My Funny Valentine

Have I told you about my friend Gwen?  She's a special events coordinator at the National Museum Of Natural History and a brilliant flower designer.  Not only has she worked Saturday and Sunday with us at the store, she's taken Monday off from her real job to spend all day Valentines stressing and  arranging around the table,  listening to the same CD's play and me run and and on.

Plus she took a picture of her Valentine flowers from her husband B. and sent it to me so I would have something to post to celebrate this crazy holiday.

Cause for all my griping about the amount of work we and every other florist around the world has to do, I'm a big believer in love in all it's guises.

So Happy Valentine's Day to each and every one of you.  And I'll see you on the flip side.

xo Jane

P.S. Though I didn't say word one to her she knew I was doing this one for her.  Hmmm.

Valentines From The Edge

The edge of hell.  Rather a flower shop preparing for the onslaught.....of Valentines Day.

Picture a shop with 4 phone lines and three retail clerks to answer them.  Thousands of flowers with nowhere to go, both upstairs coolers broken down.  And a cooler repair man channeling  Cee Lo for 5 hours, and not the "Forget You" version either.  Oh and our lead driver's license expired, as we found out today when he tried to deliver funeral flowers on a military base.  His sweet talking kept him out of the brig and the van from being impounded.  "Forget her too".

Oh and Charles, whoever you are, your flowers WERE delivered today.  At 11:00am.  It's a big law firm, I don't know why the receptionist didn't call her.   Still don't know.  Yes I assure you they were delivered. No Charles, We didn't take them to the wrong address.  Oh, Charles, it's you again, she got her flowers? Fabulous.

And it's only Friday.   3 days to go.  "Ain't that some s**t"?

Wish you were here.

xo Jane   

     

The Rice Blessing

Forget about Valentine's Day, I couldn't stay away from my email at work hoping against hope that someone, anyone would send us pictures from the wedding.

And finally, around 4:00 pm, my diligence was rewarded.  While 2 women worked their way through 30 boxes of flowers and phones rang and customers lined up to order roses, I was busy downloading several pictures that made me smile, made me laugh and of course made me cry.

Though I would love to show you all of them I finally selected my favorites.  The first is the rice blessing.  The second is Tini and Nirmal exchanging their wedding vows.

Don't they make you smile?  And that color, Oh my God, I am totally in the mood to create the most psychedelic flower arrangements ever to hit DC.

So take a blue eyed blonde, German-American with a passion for barely there champagne colored walls and severely edited furnishings and send her off to India to get hitched.

I bet she'll be redoing their apartment with a week of coming home.  I see peacock blue in their future.  And much happiness.

Namaste

At 10:30 EST tonight, which is 9:00am in India, GG's sister, Tini to us ( Kristen to adults) and Nirmal will be wed in Hyderabad, India. 

We are heartbroken not to be with them and have been relying on intermittent emails and photos to stay in the groove.

Today we received a few pictures of Tini  getting her hands beautifully hennaed for the ceremony. I have known her for 6 years now and I have never seen her look this calm and happy.  Of course I cried when I saw the photos and read the involved explanation of the wedding ceremony sent by Oliver, GG and Tini's brother.

They return to us on February 13th and once the madness of Valentine's Day is over we can watch the wedding video and continue the celebration with our new bava (brother in law in Telugu).

But for tonight our thoughts and hearts are in India.

Just Another Manic Monday

I am so out of the house.  Cleaning, dog walking/ feeding done.  Next up Georgetown and my hair done.  I think we all agree I look quite a bit better with no roots showing.  And I don't know about you but I think it needs to be a few inches shorter.

I would have rested happily on my laurels, or rather my Whole Foods/ Superbowl post but  friends of mine, (One an actual have to dinner friend) and another ( we'd spend all of our spare time together if she didn't live in California) friend have posted their Monday flowers in the house.  

Sure, they're a week late, but it's blogging not boot camp, so I say let's take a look. In support I'll post a 

few flowers I have sitting around my shack today.  And my, new, to me, bedroom closet door curtain found in a great new thrift shop last week.

Now I'm out of the house.  And you're on your way to Katie and Janet's.

 

Tell them I said hey.

Pausing for a brief update, Sinead also ( and always ) did a sweet flower post today.  And Sarah in her yellow house.  And Karin with one in the house and some in the garden.

Can you see me now?

Abbondunza!

 It's Superbowl Sunday and we're off to run some errands.  Wanna come?

It's Game Day here in the States. And we cook and we eat and we drink and we cheer for our favorite team ( Go Packers).  Not that I have a bias ( beat those Steelers).

So we're all going to Whole Foods to stock up for the week and to grab a few things to bring to a party tonight.  Whole Foods, our first certified organic grocery, is always bursting at the seams with beautiful foods to eat, and bottles of good things to drink and everything is staged so perfectly you want it all.

We want the fruit.

We want the vegetables.

The olives and  the cheeses.

And GG wants 2 bottles of the wine she'd been looking for everywhere. But tastefully gets one.

 I'm almost overwhelmed looking at the pictures.  Imagine what a sensory experience it is to shop there.

Thanks for coming along.  Errands are more fun with friends. Think how much you saved with us doing the grocery shopping for you.

Luckily  for you, we skipped a trip to the pet food store, it's another embarrassment of riches, and the Lab gets to go in too!

( subliminal suggestion: Go Packers)

You Tell Me

I cannot believe it's Thursday already.  Where has this week gone?  Working, dog walking, cooking dinner, obsessively reading and finally finishing two books.  I start to get a little antsy when I'm away from blogland too long.

So I loved our Monday Flowers  in the house.  It was so much fun to see what you all posted.  A little window into your inner worlds.  And inside your homes.

So I understand many of you would like to do it again.  Tell me when, this coming Monday or do you want to wait a few weeks?  Are you exhausted from tending the plants and watering the flowers and finally getting the picture you want?  Or are you eager to show more?

Tell me when and I'll get a Mr. Linky going ( I can't tell you how strange we find this name in our house).  We call everything Mr. Linky now,even the Lab.

And please let's give Australia enough time to get into the game this round.  Hear me oh far off continent?  Wanna play?

Sounds like many of us ( especially the florists who have Valentine's looming) could use a time out.  How about February 28th?  Sprout should be well again, Miss P., will surely have time to bring something to life, and Marie will be back from her trip into the wilds. Ooops, I'm doing this at work, better run.  xo