Roses Are Red...

I work in a flower shop. I have had the same job there for over a year now delivering flowers. I like the freedom of this job title. I get to route out my deliveries and when I'm on the road I can listen to whatever I want. About six months ago I was given the opportunity to make my first arrangement and it came out beautifully. Ever since then my boss has been talking about training me to be a designer. Not much has happened since then...until last week. Last friday she had me build a heart wreath for a funeral. It was a long, arduous process. You wouldn't believe how complicated those are to make. Then Saturday as she was out shopping for a new delivery van, she put me in charge of the shop as designer! Woah! Grab hold of the reigns and hang on for dear life!!! The day wasn't incredibly busy but when you have to build the arrangements AND deliver them...that gets a little intense. A LOT INTENSE!!! During that day I made four arrangements and two corsages, delivered four, and picked up flowers from a greenhouse.

The hardest part of it all wasn't even that I've never made a corsage for an order before (I've made some just for fun with extra flowers lying around), or that we were supposed to close at 2, or that I had to go all the way to Horseshoe Bend for one order. The hardest part was trying to build a two dozen rose arrangement. I've made a dozen roses before and they are pretty easy...but when you've got 24 roses to place in a vase and none of them want to go where you want them to it gets tricky. You put another rose in and other roses shift, you try to fix the shifting and they all scrunch in, you spread them out and things fall over. I did the very best I could with no one there to supervise me but I have to admit I wanted to give up and wash my hands of the whole thing. I could have cried I was so frustrated!!! But I stuck with it, and got to a point eventually that I thought was decent enough. People who have never worked in the industry might be a little surprised to find out that designing flower arrangements is much easier said than done. Just because you are a creative person, or have taken art classes or know what colors go well together, does not mean you can jump right in and make something beautiful. Because I can do all those things...but floral design is a three-dimensional art and therefore 5 times as difficult, and you are working with a living medium which makes it 10 times more difficult. My boss says she can make 14 arrangements in an hour. That is fast. But she's been at it for over twenty years so I guess it comes with practice. She says, as an amateur I should be able to make 5 in an hour. I don't think I passed with flying colors this time...but maybe I'll get some practice in for making two dozen roses look like a piece of art and do better next time.

Getting Out of Town

Part of K's Valentine's gift to me was a trip up to McCall with him and his best friend and his best friend's wife and son. The major attraction being the Winter Carnival

We got around to seeing almost all the sculptures. Some were better than others but the ones that won prizes were most definitely deserving of the honor. I was a little awestruck at the attention to detail and the ambition of some of the artists. The fish to the left had hundreds of scales individually carved. The process must have been time-consuming indeed.
This year I noticed a technique they use for some of the more complicated sculptures, like the one that won the grand prize. They use chicken wire to hold the snow and more importantly to keep the sculpture from falling down in fragile places. If you notice the neck of the dragon on the right you will see it was starting to break. This is where you could see the use of the wire showing through the snow. It was a pretty incredible piece of work. This grand prize piece was complete with dragon, knight, king and queen on thrones, a moat, a castle and a little man's head peeping out of a dungeon. It was so intricate and beautiful. I can appreciate all the artistic ability and hard work it took to make something so impressive.

Also experienced on our trip was my first time on a snowmobile. First it was just K and me on a four wheeler but his best friend had rented a snowmobile and let us hop on and try it out near the end of their allotted time. It was great fun! I think we got up to 70 mph. And going up an embankment we did tip it once. Ha ha! That was fun!

All the Trimmings

So I was feeling kinda antsy about getting a new do; it was getting to be that time. I try to get a haircut every 6 months or so, but this time I wanted to try something a little different. Which is a big deal since me and drastic changes don't have a great history of meshing well. Mostly I just wanted to try bangs again. I haven't had them since I can't even remember when. Very young. Anyway, my sister had just cut hers and they looked cute so I thought I might take a chance. So one day after work I walked down the strip mall just a couple doors to the salon where I got my last haircut and waited for Ginger.

Ginger is a forty something single mom. Her short, bleach blonde hair hints at her attitude: spunky and determined. She was walking around in a leg brace and was candid about her circumstances when I asked her what had happened. She had been hit by a car around Christmas and had broken her femur and a couple other bones I can't recall. And even though it had been 7 months since my last time in to see her, she remembered some of the things I had told her about myself. This is the kind of relationship you develop with a hair dresser, I realized. It's nothing too overbearing, just a couple of people nonchalantly talking about their lives to pass the time. I have never had a hair dresser before but now I understand why people would invite them to weddings and put them on their mailing list for annual Christmas cards. She is pleasant and laid back; the kind of person you'd trust with something as important as your hair even if they were having a bad day.

