Christmas Joys

So the other night my husband and I were in a neighboring town to drop some items by a friend's really cool downtown store. While there my husband asks our friend.....

"So where's a good place to take a pregnant woman out to eat?"

It took our friend a moment, but then he was able to come up with a few suggestions.

So, in case you are wondering....

Yep, we are looking forward to welcoming an addition to our lives.

December

I am so looking forward to Christmas!! It is one of my favorite times of the year. However working in a flower shop seems to bring extra craziness to the holiday. There are days when I wish I worked someplace that was slllooooowwww durring December, because i feel like I'm just moving from one thing to the next.

But then other days, well, lets just say that doing flowers can be so rewarding. Like yesterday. I wish I could go into all the detail, but sufice it to say that I enjoy makeing other people's Christmas season special. Sometimes it is so much more than a flower arrangement - sometimes it is just the connection, the relationships God has given me through my job. Days like yesterday remind me that, I like people.

Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree

Sunday night, Glenn, myself and my niece Rebekah put up and decorated our Christmas tree. It always delights me to see Christmas anew when you catch a glimpse of it through someone else's eyes....

Below: decorating the tree

Making sure ALL the Christmas lights worked

Yes.... I helped too

Something you don't See much any more...

An actual key for a hotel room.

I guess that's what you get when you stay at an Historic Inn.

Hubbie & I spent a couple of days there seeing Sight&Sound's

"Voices of Christmas". And nearby there just happened to be 2 outlet malls. (Seriously, I had no idea the outlets were there until we passed them!! And for those who are curious, it was a Rockville Outlet and a Tanger Outlet) Needless to say, we just about finished up all of our Christmas shopping before returning home.

Finding Rest...In the Midst of Activity

This seems to be a reoccuring theme for me lately. Rest durring activity. Hmmmm... for some reason those two words 'rest' & 'activity' don't seem to go hand in hand - they might seem more comfortable across from each other on different ends of a tug-o-war rope. Have you ever felt that way? The feeling of being pulled in 2 seemingly different directions by the need/desire to rest and the activity that you find yourself imersed in? For me this seems to have been a struggle over the past - oh, I don't know - MY WHOLE ADULT LIFE (tee hee hee)



But if I think about it - why not rest in the middle of activity? It's obviously not something I can bring about myself. And somehow I thrive in the middle of activity. I love activity. So how do I obey the command from God to rest when sometimes I'm most at peace when I'm active?


Interestingly enough, our bodies are in constant activity even when we are at rest (and sleeping) Hmmm.... so maybe, God DOES have the ability to grant rest in the middle of Godly activity. Because I know that things done in my own strength just wear me out. But there is something about doing things in God's strength that is just energizing. For example, tonight, I was really, really tired. I had planned on going to a ministry night at church - but I felt too tired and worn out to go. Now from past experience, I KNOW that if I make myself go I'll be blessed. And blessed I was! In fact on my way home I again marveled at a thing that I have noticed about me before - Prayer energizes me. Talking about the Lord energizes me. Being around people who challange me to go deeper into the heart of God energizes me.

As I look back over my life, I can see a distinct difference on the inside of me. I can remember being overly worried and a bit high strung (on the inside). I think I worked really hard at not letting it be seen on the outside. But nowadays, I know there is a peace that only comes from God. A peace that can and does reign in the midst of chaos. So I just love this phrase - 'rest in the middle of activity' it speaks to me that God can and will provide rest and peace for me as I go about the activity of my day. That maybe His word to me of 'slow down' is more of slowing my innerself down. To speak to my soul to be quiet and know that He is God. To stay in that place of rest on the inside even when life demands otherwise.

So today, I will be at rest .... in the middle of work. Today, I will be at rest..... when things appear chaoitic. Today I will be at rest with 2 phones ringing off the hook as we get ready for the Thanksgiving rush. Today I will be at rest.

Today - I WILL be at REST.

