK again? Crap. OK, black, then.
• My biggest fear: outliving my loved ones
• My best feature: Beats me. Friendliness, maybe.
• Everyday attitude: Happy, with a good dose of irreverent humor.
• What is perfection to you? selfless altruism
• What is your guilty pleasure? Just one? Not moi. (I even suffer pangs of guilt when withdrawing money from our own darned bank account.) So, guilty pleasures. I'll limit it to three: good food, stimulating conversation, and something good to read. Yes, I'll drink to that! Wait, let's make it four. A good glass of wine, too. Oh yeah . . .  and some wonderful music playing in the background.

OK, now all I have to do is pass this award on to someone else. Around and around the fickle finger of fate goes (anybody remember that TV show?) and where it stops, nobody knows. Except me.

It is my pleasure to pay her back share this lovely award with the lovely Ruby  who has passed a couple of other awards my way. She seems to enjoy doing this sort of thing, so I hope she'll be adding the beautiful Butterfly Award to all the other ones currently on her blog. As for anyone else? Please, if you'd like to add the butterfly to your site, too, go ahead and grab it and answer the questions on one of your posts. I'm not going to specifically name anyone else, because not everyone enjoys doing this. So, no pressure. If you wanta, just flit over here and grab yourself a butterfly. (But be very very gentle with it.)

Until next time, take care of yourselves. And each other. 

Happiness does not light gently on my shoulder like a butterfly. She pounces on my lap, demanding that I scratch behind her ears.    Unknown author