Sunday, February 10, 2008

Fresh Flowers

No matter what time of year it might be, I love to have fresh flowers somewhere in my house.

My husband indulges this by bringing home bouquets several times a month.

Sometimes, for a special occasion, he has a florist make and deliver a large bouquet of roses and other flowers, but truthfully? I like the little bouquets of miniature carnations and tiny rosebuds that you can get at WalMart, two bunches for ten dollars, a lot better.

But best of all are the bouquets I make all by myself by walking around the woods on the side and behind the house and gathering wildflowers. I don’t know what they are; I don’t really care. I could be bringing deadly poisons into the house and arranging them in a vase. I don’t care. I don’t care. There are no small children living here any more to worry about, and the cats generally prefer the more expensive flowers when they’re in the mood for a salad. (Don’t panic: when you visit me with your small children, there will be no poisons anywhere to be found!)

In the winter, of course, there are no wildflowers, but once spring even HINTS at coming, there will be spots of color all along the edge of the woods and I’ll be out there with scissors and some wet newspaper to gather some and bring them into the house.

When the children were little, they would bring me dandelions and wild daisies and those little purple periwinkle blossoms with stems so short we had to float them in a bowl. There were always little paper Dixie cups of wildflowers all over the house.

I think dandelions are as beautiful as many other flowers. I don’t consider them a weed at all, and I love to see a lawn with twinkling yellow stars all over it. I consider sitting on the grass and blowing dandelion clocks and making wishes to be an integral part of childhood. Good thing I don’t live in a real neighborhood, huh. Those crotchety old people who pay to have the stars removed wouldn’t appreciate me and my seed-sowing ways.

I love the SMELL of fresh flowers in the house. It’s better than the smell of baking bread. (We have that, too!)

A vase or two of fresh flowers in the house is almost as good as having a Christmas tree. Almost.

They both kind of prove that you love your home and want to dress it up a little, and what better way than to bring a little bit of outdoors, indoors?

Mamacita, Scheiss Weekly