Stop and see the flowers

My mother never met a flower that she couldn't use.

If a bud or bloom came off a stalk, she made a "floater" and placed it in the middle of the dining room table. She always had something beautiful to put in.

Here are some floaters that came off the hydrangea bush in my front yard. I put them in a crystal bowl that sits on silver legs. I guess this is supposed to be a serving piece, but it was better served as a place for floaters.

My mother was a habitual worrier like I am, but when she was making something beautiful, she wasn't thinking about anything else. She picked flowers from her garden and placed them in a vase so that they would fall just so. She said that when she had trouble sleeping, she worked in her garden.

Here is an example often used to describe how to be in the moment: "When doing the dishes, just do the dishes."

Putting the floaters on the table worked for me.

Annoyed by weeds, appreciating flowers

And now for something trite but true:

In life as in gardening, acknowledge the weeds, but enjoy the flowers.

I have been telling myself this lately as the weeds in my garden have a field day. The flowers are pretty, too, and I have enough to make an arrangement for the kitchen table, but the weeds seem to cry out, "Pull us, pull us, or we will annoy you until you do."

As noted before, I am not supposed to pull weeds until I am off prednisone. My compromised immune system makes me more susceptible to inhaling fungus from the dirt, and since I've already been there, done that and had a fungal pneumonia excised from my lung, it's important to stay away.

But sometimes I can't resist, and I bend over and yank out a few, turning my head or holding my breath. (And then there's someone in particular who has to listen to me panic and ask "Am I going to get sick and die?" and who then reminds me that I probably breathe in worse things at the shopping mall...thanks, Deborah.)

My kids are supposed to weed, and they do, to a certain extent, but unless I had them out there for hours, it would never get done. I drive myself, and them, crazy by nagging them. Good Morning! Pull weeds, pull weeds!

And then, the darned things grow back. I asked a friend who has done it before if she would do a little weeding; she said yes but hasn't called back. It's probably not high on her list, and I can see why.

Finally I broke down and asked another friend who does work on the house if I could pay him to clean up the garden. He said sure, he could. He's scheduled to come in a few days.

I think it will be worth it.

In the meantime, on the positive side, I am enjoying the flowers on the table: yellow and white zinnias, pink and yellow snapdragons, and a hydrangea that I separated into clumps of blue, green and blue-green. Last year the hydrangea blooms were all blue, but this year they are blue, green and even a little pink.

The hydrangea is humongous this year, growing so tall and wide that it is threatening to become the hydrangea that ate the house.

I need to clip it back from time to time, or else I will have another problem to worry about.