Grace Has an Orgy! by Grace Burrowes

Indulging myself is easy—a good book; a quarter pound of sprouted almonds covered in double dark German chocolate consumed one at a time; a sleep-in day in the middle of the week; a bouquet of flowers; a good dessert after a meal with a friend.

Pampering myself, however, is foreign to my nature in the typical sense. I don’t want anybody fussing with my hair, skin, fingernails or toenails. I have restless leg syndrome too severely to permit me to enjoy a massage. I do not enjoy shopping for anything except books and horses (and really good chocolate covered almonds). I do not own a DVD player so an Austen marathon is out (though Colin, I do miss you).

If I belonged to a gym, then lingering in the sauna might appeal, except the last gym I joined left me with tennis elbow, plantar fasciitis, thrush, athlete’s foot and the certain conviction—as God is my witness, Katie Scarlett—I will never join another gym.

But I do have some guilty pleasures. The one I’ve indulged in most recently had me outside for an entire day. This time of year with the trees not yet leafed out, when the sun shines, it shines everywhere. I live on a couple very pretty rural acres with lots of fresh air and privacy, and a stream running down the middle of my property.

I was such a bad girl. I had an orgy.

I planted entire flats of pansies in beds and in buckets. I put in a bank of irises by the stream, I added a bed of tulips and German irises by the barn. I planted lilies of the valley under a cherry tree; I pruned my roses and whacked down about half that blasted wisteria bush (that never blooms). I garnished one bed with Siberian irises and another with some hardy lavender. I stuck in another half dozen stargazer lilies—what the heck, you only go around once. I mulched from here to kingdom come.

I got my hands dirty, I got a dose of sunshine, and I made it a little more likely that if we get adequate rain, my yard will be a thing of beauty for months. I am panting to get in the pick-up truck loads of begonias that thrive so nicely in all my shady borders, and it’s all I can do to hold off on the gladiolus for a couple weeks.

And hanging baskets… don’t make me moan about hanging baskets of fragrant, velvety petunias.

I cannot afford this extravagance. I am not in shape for Total Body gardening for hours on end and yet… when the mood strikes me, there is nothing I’d rather be doing—not even writing (sorry, Deb)—than playing in the dirt with my flowers.

The result is a yard that pampers the senses of sight and smell for months, one that yields lovely bouquets for me and my friends, one that I think everybody who drives by can enjoy for a least a moment.

If that isn’t an indulgence, I don’t know what is.

How do you indulge yourself this time of year? C’mon—tell us how you wallow in the coming of spring.