It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Whoops! I guess that's over, isn't it? Well, it really IS looking like Christmas out there! It's snow snow snowing in New England right now. A very pretty blanket of white on everything, even the trees. This is the view from where I sit at my computer.

It's pretty, right? That dolphin sure looks out of place with that scene, though!!

That is a really neato stained glass window that I won at an auction for my own research center when I was the whale lady! It was a really cool event that took place at sunset on the whale watching boat that used to be my home away from home! I spent more hours on that boat than I did at my house sometimes! Anyway, it was a sunset cruse/auction/dinner on the boat. We had a full-on lobster dinner and then my husband was the auctioneer for all these very cool items we had collected for the auction! It was a real hoot - my husband had people bidding against themselves! Hilarious! Anyway, I was really happy to win that dolphin window.

So, back to the subject at hand: SNOW. Lots of it. We were only supposed to get a dusting to maybe 1-2 inches, but it's been coming down steadily since about 11am. Here is what Sadie looked like when I let her out a few minutes ago...Note that her fur is black!


And this is what she looks like now!




She's cute, isn't she? She's really the sweetest dog I've ever met. Never complains, never a bad word for another dog! She loves EVERYONE!! Whimpers when she sees other dogs because she wants to go say hi and make friends! I'll tell you the bizarre story of how she came to be our girl...She had quite the childhood. Would love if she could tell us about it.

So, again, back on subject... SNOW! Look at my car!


And the yard! And the street!



So, farewell, and Merry Christmas! Errrrrr, I mean, Happy New Year!

When is it that we're going somewhere warm??!!!

Yooo Hooo!

So when I first started this thing, my friend, June, over there at Bye, Bye, Pie mentioned this blog and I had a few visitors. Now? Not so much.

In fact, like her husband, Marvin Gardensalad wrote in a guest post yesterday, I appear to be writing this blog for my mom. Hi, Mom! Hope it's warmer in Florida than it is here. Don't know what your weather people are saying about the temperatures here, but they do not have to exaggerate today. It really IS that cold and miserable.

When I walked the dogs earlier it was 17. Like degrees Fahrenheit. 17 Celsius ain't too shabby, but 17 degrees Fahrenheit is not fun. Plus we have lovely gusts of wind which are creating a wind chill of MINUS TWO. Thanks for the blast of cold, Canada! Stop clubbing the seals, eh?

Aside from complaining about the cold, not much else going on here. This week in between Christmas and New Year's Eve is always kinda strange, isn't it? It's this weird limbo week where some people sort of are still working, but then some have it off and it's just strange. I think we should start the New Year on December 26th. Get it all over with in one giant, fell-swoop.

What IS a fell-swoop? Such an odd term.

I will bid you adieu (Bye, Mom!) and leave you with a couple of photos from warmer days on our beloved boaty. If I'm not gardening in the summer, you can find me on our boat. The ocean is still in my blood despite my resignation from the whale biz!

This is our adorable boy dog with a herring in his mouth! We use herring as bait to catch and release striped bass. Doesn't he look so cute with that fishy in his mouth?!!


And here is our dog Lady who decided she really does not like sand sharks! She was very upset when Dan tried to put this fish on the boat! When we catch these small sharks, we also release them. They are caught incidentally when we're out fishing for codfish.

Christmas 2009

Here is our house right now. I'll be taking down the Christmas lights next week, so I wanted to get some photos of the prettiness during the holidays!





I like the wreath this year. I wanted to do something very simple. This is a neato juniper base and i added just pepperberries, birch branches and the maroon bow.



You can see the snow leftover from the storm that came through here on the 20th of December. It's all gone as of today, as we had very warm temperatures yesterday and then it rained today. That's one of the wonderful things about living on the coast - we might get a blizzard, but then the temps tend to moderate and it all goes away. This is very appreciated after growing up in Michigan where the snow comes and comes and never melts until practically May!

How-to With Cut Fleurs

Ok...First, you need the flowers, greens, oasis, clippers and a pot or basket or whatever you want to use that will hold your flower stalks in your soaked oasis block.

