Spring may have finally come to Tennessee. I thought it had arrived a bit earlier, but then the weather got really cold and blustery.

This is my favorite time of year. And every year at some point around April or May, I can actually smell the earth waking up. It's the sweetest smell. It's up there with babies' necks and plain yellow cake -- springtime just has the most delicious, clean, filled-with-promise scent.

Last night, after a sinfully easy teriyaki dinner -- and the fresh, slightly undercooked, steamed broccoli that I added to the mix, yum -- I remembered that I had left my light blue Crocs in the car, so I went outside to get them. And I wasn't paying any attention. I was just in search of my Crocs. I went to the happy blue Prius; I got the Crocs out of the floorboard; I slammed the door; and I walked back to the front door....

And I inhaled just a whiff -- just a whisper -- of the scent of spring.

Of course I stopped right in my tracks and turned around to breathe more deeply the night air. And there it was again -- faint, but there.

Spring.

Now, if only our trees will recover from the freeze that turned the leaf buds into brown, slimy pods hanging limply on the limbs. Because after the earth wakes up, the next step is always the day that all the leaves go VOOMP! and make the world full of green.

I like that day, too.