As an amateur gardener I am cursed — cursed by a yard that is 90 percent shade.

To bloom or not to bloom?

Not partial shade, not dappled shade that might give a flower a fighting chance. No, this is deep shade, the kind that lasts for two-thirds of the daylight hours and has forced me to accept that my fate, but for a lone sun-basked bed, is foliage, not flowers.

This spring, however, the backyard rhododendron is teasing me with the prospect it might bloom for just the second time in the seven springs we’ve lived here.

Planted under a 80-foot pine tree and hemmed in on one side by the garage and two others by a six-foot fence, it’s not surprising the rhodie has been stingy with her blossoms. The one spring she shared them, 2006, followed a winter in which one of the heavy lower pine branches cracked off the tree after a particularly heavy, wet snowfall.  Sunlight flooded into the branch’s void, and she responded with a gorgeous, deep fuchsia.

That spring also marked my emergence from post-partum depression. Owen was born just past the autumnal equinox, but it took me all fall, winter and past the vernal equinox before I regained my mental balance. That spring of ‘06 I finally found joy to offset the anxiety, exhaustion and resentment that colored my first months of motherhood. The coincidence of the first-ever rhododendron blossom became an omen for me of the better days ahead.

Three years later, I could sure use an omen. We’ve been in the trenches of potty training for over a month now. This experience more closely resembles the futile helplessness I felt during those months of infant colic than anything else since. Plus Mike’s mom is in the hospital.

So come on, little rhodie. We had to sacrifice another branch off the pine tree this year, too. This cracked one was too stubborn to fall and we had to pay a tree trimming crew to come out and give you more sun. So I’m due. Give me a blossom. Pretty please.

Today is my daughter Audrey’s nine-month birthday. With her brother Owen this milestone, marking the point at which he’d been out in the world for as long as he was inside me, felt really significant. I remember feeling melancholy,  like I’d lost a special bond with him. No longer would I know him better than anyone else.

This time around I’m still noticing the turning point, but it doesn’t feel as sad. Instead of looking backward, I’m looking forward.  I’m so happy not to be pregnant anymore, so happy that we’ve completed our family and don’t have to face any more of the tectonic shifts that a new child wreaks on family dynamics. I’m also marveling at how much she’s  changed over the past 18 months, from conception (top pic) to birth (middle) to the butt scooch maneuver that, at nine months (bottom) she’s contrived in lieu of crawling.

And I’m starting a new countdown.  On July 14 I’ll be 40 - hence today I begin the last 30 days of my 30s. Several years ago I wrote a letter to myself to open on my 40th birthday. I know it said I wanted kids. Check, check. Looking forward to reading it next month.

Owen and Audrey riding in style.

We got a new-to-us car on Saturday, an ‘04 Mercury Sable station wagon (no wood panels, but it does have faux wood-grain detail on the inside, a nice homage to the classics of the 70s). Though it’s five years old, it’s by far the nicest car either Mike or I have  ever owned, with less than 15,000 miles on it. It happens to be the top model in its line, with leather seats.

And I like it. In fact I’m a bit chagrined at just how much I like it. I always fancied myself indifferent to cars. Get me from point A to B with optimal fuel efficiency and make it last so I don’t have to shop again soon (my two previous cars lasted ten and eight years, respectively.)

Since it’s been in our garage, however, I’ve felt a very self-satisfied air about the new wheels - pride that, were I to observe it in someone else, I’d call arrogance.

It’s 180 degrees from the state of mind Pico Iyer describes in his NYT piece, “The Joy of Less” which  has been in the paper’s top 10 most e-mailed list all week. “But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did,” he writes of his post-NYC, fast-lane life in a two-room Kyoto apartment.

“Me too!” I felt like virtuously shouting when I first read it on Tuesday. Purge stuff. Travel light. It’s the journey, not the destination. Yadda yadda.

How to square that sentiment with my new car reaction? Maybe this way: when I think about it, what I’m really excited about isn’t the vehicle, but what it represents: a safe means of transportation that comfortably accommodates the family we are now. Mike and I aren’t the single people we were when we each bought our previous, smaller vehicles eight and nine years ago. This was also our second-largest joint purchase ever, and it feels good to budget, plan and then do it together.

Nor has my fundamental attitude changed. This is no stepping stone on the way up to an SUV. We got the extended warranty. I hope we’re driving this for another eight to 10 years.

Iyer also writes: “I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.”

But simply shunning stuff won’t instill satisfaction any more than accumulating it will. You could always downsize to a one-room apartment. Then a tent. Then a spot under a bridge. I think peace in one’s personal world arrives from knowing how to remain contented and balanced in a world that keeps trying to pull you to extremes.

In my world, we have arrived in a station wagon. I’m content to be here, and plan to stay awhile.