A Year of Flowers

A profusion of pink roses bending ragged in the rain speaks to me of all gentleness and its enduring.  

- William Carlos Williams

I love flowers.  The arrival of dahlias at the Pike Place Market makes me sad every year, because I know they are the last flowers to come in before the long winter, punctuated only by a few hardy Vietnamese vendors selling sad tacky dried arrangements.

Even this year, in the midst of the renovations, I brought flowers home.  This photo sort of sums it up.

Beautiful giant bouquet of flowers in the center, furry walls and destruction everywhere else.

Another fall bouquet, raging wildly in a milk glass vase left over from our wedding.

One of my goals for the new year is to bring beautiful flowers home at least once a month for a year.  I am continually amazed at the wonders of modern life, one of which being you can get completely gorgeous flowers in January.  Aren't we lucky? 

I recently had some girlfriends over for brunch.  In honor of those lovely ladies, I made some pink arrangements.  I've usually stayed away from carnations, but I was allured by the delicate pink hue of these ones.  There were some exactly matching gerbera daisies, and together with my gorgeous vintage Fiestaware pitcher, they made the table cheerful, dare I say spring-ish?

I made a couple of small arrangements to flank the pitcher.  Aren't they cute?

The central arrangement:

Altogether now:

Cute, right?  Is it perfectly transparent that I hate the month of January and that I'm dreaming of spring?  Fake it till you make it?  If Mohammed can't make it to the mountain, the mountain must be brought to Mohammed?  I'm going to try hard to keep the grey weather at bay by keeping a flow of gorgeous, crazy, energetic flowers coming into the house.  Floral escapades, here I come!