Flower Arrangement of the Month: February

Trader Joe's is one of my favorite places to pick up flowers during the winter- they have a lovely selection to mix and match and have alternatives to the carnations and gerber daisies found in most grocery stores. I'm hoping to carry on with my fitful arrangement of the month series now that we're a bit more settled in. Things will be thawing out here any moment and spring flowers bring an almost painful pang of joy to my heart. Those first crocuses are mighty brave flowers, to poke through the snow and slush.

This arrangement features red tulips, burgundy godetia and, my favorites, orange roses. Pinch the blooms at their base when you are choosing them- they should feel firm but not too stiff. This signals that they are ready to open beautifully the way these did. Too firm and they stay tightly shut before withering. Too soft and the heads go limp. I would have added a berry of some sort and maybe a bit of curly willow, had money been no object. I love making romantic arrangements at Valentine's day that don't involve a dozen red roses. After my years at Dilly Lily, there is nothing I find more boring.

Did you get flowers this Valentine's Day? I loved Tahiti's take on being your own Valentine- great advice!

What I've learned in Thirty Trips Around the Sun.

These flowers were my birthday gift to myself and my Arrangement of the Month for October.

On Sunday, I turned thirty. I had the pleasure of spending this birthday with four people I've loved for more than half my life, and one little man whose life has just begun.  Eric made a Greek inspired build-your-own falafel dinner (we had lots of Greek flavors in the fridge after the housewarming party!) and a champagne toast. Afterward, we all lounged around on pillows enjoying baklava with ice cream and coffee.

The conversation turned to what thirty years teaches you.

Thirty is a nice place to be. At thirty, you have some life under your belt. You are no longer wide eyed, you are less worried about the shoulds, you've already made some choices and had time to see what they bring. You have charted a course, but it's not too late to change directions. But the common thread that ran through the conversation was this: To thine own self be true.

There are many ways to say this. Sarah put it as "I have learned to love myself", while my mantra has been "I can only control myself" but it comes down to the same thing. The idea is that the best way to love other people truly and without selfishness is to become full of yourself so that you don't approach life with a gaping hole in your soul begging to be filled with external things. This makes you dependent on affirmations that you are good and worthwhile from other people, what you can by, how hard you can work, how much you can give. If you can do that for yourself then you are free.

I am still learning how best to do this, and it's surprisingly difficult for such a simple lesson. Why is it so hard to do the things we know are good for us? Why is it so hard to say no? Why is it so hard to drag myself to yoga class, when I know how much better I always feel afterwards? Why is it so hard to tell my husband that I need a few hours to myself?

I hope to come to a point where refueling myself with myself will no longer be struggle, but habit. But until then, I know that centering my life with myself as the top priority makes me more capable of handling challenges that come up in my life, better at creating boundaries that foster healthy relationships instead of soul sucking ones, and means that I have a deeper capacity for facing the problems that come up in every human life. I have confidence in myself. What a perfect gift as I enter my thirtieth journey around the sun.

Flower Arrangement of the Month: June

I raided Sarah's garden to make a flower arrangement for June. 

But the peonies begged me to make a second.

And the spray roses and lavender called for a third. Oh how I miss these sort of English Garden plants! They all have such a lovely fragrance that I find mostly absent in the tropical flowers of my adopted Hawaiian home.

Do you have a garden? What's blooming in your neighborhood?