Oasis is a brand of floral foam that comes in blocks and can easily be cut to size with a knife. You can find it at most garden centers, floral counters at the grocery store or florists... This is what the brick of oasis looks like:


Make sure the oasis fits snugly in the pot or vase. When I took my flower arranging classes, the teacher had us use floral tape over the top of the foam cross-wise to hold the foam in place. I find that if I cut the oasis big enough it stays put very nicely.

If you want to use a clear vase, make sure you get some flat-leaf greens, like banana leaf or something that can be wrapped around the inside of the vase to disguise the oasis underneath.

So here's what I started with:

Clippers. I really like fiskars. They work well on almost anything unless it's very woody. Then I use more heavy duty clippers.


These are the two pots I used. They have the cut oasis inside, soaked in water.


These are some of the greens I used. They are preserved eucalyptus. One is the seeded eucalyptus, the other is a flat-leaf variety.


Here is some preserved lemon leaf I had from last year and some cute twiggy things that I bought last year.


These are the varieties of flowers I bought. Pink tulips, white lilies, pink alstromeria, white spiky flowers that look like mini-asters, and several green poms.


When you start the arrangment, some people prefer to start with the greens and then add flowers. I do it the other way around! I start with my "focus" flowers in the center. This time, it's the white lilies. When you get the flowers, they generally have many leaves down the stalk. Strip the leaves off the stalk except those up near the flowers themselves. Here is the stalk:


Then here is what they look like after stripping the leaves and cutting them to size:


Next, I added the tulips around the lilies:


One trick I also learned is that assymetry is good. The arrangement should not look perfect and in using odd numbers of flowers, you accomplish that easily. Additionally, this was to be a centerpiece, so it should have a similar look, back to front, side to side. However, I always use odd numbers. There were seven liliies, 11 tulips, etc...

Then, it starts to really come together with the addition of the poms and white spiky asters:


Lastly, I add the greens until it looks full and you can no longer see any of the oasis. Here is the finished product from three angles:




That was the bigger arrangement I did for my husband's step-mom as a surprise. I also made one for our holiday table using the left over flowers. This was about mid-way through doing it:


And here's the finished product...For this one, I used the flowers and the seeded eucalyptus, some lemon leaf and the twiggy things for accents.



Hope you liked them!

Post Holiday bug

I'm sick. No big surprise to me, unfortunately. I know I was exposed to approximately 7,832,496 germs while traveling last weekend. Everyone in the airport was sneezing, coughing and it sort of felt like I was getting into a giant test tube when I got on that plane last Sunday!

Mix in not-so-good-sleep, not eating that well, drinking more than usual, and about 3 bazillion obligations? You gots a good recipe for catching a bug.

It started yesterday in the movie theater when I got the chills. I was hoping I had just caught a chill, but nope. I'm full-on sick with a terrible head cold. So, I'm sitting here in my new jammies (thanks to my husband's step-mom!), a fleece pull-over and my beloved fleece, polka-dotted scarf. Loving the scarf!

Yesterday, after dinner was done, we decided to go see that new George Clooney movie, Up in the Air. Just a warning? It's not a funny, uplifting movie as we all thought it would be. Click here to see the trailer if you haven't already seen it.

I love me some George Clooney -
I'd literally watch him do a Tide commercial in Greek! The movie, however, was really depressing. It's basically about our George working for a company that goes in and fires people. And, it's about George's character's very shallow existence. We think he's redeemed himself toward the end, but then THAT even turns out badly.

Now, back to fleurs! I took lots of good photos of a couple flower arrangements I did for Christmas (one was for step-mom, above!) and I will get those on here tomorrow. My mom asked me to do sort of a "how-to" on here for anyone who hasn't really taken flower arranging classes, so I'll do that.

So, go get your flower shears, an empty pot, some oasis (floral foam) and some cut flowers and greens and I'll see you tomorrow!

Critmat Eve

Have you ever noticed that there is a LOT to do at this particular time of year? I mean, JEEZ! I still have to get the turkey breast to cook tomorrow! One cannot have Christmas dinner without the obligatory turkey. I know many of you out there have ham or some other sort of meat, but I have not eaten a mammal since I was 18. That was 26 years ago! Wow. I'm old!

