is a beautiful day in Texas.  The sky is blue.  The birds are chirping in the garden.  Daffodils are beginning to peak up from the cold, hard ground, hoping indeed that the frost is almost over, that the grass will green, the sun will shine warm and the bitterness of winter is past.  Two of my most favorite quotes about hope:

"Hope is the thing that perches in the soul and sings the tunes without the words and never stops at all." ~Emily Dickinson

and

"See!  The winter is past; the rains are over and gone.  Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come." ~Song of Songs 2:11-12