That Was Then

Earlier this month as the madness that is May was just beginning, I was "tagged" by Sarah of Semi Expat ( a woman who leads a far more interesting life than I) to show my sixth post. When I posted this on September 13,2009 I had no idea that anyone would read it other than my partner and myself. Since that day, I have gotten a much better camera, learned to crop, learned to capitalize and found a community of like minded souls whose day to day adventures I follow avidly. So here it is:




i've just spent 2 hours weeding and cleaning up the vegetable beds. in the 2009 battle of food v.s. weeds, weeds won hands down. so did the new contender: blight! blight took on the tomatoes, the squash, the eggplant, and handily won the battle. the weary warriors are in the trash. left standing are a few bedraggled pepper plants, the basil, and the ever growing raspberry, now in fall flower and fruit. then, i wrestled with my nemesis, the chain link fence. our side, covered in autumn blooming clematis, carolina jasmine, a variety of red honeysuckle, gourds, pesky morning glories. their side covered in bindweed, porcelain berry, and various weeds that get caught up in the web. oh, what a tangled web we weave when our neighbors don't weed.

(This post does strike terror in my very soul, wondering what horrors the garden has in store for us this summer.)

I will only tag a few, and please only do this only if you feel like tripping down memory lane.

Denise of Little Pheasant
Se'Lah of Necessary Room

Denise of Chez Denise
Nicole Of Cole And Josephine

Aron of hitherandthither

Rocking and Rolling

I have risen, like Lazarus, from my bed. 10 hours of sleep v.s. 22 hours of work.

Friday I started work at 8am, we staggered out into a beautiful night at 10pm. Right before I left work I grabbed a quick computer moment. Read a few new comments on my last post, felt reconnected to a bigger world than the flowers shop. Thank you.

Saturday was a blur. Phones, flowers,pollen everywhere,people coughing and talking and laughing. Pizzas and salad for lunch, I switched my afternoon coffee size to a Venti. A Venti is a lotta coffee.

We were home by 7:00pm. Today is a day of rest for us. You can take your Mother or wife to brunch or lunch. Your florists will be resting.

Happy Mother's Day to all of you. Happy napping, reading, gardening and eating to the hard working florists out there.

And apologies to my workmates for snapping a few blurry pictures of them hard at work. We had 6 designers, 3 delivery men, and 4 women working the front of the store. For those 4 who took care of the husbands, the children, the phones and the screaming ( was that me?) a huge round of applause and a big thank you from the design table.

Hola!

Cinco de mayo began early for me. I was picked up at 7:15 and after a Starbucks stop, we drove and drove to a nursery to collect plants for Mother's day. We waded around in the mud retrieving hanging baskets far over our heads with a long hooked pole. We collected sedum gardens, pots of gardenias and lavender. Loaded up the two vans and were off to a day of ringing phones, lines of customers and flower arrangements.

Cinco de Mayo ended late, for we cooked a dinner to celebrate our roomate , He Man's ,birthday. We grilled ribs and chicken wings, made DanDan noodles, a big bowl of salad. At some point a paddy wagon appeared to attempt to collect the runaway pit bull Baby. Baby evaded his captors running up and down the street with two county Animal Control people and about 6 small children in hot pursuit.

We ate under the stars and finished with chocolate cake and raspberries and a dog walk. Baby was nowhere in sight.

Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days

Updates from the weekend:

Saturday, rushed to work with heart in throat, replaced peonies in some centerpieces, changed water, talked to flowers sweetly. Did a million other arrangements, baby showers, bridal showers, dinner parties, you name it. Drank a lot of water, wrapped bouquets with ribbon, packed bouquets, threatened driver's life if so much as a petal dropped from wedding flowers. Then sent him out in 90 degree heat with fragile branches of double cherry and those peonies. A series of misadventures followed but nobody saw us sweat. Well, maybe they saw him sweat, but not a bloom was lost. There are no pictures, there is no evidence.

Sunday, 90 degrees and high humidity. While German Girl mowed lawn and edged beds, I lay around our hot house drinking copious amounts of iced green tea and lemonade and reading. that was it. Oh, and I took 2 showers. I was good for zip. Nada. Zero.

Monday, Very, very strict with myself. Housecleaning and laundry. NO blogging. I mean I peaked at a few new postings whenever I finished a room, but then I left the computer alone, just walk away from that computer, I told myself. Then lunch with friends, a little shopping, coffees and talking. Home, prepped dinner, took a few shots of the garden ( see above). Next wedding I'll use my own peonies, lavender and garden roses, thank you very much.

Whew, feel much better now that I've gotten all that out of my head. I am now free to peruse your blogs and see what you've been up to!

Say A Little Prayer For Me

Soooo tired. Two weddings , one today ,one tomorrow. And a slew of other orders. I left work at 6:15 and our driver was still out delivering.

I'm drinking a vitamin bomb because I feel a sore throat coming on and enjoying a private computer moment. I want to go wander around the garden but the 6 month old pit bull , Baby, has escaped his home again and of course come directly to our yard. As far as I can tell he's being reared by 7 children of a young age, whose names all start with R. If German girl were home we would corral baby up and walk him home ( well, she would) , but I'm not up for bringing up baby tonight.

Today's wedding was beautiful, all white peonies, scabiosa flower, lambs ears and other lovelies
held in a beautiful botanical garden. Clear skies, 80 degrees, perfect.

Tomorrow's wedding is for one of my best friend's daughter. So far the pink peonies, from France no less, have opened and started to crumple and the cherry blossoms are on the verge of exploding. As am I. But manana es otro dia. I have fresh peonies coming , praying for the cherry to hold firm, and reminding myself that everything always works out.

( it does doesn't it?)

Garden Temptations

My house is but two away from the main street where I catch my bus in the morning. The bus stops in the middle of the block. So say it takes me one minute to walk to the bus stop.

Unless, unless the sun is shining , and new flowers are open in the garden, and I have to stop for a fast shot of this one or, oh my God, that one. Picture me whirling around in the garden a la Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music.

Then I'm late and running down the street praying the bus is behind schedule or someone has seen me and told the driver to wait or I just miss the bus. And another one doesn't come for 20 minutes.

But after the winter we had, it's damn near impossible not to stare at this Sugar Blues iris, or the Miss Kim lilac or that crazy weigela , a shrub I swear I grow not so much for its blooms as for a chance to say it's name (same with euonymus, but that's a shrub for a different season).

So there goes the bus, but that gives me 20 minutes to go back home and pull a few weeds and pick a few flowers and make that er, I 'm running late phone call.

Crazy gardens, always tempting, always getting us into trouble. Ask Eve.

How Was Your Sunday?

You know what it's like when a Sunday starts out quiet and rainy. And the only things on the schedule are meeting friends for brunch and picking up some groceries. Oh, and a dog walk.

Then the sun comes out and brunch becomes lunch at your house but you still don't have any food?
A quick trip to The German Gourmet to grab sausages and bread and some truffled pate ( 2 guests are European , after all) and the bakery to buy pastries (that European thing again). Then the grill is smoking and a 3 year old is running through the house speaking English, Swedish and apparently Mandarin Chinese, Both dogs are in attendance, one with a "dog hat" according to the 3 year old. Swilling of much wine and water, pate is pronounced excellent, 6 grain german bread delicious, and I don't quite remember what I did with the pound of cooked undressed pasta delivered to my door by Tini, but it was eaten also.

Then they were off to Brooklyn.

And we went grocery shopping. And it started to rain again. ... If it weren't for the dirty dishes and faint sprinkling of freckles on our faces, I would think I had dreamt it all.