I have been lax about taking any snow pictures or even pictures of our front door. It's looking very pretty. There's a big old garland out there made of balsam and white pine and I've tied on some pretty maroon ribbon. We've also strung the flower boxes and garland with white sparkle lights. It's very cozy looking.

So far no ornaments on the tree. I know. It's Christmas Eve for heavens sake! Today we MUST go to the grocery store and then later we are having a fun dinner at my husband's Father's house. They live in the next town over, so it's a quick and easy trip.

Exciting news is that we're talking about a vacation now! Last year we went to Puerto Rico and stayed at the Ritz in San Juan. It's seriously the easiest trip - you can take a non-stop flight from Boston and POOF, you're there in a few short hours. The weather was SUBLIME, I tell ya. If you don't live somewhere with four seasons, the whole vacation thing isn't so special, I'd think.

Anywho, we are upcited (as my friend June would say) about going back there to the warmth and tropicalness probably sometime in February.

Here are some dreamy photos from our room from last year. Yummm.





The weather seriously was perfection. Mid-80s, no humidity and a pleasant breeze to cool you off.

So, on THAT note, I must go prepare for Critmat. That is what my husband and I call it. I have not idea why!

Merry Ho Ho, Happy Hannukah, Happy Kwanzaa and good tidings to all!

I'm baaaaaa-aaack!

After a whirlwind trip down South to visit relatives, attend a graduation, a commissioning, and a big party, I have returned to the Great White North. Holy Moly! It was 50 degrees the day before I left and now it's like winter or something! We got a foot of snow right before I was to fly into Boston, so I feel rather lucky to have made it. Most of the flights the morning I left had been cancelled, and I just happened to be on an early afternoon flight - one of the first ones they let into Boston! Whew!

I'll take some snow photos tomorrow. Today was the day of unpacking, looking through all the mail and packages that had arrived and answering my seventy-leven hundred emails!

These are photos from several years ago when our house was on a tour of historic homes that are open to the public during the holiday season. It was one weekend in early December, so I figured it'd be fun to have thousands of strangers stompling through my house, right? Jeez, Louise! Fun is not the adjective I'd use to describe it. Horrifying? Messy? Weird? Never again? Those are really what come to mind now!

Anywho, as part of the decor, I decided it'd be cute to put a Christmas tree in the back yard aside from the one in the living room! The dogs were fascinated by this tree!



That's Lady, there, on the left, and Koty on the right.

I spent over a week and well over a thousand dollars getting our house perfectly clean and decorated. The decorations were far more lavish than I like, but I know the houses are expected to be amazing, so I went a little crazy with the decorations.

The night before the tour was to begin, two of the ladies on the tour committee came by to inspect the house and decor. One of the ladies (and I'll use that term VERY loosely) said "This is it?"

Seriously? It was all I could do to restrain myself from either treating her to a lengthy verbal affront OR beating her with a fireplace poker. Or both.

In any case, our house was a big hit that year, I'm happy to report!

Away I go!!!

Sorry there will be no thrilling pictures posted while I'm away...Time just got away from me yesterday and instead of blogging, I was a good girl and did a power walk instead! After that it was just zoom zoom zoom, packing, cleaning up the house a bit, and then it was Koty's acupuncture appointment! Our lovely neighbor who used to treat humans, now only treats dogs with acupuncture! He lets her put the needles all down his back and and she treats him with the laser! Fascinating!

In any case, I do not have any fun things to post right now, so I'll bid you adieu!

Talk at you when I get back!

Holy Moly!

Do you know how you feel kind of crazed before you have a long-ish trip? When you have all these last-minute details running around your head? C'est moi. I'm all over the place. Here's my brain:

"Oh, boy! I cannot forget to water the plants. And I need to finish that wreath. Oh, and I've gotta fold the laundry. And there's that stack of bills I have to remember to pay before I go. Oh, YEAH! I need to call Charlie to get him to pick up the presents for the kids. OH JEEEZ! I have to finish wrapping those presents! I have to pack. Eeeeek! What on EARTH should I bring? How cold will it be in Georgia? Is there enough food for the dogs? Oh, crud. We're out of eggs...AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!"

Nice and calm in there, my brain.