I didn't want them as short as she made them. As she put the scissors to my locks and took the first snip my heart jumped with fear. Did she really just take off that much?!! I took a few deep breaths though, and decided I could live with it...until I could grow them out again. But as she finished up and started drying and styling my hair, the bangs were growing on me more and more. I smiled at my reflection in the full length mirror thinking that the biggest test would be if my boyfriend like them too. He absolutely loves them, so I think they might stick around for a while.

Octuplets

Recently the media has been covering (with a great deal of excitement) the successful birth of octuplets; only the second set ever to have been delivered in the U.S. But today I heard that the mother of the eight new borns already had six children under the age of eight. That makes fourteen children she is now responsible for. I was amazed and then quickly angered as I learned that she is a single mother who sought out this pregnancy through in vitro fertilization. To be clear...this is a procedure that involves removing egg cells from a woman's body and fertilizing them with sperm before returning them to the woman's uterus.

I find it unbelievable that this woman: a ms. Nadya Suleman, would choose to impregnate herself with eight eggs, ready to go, when she was already struggling to support the six children she already had. She was already receiving welfare to care for her children!

Who, in their right mind would make a choice like that? And who in their right mind would allow it?

I don't believe she is in her right mind. In an interview her mother was quoted to have said that Nadya was obsessed with having babies. This had me fuming. An obsession gives a person no right to subject their offspring to a life without a father, a life that will most likely be filled with all kinds of medical problems. Then one might say that she has every right to have however many children she desires...this is America after all. But when that right is abused by endangering the lives of the children she is creating, it goes too far. When she had already been blessed with six children she should have been focused on loving and caring for those six instead of creating more of a burden for the tax payers of California. I'm not saying people shouldn't have large families, I come from a family of eight myself, and my aunt had 13 children: all naturally born. So you love kids, fine, have kids. But when it becomes more about self gratification than having a functional, loving family, you have a problem. My point is that this woman had a choice...and she chose to endanger the lives of the very children she sought to make her own. It is a miracle that all eight were delivered successfully and that they are all still alive.

And where were the doctors in all of this? In vitro is supposed to come after psychological testing and interviews to find out why you want a baby at this time in your life and what it means to you, etc. And even if she passed those tests with flying colors, a woman of her age is never injected with more than two embryos at a time. Something is definitely wrong here and should be looked at. Somebody screwed up; whether it was the in vitro doctors or ms. Suleman I don't know. I do know that America will never tell a person how many children they can or cannot have. And I think that is only right. But somewhere along the line, someone has to take responsibility for their choices. And this woman is not going to learn anything when she's got the media clamoring for her time, and people waving money in her face to buy her story. A person should never be rewarded for pulling a stunt like this...that is sickening.

Fool-proof Hiccup Cure

The hiccups. probably the most frustrating, ridiculous ailment to ever plague mankind. While watching So You Think You Can Dance one season, there was a guy who tried out that had had the hiccups his whole life. Can you imagine that? He was a happy guy too. It was funny to watch him hiccup more often as he got more excited. I personally don't think I could handle such a persistent condition; I can't handle them for five minutes, forget about forever. Sheesh! I wonder if this is an actual disease. What would it be called? Just "Hiccup syndrome" or "Hiccupitis" or maybe something completely unrecognizable as anything to do with hiccups. You never know with those doctors. How they decide to name anything what they do. At least they got the fear of long words right. "Hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia."

The point is, many people struggle finding a way to cure hiccups. I have heard of countless ways over the years, as I'm sure many of you have:

getting someone to scare you (has never worked for me personally...is more a way to get me to pee my pants)
drinking water through a paper towel (very uncomfortable)
holding your nose while you drink water
distracting yourself
kissing someone (never tried it so not sure if it works)
drinking water upside down (extremely difficult and messy)
the way I used to do it that was pretty reliable: release all your breath and then hold your breath as you drink water until you feel like your lungs will burst, then you swallow your last swallow and breathe. This was very effective for me but I have recently been introduced to a much easier way to get the job done.

This method requires the help of a buddy, or if you don't have anyone around that can help you, use a plastic or styrofoam cup. The trick is to raise both your arms while someone holds the cup up to your mouth and you drink. I have tried it a couple times and so far it has been very successful. Goodluck all you hiccupers out there!

Tongue Twister

This tongue twister was challenged to me by my Aunt Jacque. I don't know where she got it but I thought it was rather funny. Like any tongue twister it is harder the faster you try to go, but this one holds some fun surprises if you get it wrong. Enjoy!

One smart fellow, he felt smart
Two smart fellows, they felt smart
Three smart fellows, they all felt smart


While we're on the subject of tongue twisters...here's one I learned when I was doing theater

Unique New York, you need New York
You know you need unique New York


Aren't tongue twisters fun? lol