Because, Rest is a weapon.
(and that is for another post ;)

What a whirl-wind weekend. Is it really Monday?. Is it really time to go back to work? Recently my weekends have been short - really short. As in, a mere 4-5 hours short. You may think I exagerate - that maybe it only feels like it's short. Nope. I truly mean 4-5 hours short. Typically I work Monday-Saturday, with weddings or other events on Saturday. But last month, I had a wedding or event just about every Sunday. I have had more Sunday events this year than ever before. And while it's nice - it does make for a short weekend with my husband.



This weekend though, was a little different. I was able to take Saturday off and head out of town with ladies from my church for a retreat weekend. It was awesome. I saw the Lord show Himself in incredible ways to these precious ladies all weekend long. There really is nothing that can compare with seeing God love on people you know in real, tangible ways. It makes me teary eyed to think about those times this weekend.



So even though I had to rush back Sunday afternoon, go straight to work (didn't even go home first) asnd then go decorate for the March of Dimes Chefs Auction, then come home rush around and get ready to attend said fund-raiser. I would do it again - in a heart beat. Just to NOT miss the amazing things God was doing in all of our lives this weekend.
*Just to NOT miss the connection with other ladies.
*Just to NOT miss being challanged in my Faith.
*Just to NOT miss the joy I saw released in hearts this weekend.
*Just to NOT miss playing spoons with a group of ladies who LOVE to laugh (you guys did my heart good! how fun to act like little girls, and enjoy the monemt!)
*Just to NOT miss watching a group of ladies bless lepers in India with shoes and such, because they caught the vision of the power of blessing.
*Just to NOT miss seeing seeds of life sprout all over the place.

Thanks Lord for not letting me convince myself NOT to go. I know that I personally so NEEDED that time away. And even though this morning, I'm tired - I know that there was a deeper refresing and rest that took place in my inmost being that words cannot even begin to describe.

I know that each person's experience is their own. This is mine. I know without a shadow of a doubt, that God, in His wisdom, set a choice before me. In my case, this weekend was about sacrificing a much needed weekend of physical rest, to press in to God for spiritual rest. For me, it was a choice of trusting God to give me the rest I needed - in the midst of activity. A visiting speaker recently said, God is a God of rest BUT He rests in His ACTIVITY. I have been meditating on that recently, and I believe God gave me a taste of that this weekend. Lord, I ask that you bring on more or your REST in me in the midst of ACTIVITY!

Fall Weddings

Are realy quite beautiful....

Stay tuned for more pics to be added

Interesting Day

So today has been interesting. Thanks to a visiting Senator, our main road infront of the store has had a lot of traffic. And now, our street is closed. We were not even being allowed to traverse our street just to get our store (as in a delivery driver returning from deliveries)!

So we had to scramble to get all of our deliveries out before they closed our street. And unfortunalty, we had to turn down some last minute funeral orders because we couldn't get pout AND get back in.

So what do we do with this extra time? We decorate for Christmas. Yep, Christmas is here. We have installed our first tree.

I Can Type Again...sort of

Last Friday I was working late. Too late. Well too late to be dancing with a very hot glue gun.

Needless to say, Mr. Glue Gun and I had a disagreement of sorts, that is, 'where the glue should go after leaving the glue gun in it's melted state.'

You know how there is that old saying about not running with scissors? I think there needs to be a new one added about not using a hot glue gun after 10:00pm while still at work (when your day started at 7:30 am)

I know, I know - what in the world was I thinking using a hot glue gun at that time of night (I was thinking I wanted to get my project done and GO HOME!)

And those who know me well, I know you're thinking - Who gave that girl a High Temp hot glue gun? I thought you had a LOW melt hot glue gun (which still burns, by the way, still painful, just not as extreme)

Back to my story~ Having burned 2 of my fingers really bad, I decided to call it a night and go home. After bathing my fingers in some cold mustard from the fridge, I washed them off and took a look at the damage. Deciding that I preferred sleep over a field trip to the ER, I asked God to take the pain away and settled into bed with throbbing fingers.

