Domestic Rule #9: Buy Yourself Flowers

Do you like flowers? Is anyone giving them to you?

Have you tried dropping hints? Yes, never mind. I know you have. Somehow dropped hints seem to hit the floor rather than the intended hearer's ears. I've been expecting to receive flowers for a very long time now. And guess what. I finally figured out how to get them!

I buy them for myself. Here are the lilies I got for $3.50 at the grocery store. They weren't open when I got them, so it's been a real treat to watch them bloom. They smell good, too.

I didn't buy myself flowers for the longest time because it seemed to me like a certain party who will remain nameless should KNOW I want flowers. This would not be a hard thing to know, since I believe I've mentioned it a time or 400. He thinks it would be wonderful for me to have flowers. It just seldom occurs to him (though I have received flowers on seven occasions over the past  23 years).  He doesn't think like that. In fact, I had to point out the pictured flowers to him as he was standing beside them. Flowers are not on his radar in any sense. He did admit that they were pretty once I slapped him with them.

It's a shame, but I felt I needed justification for buying them for myself. That justification came when I quit buying wine. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana, so I have nothing against wine. It just quit agreeing with me. If I drink wine, my heart pounds. It's scary. A cardiologist I saw said, "That happens to some people." He didn't seem concerned, and the solution is very easy: don't drink wine.

As much as I love wine and how witty and beautiful it makes me, I had to give it up. What it does to my heart now is No Fun, so I don't drink. I'm no longer witty and beautiful, and sad to say, neither is anyone else.

But if I could buy wine, which was bad for my heart, then why not choose instead to buy flowers, which are good for my heart?

I've even found a store where I can get a dozen gorgeous roses for $6.99. I am never without flowers, even if no one sees them but me. And Lily. She helps me pick them out if she's with me.

Because I still have some kind of guilt thing going with the flowers, I always buy Paul some nice ale at the same time. Flowers and ale. Domestic bliss.

Comments

[Angry]

I've only ever seen you as witty and beautiful... obviously I'm well into a bottle of wine before I come here.

I bought Mrs. A flowers on a semi-regular basis for years during our early years of marriage... only to eventually find that she didn't like cut flowers. Trouble is she loves cut flowers now and I never think to buy them for her.

[groovyoldlady]

I prefer wildflowers or flowers I've cut from my own garden, so for 5 months of the year we ALWAYS have flowers in the house. Other times...I'd rather have chocolate, but if I'm given flowers I prefer carnations because they last 4-ever, or I prefer a plant. My violets have been blooming constantly for over a year now and they make me feel so cheerful.

That, or it's the wine...