Beneath My Wreath

A front door wreath. Warm. Inviting. Stylish. Festive.

It says: Willkommen. Mi casa es su casa. Come on in, y'all. It says: I'm totally rocking the Better Homes & Gardens thing.

And, a wreath says all these thing even if it's technically a stripped down Christmas wreath that is still hanging around at the end of February. Hey, with 2 feet of snow (& 4-5 feet of piled dirty snow) on the ground for 2 months & the kids out of school for days & weeks on end, I couldn't muster up any more enthusiasm than a dried out evergreen wreath. Sans ornaments.

Eventually, the snow melted, the kids went back to school & I finally trashed the Christmas wreath. I was happy dancing when I scored a "new" one for $3 at the thrift store. I know, sticks & berries are not quite in season for March, but but I was making progress away from pine needles. And, heck it was only $3. Besides, I spruced it up with an "R" for Rockin'Bauer & made it fancy.

I was just about to get a springy wreath when we noticed:

And, low & behold:

Four perfect eggs on top of my out-of-season wreath! Really?

What could be more spring? More Southern Living? More Martha Stewart? BH&G?

I was totally rockin' with the best wreath in the neighborhood, people!

And, that wee bit o' HausFrau smugness lasted about 4 days before reality swooped down like a buzzard all over those dead chipmunks in my front yard (oh, yes the Haus is chipmunk-free, thank you for asking). As sweet as those baby birdies were, they loved to eat harked-up worms. And then, as nature would have it, they pooped the remnants of those same harked-up worms.

On my front door wreath. And, the door. And, my Willkommen mat.

About the time the bird poo really began to pile up, the birds lost their babyish cuteness. Which meant the poo lost some of it's novelty too. It's like the difference between newborn baby & size 3T diaper duty. It ain't pretty & you really want to avoid it at all costs.

Eventually, the birdlets lost all their cuteness, became the equivalent of smelly teenagers. And, 16 days after they hatched, they abruptly left the nest.

You know what that means, don't you? The Martha Stewart induced high that I was riding came crashing down around me. I was left with nothing but a trashed out thrift store wreath & a big ol' pile of bird doodie on the front door.

And let me tell you. Nothing says, "Go away. Don't knock. Don't bother. Yes, it is a rental & I don't care how crappy the siding is. Yes, we are PCSing soon. No, MiniMe can't play. And, As a matter of fact, we do hate Girl Scout cookies!" quite like harked-up worm teenager-bird dookie-poo does.