The next morning was an early one, thankfully I awoke quite rested (thank you God!) Amazingly, my fingers were no longer throbbing! I unwrapped them, and made a face at what I saw (I will spare you the details). I threw some neosporan on, grabbed some gauze & some latex free taped and proceeded to tape my 2 middle fingers on my left hand together (the glue had run down between my fingers). so stability was important in my little task as I had a long day of wedding installation ahead of me and needed the use of both my hands. It is amazing what you can accomplish and push through when you have no other choice!

By late afternoon, I was done with my work day and heading home. As I was talking to my mom, she suggested that I stop by a friend's house (who is a nurse) and have her take a look.
Low and behold, during the day I had grown a blister ( a big one that I still have) on the one finger that I had not pulled off the glue - the other one I had made the mistake of pulling the cooled glue (along with other things) off. When she asked if it hurt, I was amazed to be able to say 'no' it was a little sensitive as we were messing with it - but no continuing pain! She bandaged me up, gave me some wonderful homemade peanut butter fudge (that was worth getting hurt for *wink, wink*) and sent me on my way.

Monday morning, I answered the phone to take an order. Only then did I realize how hard it is to type with 2 fingers taped together!! Those of you who have gotten emails from me recently - I apologize for all the typos! Hope you got a good laugh (I did!!) In fact I'm laughing now as I find out how quickly I was adapting to typing with only 3 fingers on my left hand. My 2 fingers are trying to figure out which keys to hit!!!

So today is day 1 of my fingers being free of the gauze wrap. They are venturing forth into the world today armed only with a band-aid.

They are free to type again!

Bridal Show

Yesterday was a Bridal Show.....

How do you like our display?

Making Room

At the auction yesterday, I bought another floral cooler.

I need to make room for it.

So today will be spent cleaning and re-arranging so that there is space for the new member of the family.

Yea! for more cooler space :)

An Odd Thing...

So earlier today I was at an auction. As I walked to my SUV, I stopped to talk with another shop in my industry. As we were talking, I went to brush my hair out of my eyes because it was rather windy. As I did so my contact popped out. The last I saw of it was it floating away on a gust of wind - never to be seen again.

Trust me, I looked!

So now, Forever engraved in my memory will be the sight of my beloved contact carried out of my reach, dancing on a gust of wind.

Just Because I Like It -

Our Weekend on the Island

A Weekend Away - To Play :)

So the other weekend Lovie and I took off Friday morning to head to a small island on the bay for a few days of R & R. For those of you who know me well - yes I did go by work early, early Friday morning to finish up a few last things and then hit the road - But other than a phone call or 2 to answer questions I was mentaly on vaccation!





Saturday we decided to play kids and went to Bush Gardens. Can I say that it has been YEARS since I have been to an amusement park. (I think the last time I went was with Lourdes and Cindy - do y'all remember the 3 musketeers drawing we had done there?)

Anyway, after a full day at Bush Gardens, I can now say that at my 30-somthing age -

I STILL LOVE ROLLER

COSTERS!!!!!




I guess I still am a kid at heart.

Gettysburg

So my husband and I took advantage of me haveing 2 days off to make the trek to Gettysburg. It was a beautiful weekend - wonderful weather for touring outdoors.

The Visitors center is newly opened as of this past spring and the museum was well done and very informative. It made it a lot easier to understand the battlefield later on. For history buffs (which would describe the 2 of us) it was fun s well as educational!

While the cat's away...

.... the mice will play.

note to self - when you ARE taking a day off, be sure that you leave plenty of work for the mice to do or else they will PLAY. I came back to work and was greeted by the following display :

Exhibit A: Appearently while I was at the hospital attending my hubby, Barbie came by and placed a last minute wedding order.

note the scale of said bouquets..... Here is the Bridal and Bridesmaids bouquets
Bride Barbie with Jr. Bridesmaid....I guess the gals have just done 1 too many weddings this season....