Good news is that the flowers I did for the baby shower were a hit! The hostess was going to originally give them away as a prize during one of those silly baby shower games, but she decided she liked them so much she didn't want to part with them! Yaay!

Can I ask a question? Does anyone like those games at the baby shower? Is it because I'm not the mother of a human that I don't get this? I have two furrkids (as my dogwalker calls them), but I just don't understand the whole baby shower bingo or whatever. I think I'm missing some sort of gene. I know my friend June over at Bye, Bye, Pie feels similarly. Is it an only-child thing? June and I are only children.

Annnnnyway, I have much to do, as mentioned above! Hope to get some posts done ahead of time so there will be something new and exciting to read here at Life with Flowers while I'm away.

I will leave you today with this photo of our yard in all of its summertime glory.

Baby shower fleurs finished product!

Well, here it is in all its glory! You'll have to pardon the background in most of these; I took the photos in our laundry room! It's the coolest room in the house and keeps the flowers fresh fresh. Plus there's a really cool light back there that gives off such a nice pure light. Makes for nice photos!

First, here's the seeded eucalyptus close up. It's even prettier in person, but this gives you a better idea!


Here is the arrangement in full. The eucalyptus is sort of the "frame" for the flowers up top. I also have two other types of eucalyptus mixed in here and there. One type with little round flattened leaves and another that looks almost like bamboo leaves.


Next are a few closeups. You can see the purply-blue spiky star-shaped flowers I was talking about in the earlier post. Neato!





Tomorrow is the shower, so I will let you know if people liked the arrangement or not! I think it's pretty, so that's a start!

Next is a simple wreath for some clients who live on the other side of town. They wanted just a simple balsam wreath with blue-berried juniper and some pepperberries, so that'll be next on the agenda either tomorrow evening or Sunday.

Have a great weekend!

Baby shower fleurs

Yesterday got all my supplies (well, not exactly...I will explain!) and decided to get a jump start on doing the flowers for the baby shower I'm attending on Saturday. The hostess of the shower hired me to do a pretty centerpiece for the shower, so I, of course, agreed! I adore doing cut flower arrangements! It uses an entirely different part of my brain than working with live plants. Plus, it's winter and there is nothing but a wide array of grays and browns out there. It's bleak, my friends. Bleak! So working with gorgeous, colorful flowers - most of them tropicals - is such a pleasure. I miss color at this time of year.

I actually bought most of the fresh flowers at Stop and Shop. I know that sounds crazy, but there is a store in a nearby town that has the BEST cut flowers! They are always very fresh and VERY affordable. I also order some flowers from some online stores and got my fresh greens the other day at the garden center. I have a business, so most of the places give a wholesale discount, so it's pretty good pricing for me!

I used quite the array of flowers. Some of them? I do not even know what they're called! There is one type that is sort of these purply-blue, gangly, star shaped things - really neat and airy looking. Then there are the ones in the center that are a type of tropical lily - again, purply-blue. The baby is going to be a boy, so I was requested to do shades of blues and whites.

I also used alstromeria (Peruvian lilies), a bit of baby's breath, creamy-white roses, green poms, rose-colored mums that have a daisy face, and my most favorite thing in the world? Seeded eucalyptus. It's SO pretty and looks nothing like regular eucalyptus, which I do not like! Don't ask me why?! Some things I just hate. Like impatiens. Yuck! I know I'm a flower snob, but there are just some that do NOT appeal to me whatsoever!

Annnnyway, seeded eucalpytus. It's feathery, has flat leaves and these cool "flowers" that are shades of green, gray and pink. Really pretty. Here's a picture.

You can't see that much there, but I'll post a picture and see if I can get a closeup.

Here are the things I started with:

These are most of the flowers and some greens.

These are the roses and the seeded eucalyptus.

These are my clippers and the pretty blue vase I used. Inside the vase is what gave me trouble yesterday. It's floral foam or Oasis which most florists use.

I forgot to get new Oasis at the store, so I used a piece that had been used already. I flipped it over, figuring it would be just fine. Nope. Bad idea.

I finished the arrangement and noticed there were parts drooping here and there. I tried and tried to fix it, which only made the Oasis disintegrate even more! SO frustrating after spending the better part of an hour making this pretty arrangement.

