In early November, my parents came for a visit from the West Coast.
Now let me tell you a little bit about my mom. She has this amazing ability to make things look fresh, pretty, and stylish when it comes to the home. Her house is very near perfect, and I think it was like that even when my brother and I still lived at home. She and I are kind of polar opposites that way.
So back to their visit …
She and my dad ran out to the store one morning, to get a few things to make breakfast. She returned with the pancake mix, eggs, bacon, and a bouquet of flowers. Beautiful, rust colored Alstroemeria.
She then proceeded to give them a fresh cut, and effortlessly arrange them in a glass vase. She set them in the middle of my dining room table, found my two crystal candlestick holders, placed them on either side, and then went back to cooking breakfast.
I walked into the dining room to scream at my kids in the family room. I’m pretty sure it was probably because they were fighting over the TV remote. Or bacon. Seriously, eleven- and thirteen-year-old boys can get a good fight going over who is going to get more pork fat for breakfast.
But wait …
That vase of flowers caught my eye, and I actually stopped and admired how beautiful they looked on my table. In fact, they made everything in the room look better, fresher, newer, cleaner, richer. I couldn’t even see one fluff of dog hair!
Of course, I thanked my mom profusely for buying me flowers; it was such a big deal to me. She looked at me and said, “They were only $5.99, you should buy flowers for yourself.”
Why had I never thought about doing that? Don’t I deserve flowers?
For the next two weeks, those flowers still looked lovely.
I would sit on the couch in my family room, the couch that faces the dining room. I would sit and admire those flowers.
I even stopped focusing on the horrible chandelier that’s been hanging in my dining room. The one that looks like it belongs in a medieval torture chamber. The one I vowed to replace when we moved into this house two years ago. The flowers actually made it look tolerable.
Every couple of weeks now, I buy myself those $5.99 flowers. I try to buy the ones that are still tightly closed, they last the longest.
And I have even learned to arrange them artfully in my glass vase.
Now, I just have to get rid of that ugly chandelier. I must do it for my flowers.