Secretly, I LOVE the creative display that this is :)

Interruption

These cute little guys decided to interrupt our workday. One of the girls stepped outside for a bucket and came running back in saying "There's kittens outside under your truck!!!" So of course we all had to take a look-see. A couple of the braver kittens consented to being held - all while the Mama cat was close by watching.

Fair Night

So last night we went to the County Fair. As we were sitting in the loooong car line to get into the fair, my husband made an interesting statement:

"I bet that before we leave tonite you will have stopped and talked to at least 10 people."

Really??!!

But isn't that the point of going to the fair?

So while hubby parks the car, he lets me out to stand in line for tickets.

As, I head towards the gate I hear my name called - wouldn't you know the guy parking cars was someone I knew. 1 down 9 to go

When we got into the car to go hame later that night, I asked Hubbo if I had talked to 10 people ~ his response:

"I quit counting at 10."

Enough said.

and I'm Off~

Early, that is :)

That's right - it's Friday and I'm leaving early - since I completely forgot to take my day off on Wednesday, I'm taking time today to leave work and enjoy a little bit of this glorious afternoon!!!


Happy Friday one and all!

A Day Off

Ha Ha - I laugh at the thought.

I came into work early today to get a few things done before a morning meeting - so it was a bit of a whirl-wind and then meeting for 2+ hours and then back to work.

Back to work - only to realize that I wasn't scheduled to work at all today ~

So here I am on my 'Day Off' at work cleaning and organizing for upcoming events while waiting for some clients to come by that really wanted to meet with me about some funeral pieces. So here I sit (for a moment) typing, wanting to go home but not having a vehicle to go home in (and that is a whole 'nother story for another time).

BUT maybe, just maybe I'll get to leave a little early .... that remains to be seen.

All things Veggie

Sometimes life amazes me. Other times it just amuses me.

Today, it amuses.

As I was cleaning house yesterday, I found myself humming/singing a tune. You might think that it was a worship song from that morning's church service or maybe a song from the radio. Alas, no.

So what song was issuing from my lips, you ask?


It was Veggie Tales. Madame Blueberry's song "I'm so Blue" to be exact.


Now to completely understand and appreciate the complete craziness of this, you need to know that I have no children, I have no reason to have Veggie Tales in my head. No reason that is until you factor in the crazy people I work with and their love of all things Veggie Tales. In, fact, as I type this I have already listened to 3, count them 3 Veggie Tales sing along CDs and it's not even lunch.

I think there is no hope for removing Veggie songs from my mind. So I will continue to hum/sing Veggie songs at odd times.

So to my neighbors, please don't think of me as the crazy Lady next door - just give me grace and know that it's not craziness - it just the repercussions of working with creative people all day.

Ranting is over... calm has returned

Thank you one and all for listening to my ranting ~ calm has indeed returned and the computer is working correctly.

All is good in the floral world.

For now.

The weekend is yet to come.

However, as promised Kristen, I found it!!!!!!!!

The wonderful Jack -in-the-Box made out of flowers.

a Moment of Ranting

Pardon me for a moment as I give way to ranting...

Why is it that when you need to call tech support for your computer, that what ever the problem is, it takes FOREVER to get it fixed???!!!

Case in point. I have a POS system at work that is a florist specific program capable of wiring out flowers to other stores, processing credit cards and a bunch of other stuff specific to the floral industry. For the past couple of months we seemed to be have a small 'glitch' of sorts. Knowing I needed to call tech support, but sensing that this problem was going to take awhile, I put it off until I had a good chunk of time to spend on hold and waiting while a tech worked on my system.

Well, yesterday was THE DAY. As I picked up the phone to call, I commented to my fellow workers that I would be awhile.

Little did I know that 'a little while' would turn into 3+ hours (and only about 30minutes was spent on hold) the rest of the time was me watching the 3 different tech people log into my pc and try to figure out what in the world was going on with the program.