So, I sent my lovely husband to the florist up the street to buy me a block of foam...

I'll post the finished product a bit later. Right now I MUST shower (I just did a kick-a** workout!) and then must get a couple things downtown. Later, alligator!

Weather outside is frightful!

I'm sure I'll be getting a call later on from my Mom. She will be thinking that we are buried under 752 feet of snow because the weather people in her area (Florida) like them to think they are the only place in the country not buried under 752 feet of snow for the months of December through March! We are definitely getting a storm today, but mostly in the way of rain and wind. If this were snow? Definitely would be seeing the 752 feet.

So, no decorating outside for me today. Instead I'll be grocery shopping and wrapping a bunch of gifts. Later on we're planning on putting up our Christmas tree, but we'll see how that goes given this lovely weather!

One of the most interesting things about living on the MA coast (for me) is the passing of the seasons and how nature's cues just never seem to miss. Not only can we mark the four seasons by the appearance of certain flowers, leaves on trees, and the lushness of our gardens, but also by the wildlife that comes and goes with the different seasons. I really learned to appreciate this while working on the whale watches. Such amazing birds show up here for the summer, only to migrate to far away places in the south for the winter.

Since we are approaching winter now, we have new birds showing up...Many diving duck species, an occasional loon and these majestic relatives of the albatross called gannets.



Gannets are the coolest birds. Not only just the way they look, but how they feed. Watch this video, if you're interested...(Please ignore the first few seconds, as the camera was turned on its side!)

The gannets plummet into the water at some ridiculous speed like 150 mph and gobble up the bait fish that they are able to target from 100 feet up in the air. Someone once told me that in their chest they have a bladder that they fill with air before the hit the water so they do not shatter their brittle bird bones. It's supposedly the inspiration for the air bags we have in our cars. Isn't nature grand? I love that stuff!

Here's a gorgeous hawk that showed up in my back yard last year. The fact that we live in a pretty urban area made this a really interesting surprise for me!



Have a wonderful Wednesday. Hope to get back to decorating tomorrow!

Lunch with a friend

Today had a lovely lunch with one of my most best, long-time friends. She and I used to be housemates for years and years until I met my husband. We were primed to be spinsters living together in that rickety old house. She and I just co-existed peacefully and very happily. Only trouble was the 3rd housemate. There was always something strange about the 3rd housemate.

The first girl was into skulls and bats and dead bugs and just dark, weird stuff. Now, if you're a goth person, I'm sorry to offend, but to the rest of us who love flowers and sunshine, that is just not something we can relate to. I felt SO uncomfortable going into her room to feed her frogs (very cute frogs) when she was away. It was creepy in there. And she had a giant painting above her bed that looked very much like a giant va-jay-jay. Not in a Georgia O'Keefe way, but in a very realistic way. Nothing subliminal here, kids!

Then there was the girl who never, ever came out of her room except to surprise you in the kitchen and then she'd be right back in that room. You'd go by there all hours of the day and night and would only hear the sounds of paper ripping. I finally decided she was an alien building a nest in there. Who knows!

The last one, a very sweet girl, had "woman problems" as she described it. I didn't need details, you know? One of the things she did to relieve these "problems" was to cook up these Chinese herbs in our kitchen and then she had to drink the "tea." Oh, how do I describe the smell? Hmmm. Let's say a mixture of dirt, poop, vinegar and rotten pickles? Maybe with a bit of patchouli thrown in there for good measure. It was absolutely horrific and the entire house would smell of this noxious mix for days on end. We were not sad to see her leave. Ugh!

I'll have to remember to tell you of some of my fabulous dates during the time I stayed in that house. Oh, I found some doozies!

So, to get back to the so-called theme of this blog, I got to go to my most favorite garden center today and get some more goodies to do a wreath for above long-time friend, another wreath for our house, and a garland for the front of our house. I kind of like to make sure our flower boxes and decorations are looking good year-round since I figure it's good marketing for my business, right? That's what I tell my husband, anyway!! : )

Here's the wreath I got up before it got dark here (which is pretty early right now). I wanted something simple and cute for the back door of our house.



