Do you have a guilty pleasure?
Something you do just for yourself?
Something that brings you pleasure without regards to expense?
Something that if people knew about you, would make you feel embarrassed or guilty?
I guess that’s why it’s called a guilty pleasure.
Some guilty pleasures are free.
Like spending hours and hours looking at pictures of flowers on the internet.
Not just any pictures, but pictures found on Flickr.com…
when you search for “flowers France.”
But time is money, so spending hours doing this isn’t really free.
Does anyone know what your guilty pleasure is?
Have you ever confessed it?
Ever confessed your guilty pleasure to your husband or your children?
Would you EVER be as crazy as to confess your guilty pleasure publically?
Publically, like in the newspaper perhaps, or maybe on a blog?
Or would you keep your mouth shut, and just enjoy your guilty pleasure for yourself, telling no one about it, ever?
But what fun would that be? I’ll go first. Here’s the story of my guilty pleasure which until today has been a deep, deep secret.
For my birthday, my BFF Lisa, (Yes, I am still in high school) sent me two dozen roses of assorted colors. They arrived at my door in two beautiful long, white, floral boxes – tied with ribbon. Included with the roses were pretty fillers – those green things that you have no clue what their name is, but they make your flowers look prettier. While the two dozen assorted colors were meant to be put together in one extravagant arrangement – I separated them into colors and ended up with several vases which I placed around the house. The roses were so beautiful, but it made me sad to see them, knowing in a week they’d be nothing but garbage fill and I’d be pining for more.
As far as birthday gifts go – it was a great one, although a tad expensive for friends of our age to spend on each other. Right? In fact, when I chastised Lisa for spending too much, she just laughed and informed me that really, they weren’t nearly as expensive as they looked. Certainly not as expensive as the year she had sent me flowers from Rose Story Farm in California after I had written a story about them. Now, THAT was expensive!
Instead, this year, she grinned while she said it, the roses came delivered from the local grocery store. What, the grocery store delivers? Yep, the local grocery store – you know the kind where they have one person working in the floral department that no one ever shops at except for Valentine’s Day?
I love fresh flowers in the house and usually I go to a nearby florist to buy them. I’d go about once every other month which meant that most of the time, I didn’t have flowers – except for a lone orchid plant. Well, that’s all changed now, hence my guilty pleasure. When I found out how cheap the delivered roses from the grocery store was – we hatched a plan.
The usual lone orchid.
Now, the truth is – I don’t spend a ton of money anymore. My clothes shopping is either Hanes sweats or a few Eileen Fisher sweaters. Ben and I are homebodies and don’t eat out much either. We rarely travel anymore (gawd, we sound so boring!) and my house is pretty much complete, so pricey trips to Round Top are now a thing of the past. Manis and panis are left for weddings and parties only. All this together led me to justify my one guilty pleasure: a weekly delivery of two dozen flowers!
Each Wednesday afternoon – the day the grocery store receives it fresh flowers – I get two of those gorgeous long, white florist boxes – tied with the pretty ribbon – delivered to my front door. Inside, is always a surprise. I don’t order the flowers, per se, it’s the florist’s choice of what is in bloom. Where one week I might get two dozen roses, the next week I might get peonies. The not knowing what’s inside the boxes is part of the fun! Another part is knowing that when the flowers die and are thrown away on Tuesday, on Wednesday they’ll be replaced without much effort on my part. It’s become a huge event at home to see what’s inside the boxes and figure out which vases I’m going to use. And even more fun, sometimes the fillers are an arrangement of their own.
One half of this week’s delivery: yellow roses with purple orchid fillers.
Ben loves all this. He never has to worry about birthday or anniversary flowers again. And while filling up the car cost more than the flowers, I still thank him each week for allowing me the use of his credit card! And typically, he’s started acting like this was all his idea to begin with. Sure, Mr. Slippersocks Man – go with it.
The other half of this week’s delivery: pink and yellow tulips.
Now that I have confessed my embarrassing guilty pleasure – leave a comment and tell me yours – if you dare!! To read my original story on my love of fresh flowers, go HERE for a blast from the past blog entry.
And, finally, last year we ran a giveaway for this darling French Market Basket. Out of the blue, Andrea surprised me this weekend with my very own basket. See the wheels? It’s sooo cute!! If you missed the giveaway, check out the web site HERE to see all the cute French baskets they sell. BTW, those blue hydrangeas came as “fillers” in this week’s flower delivery.