Now two of the tech people asked me how long this had been going on - I explained that I had been on the phone already for over 2 hours and the problem wasn't fixed and that I had not had a 2 hour block of time to sit on the phone.

Now I am sure you are asking yourself, 'well why didn't you use a head set so that you could do other things while waiting?' rest assured, I was. But every time (I kid you not) every time I walked away form the computer - the tech decided that was the moment that he/she had a question and/or that I needed to be at the computer to see if something had printed off.

Don't get me wrong - I like computers - they make my life easier(most of the time) and the tech people I work with are great. It's just that I am convinced that my presence somehow interferes with a computer's abiltiy to run properly.

Maybe it's the pollen that is always on my finger tips?

wait, that's it!

My computer is allergic to flowers. I wonder if it could get injections too, to help with it's allergies.

Just for the fun of it

Kristen - this one is for you (I'm still trying to find which folder that Jack-in-box flower is in) But in the meantime, I hope you enjoy!

Yes, your eyes do not deceive you - that is indeed electrical equipment.

Something cool and refreshing~

memory candle at the wedding
cabdle garden accented with flowers as a centerpiece

calla lily centerpiece
This arrangement greated guests as they entered the country club

Before & After

BEFORE

AFTER

Tribute to the Love of Trains

One of the many interesting things I get to do at work is come up with inspired tributes when someone loses a loved one. Here is one such tribute for a man who loved trains - now how in the world do you incorporate trains into a floral funeral arrangement ?

Apparently, God loves to give inspiration....

A Florist's Home...

is not her own. I don't mean because I share it with my husband ~ I mean the way a florist brings the work home with her.



This is what my home has been turned into - a prep and storage area for nicely ironed chair covers. (Yep, you guessed it. Yours truly has been at the ironing board for HOURS pressing chair covers and maybe a few pair of pants in-between while the iron is hot.) So for the next week my home has been invaded by white hangers and chair covers-

All 185 of them.




If you feel the need, say a prayer for my husband who has to put up with this kind of craziness and temporary clutter...

Celebrating the 4th - ummm.... I mean 5th

As providence would have it, my parents annual 4th of July picnic ended up being scheduled for the 5th - Therefore, hubby and I would be able to be back in time our lake trip (see previous post) to join in on the festivities. This was good news since we would have hated to miss the shin-dig AND hubby was on grill duty along with my brother-in-law.

My folks had all kinds of fun lined up for everyone - there was swimming, badminton, bottle launching, food ~ lots of it ~ and last but not least go karts.

My friend Cheryl and I somehow convinced our husbands that they needed to participate in the fun....

(my Hubby communicating how slow he thought the go kart was moving)

Glenn & Matt drag racing...

I'm sure my Hubby bribed someone to take this shot documenting the insistance from the husbands that the wives take a spin in said go karts.

Lake Adventures

over the 4th Hubbie and I were invited to go on an overnite boating trip with friends

(thanks friends!)

Hubby on small tube...

"cave dog's" first boat ride (above)

our cute little cabin in the woods (below)

hubby helping to 'cast off ' he had lots of practice with that ...hiking a trail that ran along the edge of the lake and an old railroad bedLara and I on the BIG tube (above) and (below) a photo my Hubbie insisted on taking

All in all it was a great time - we even had an adventure that caused us all to have a deeper appreciation and more sympathy for the disiples' attitude durring the storm -

We had a bit of a storm come up on the lake while we were in the boat. There were white caps and wind and sand and lightning! We made our own landing on the beach (not at the boat dock where there was a swarm of people also trying to get off the water) and while the men secured the boat, the ladies and dog took cover in the truck. The men took cover in a culvert to aviod any lighting strikes. It was amazing how fast the storm came in and how fierce the storm was... but on the bright side - it did cool things off for the evening for better sleeping. The next day the sun came out and -yep- you guessed it we were out on the boat again.