I love that ribbon. It's silver wired ribbon that has millions of silver polka dots! Very happy. I found it today at the garden center - they sell so many good things there. Cute vases, baskets, artificial garlands that are very pretty, ribbons, stuff for cut flowers, every fertilizer known to mankind, organic dirt, awesome greens; you name it! I just love garden centers. Always have. I even love the smell of them, just like I love the smell of hardware stores. Is that odd? It's all earthy and smells so good and fresh. But not earthy like those Chinese herbs!

Happy Monday!

This week should be a busy one...I have two wreaths to do, and plan to decorate the outside of the house for the holidays. I love to do it all up with tons of white sparkly lights and then will also do a pretty garland for the front of the house. On top of that, I have to shop for 5 kids (not our own!), shop for a baby gift, and then do up a cut flowers arrangement for a woman throwing the baby shower on Saturday! She's the one who hired me to do her Thanksgiving flowers I showed you a couple weeks ago (.

It snowed here Saturday night. Like SNOW SNOW where it sticks and stays. The dogs were ridiculously joyous about it, which makes it a little more tolerable! Our girl, Sadie, just wants to go out and lay in it! She loves it! Our boy, Koty, loves to eat it and have snowballs thrown his way so he can gobble them up!

Here's a photo of the two of them. Frick and Frack! That's Sadie on the left, Koty on the right.



You'll see they obviously look alike. There's good reason! When our beloved dog, Lady, passed away two years ago tomorrow, our other dog, Koty, became totally despondent. He and Lady were best best friends. Inseparable. I'll tell that story another time of how we all came to be a family together. It's a good one!

ANNNNyway, Lady died. It was the saddest day of my life. I loved that dog with every cell. She was the worst dog and the most wonderful dog all at the same time! Here is my beloved girl.



So, after 3 months of seeing Koty so upset, we finally started looking for a companion for him. After visiting the shelter several times, we finally started looking at petfinder.com - a wonderful resource! So, we stumbled upon Sadie! Not only did she look SO much like Koty, her real name? When we saw her online? Her real name was LADY! Can you even believe that? Such a crazy coincidence, right? So that pretty much cinched the deal. We had to change her name - it was too weird to call her Lady, so we settled on Sadie. She's the perfect dog for us and the perfect companion for Koty! She's sweet, mellow, very cute and just loves to be loved.

Ok...Back to fleurs tomorrow!

My fleurs

I decided it'd be a good idea to document my flower boxes and back yard over the seasons. When we first moved in, the back yard was a repository for garbage. It was a divine mixture of gravel, discarded windows, broken fences, weeds and junk. We have lived here now almost 10 years and I'm happy to say, it is now a lovely little secret garden! No one knows it even exists since we have a large fence around it and it cannot be seen at all from the street!

Over time it has been transformed mostly into a butterfly garden! Best part? The huge butterfly bushes that are out there were a $10 buy from the grocery store about 6 years ago! Deal of the century! One of them now towers about 15 feet high and has just hundreds and hundreds of blooms which coincide with the Monarch butterfly migration. In the fall, it is incredible to go out there in the morning and find a dozen or more Monarchs and other gorgeous butterflies flitting about, feeding on the blooms!

These are some photos from a few years back. The yard has evolved much more now - plants are all bigger - particularly the hydrangeas and butterfly bushes.






Here is what it looks like now. Hold on to your socks! It ain't pretty! Welcome to December in Massachusetts. Not that I love snow, but at least when it's white back there it doesn't look so dreary and color-less.






I actually have one lonely hydrangea bloom that is trying to flower for me! Thank you, hydrangea! : )



And here are the flower boxes right now. I haven't switched them out to evergreens and berries because I think they still look pretty good!




The plants that you see hanging downward and then curving up? Those are mini-licorice plants. Amazing little plants. They start at about 4-6 inches tall and about as wide, and then the do this! I planted these about mid-April this year, and started with the ponytail grasses, the zebra grass, some nemesia, nasturtium and lantana. The latter three have been taken out after they were past their prime. I added some mums for the fall which are still in there.

So that's it for today. Lots of photos for you to peruse.

Have a good weekend!