Tag: Flowers

11..., Lifestyle

11… Ways I’m Forgiving Myself

RaeAnna

I can’t believe a third of the year has already passed us by. I was really hoping to make some positive changes in my life within 2021’s first few months. Unfortunately, I have been struggling to even come up with a modicum of productivity. 

Just out here looking for forgiveness…. | Black Dress |

I am going to lay a lot of that blame at COVID’s figurative feet. Not just COVID existing in the world. I haven’t talked about it on this platform yet, but COVID entered my home right after Christmas. My partner ended up in the hospital for three weeks and on oxygen for another three. I really struggled to make it through the worst parts of it myself. More than three months later, we’re both dealing with the aftermath of COVID. Breathing is still difficult. I get fatigued so easily. Life has slowed down significantly as we recover. I am not able to go-go-go the way I like to or am used to. So a lot of things fell by the wayside. Pretty much anything that has not been an absolute necessity has gone untended, and even some of the necessities. So fuck you, COVID, my year could have been better without you!

There has been more and more talk of self-care in the world. Self-care looks different from person to person. I’m really the last person to talk about it because I’m really bad at doing it myself. So this is not a post about that. But in my effort to be kinder to myself and try to reduce some of my mental load and anxieties, I’m going to extend eleven forgivenesses from me to me in an effort of self-care and self-preservation. 

I’m also forgiving myself for not posting this last week/yesterday like I had planned on… because I ran out of time and the physical ability to get it done the day after Easter/yesterday I decided to clean the entire house/the dogs/disinfect dog boxes, which is a chore.

Sending myself flowers as an apology to me. (from Amanda Bee’s because duh)
  1. I forgive myself for the stack of books I’ve read and not reviewed. This sounds trivial, but a huge part of …on the B.L. is book reviews. I started out as a book blogger, and though I don’t identify solely as a book blogger, it’s still an integral part of my platform and life. I quite literally majored in reading real good. Having been depressed, anxiety riddled, and ill for the last year, I’ve done a lot of reading and very little reviewing. So I forgive myself for not reviewing. I couldn’t do it. I did not have the mental bandwidth to write more than I absolutely had to. So instead of writing all the backlog reviews, I’m going to write reviews for the ones I really want to write reviews for. I will do a big post about all the ones I’ve read and am not reviewing; partially because I really like some of the pictures taken. Going forward, I will try—try being the operative word—to write about all the books I’m reading. 
  2. I forgive myself for getting COVID. I have a lot of guilt about this. Dylan and I have been so extremely careful, and yet it entered our home and almost took his life—and mine but I’m ignoring the severity of my own situation. I feel shame over having COVID. Like I need to keep it a secret and not talk about it. I don’t know why I feel this way, but I do. 
  3. I forgive myself for ordering out. I love cooking, but I have found no joy in it the past  several months. So I have found myself ordering in a lot. Like a lot a lot. Like too much. I take solace in the fact I’m supporting small businesses who are struggling to survive through COVID.
  4. I forgive myself for not exercising. I can blame COVID for this one. I had been in a really good habit of exercising [semi]frequently, but then COVID hit my lungs. I’m still having a hard time getting up and going, so exercise has gone by the wayside for now.
  5. I forgive myself for having a short fuse. My fuse has been short for a whole BUNCH of reasons. I wish I had more patience right now, but I don’t. At this point, my patience is being reserved for the dogs. The people who have to deal with my fuse, or lack thereof, understand and are being incredibly understanding. But the dogs don’t have the same ability to understand mommy’s shortcomings and humanity, so I give them all my patience because I’m not going to make them neurotic with my frustrations.   
  6. I forgive myself for not writing. I write for a living both as a freelance writer and for this blog. I love it. I really love my job, and I feel incredibly lucky to get paid to do something that interests and stimulates me every day. But the things I want to dive into and explore more on the blog take a lot of emotional exploration and inevitably lead to breakdowns and breakthroughs, and I love that, but it’s hard. In a year where I’ve raised and gave away puppies while going through a pandemic… I haven’t been able to go there. So, I am forgiving myself for that because it does me no good to dwell on what I haven’t accomplished. 
  7. I forgive myself for not socializing the puppies more. After buying a house, the need to socialize the puppies at the dog park decreased because I have a backyard. They don’t need to play at the dog park the way Beau did when she was an only dog living in an apartment. They have tons of playmates and the space to be rambunctious ding dongs. I still feel bad that they haven’t had that experience but a) we’ve been staying in because of COVID b) socializing five dogs—four puppies—is a lot of work and I didn’t have it in me. 
  8. I forgive myself for not working as much. This isn’t completely my fault, but I could’ve done more to work more. The pandemic hit my work load hard because my clients were hit hard. So the work dwindled. In a way, that was a blessing; it gave me time to raise puppies, rest, and not work when I had COVID. 
  9. I forgive myself for not sending Thank You cards last year on my birthday. I ALWAYS send Thank You cards when I get presents. My 29th birthday landed in the beginning of a pandemic but also in the middle of raising thirteen very needy puppies. I had no time…. And it fell by the wayside. I’m trying not to feel bad about that. 
  10. I forgive myself for being a lesser friend. I try to be a good friend. I try to show up, stay in touch, reach out, send notes, get together, and all those good things. In 2020 and 2021, so far, I have been a lesser friend. I feel bad, but I couldn’t be there for people the way I like to be. 
  11. I forgive myself for putting myself, my happiness, my mental health first. I’m not used to putting me first. And I’m terrible at asking other people to make me a priority, treat me well, give and not just take, and more. I’m not good at demanding the respect I deserve. No one taught me that. So at 29, I’m trying to be better about only accepting and keeping people in my life who are good for me. 

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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11..., Lifestyle

11… Flower Things

RaeAnna

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Rambling Roses in Amanda’s backyard.

I’m living with a florist — Amanda Bee’s Floral Design, shameless plug for my bff — right now. I thought I’d do a dedicated flower post because why not? Also, I’m lacking inspiration, and her backyard is full of flowers, which makes taking pictures much, much easier.

  1. I love gardens filled with flowers, but I have no desire to work in a garden or do anything to tend to them. Someday, I hope to have enough money to pay someone to come do it all for me. Or marry a younger Monty Don.
  2. Narcissus = Daffodils I was two-days-ago years old when I made that connection.
  3. The puppies have done some serious damage to Amanda’s flower beds. Will be purchasing dirt and flowers to replace in the near future.
  4. Best way to keep your flowers fresh: put new water in the vase daily and wash off the stems.
  5. I’m allergic to everything under the sun, but flower pollen doesn’t bother me that much.
  6. Cut roses back in the spring to encourage growth… unless they’re rambling roses, then do it in the fall.
  7. I have a real love for watching any and all Monty Don shows.
  8. Magnolias are one of the oldest flowering trees in the world. Fossilized versions have been found dating back to 20 million years ago, but the family has been around for at least 95 million years. They were around before bees, so they relied on beetles to pollinate them. Woah.
  9. A mud head will be built in my backyard someday.
  10. Phytotelmata holds water for insects to use as a reservoir. A heliconia is an example.
  11. I went to the largest garden and flower show in the world in 2012: The Chelsea Flower Show. It was amazing. I really want to go back.

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Books, NonFiction

Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer

RaeAnna

Worth a Read Yes
Length 291
Quick Review The closest thing to porn I’ve ever read for a word-nerd.

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Posing with my friend’s flowers in a very writer like pose with  Dreyer’s English. | Dress | Fascinator | Earrings | Lipstick |

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I love everything about language. How it functions. How it changes. How it’s used. How it can be manipulated. I think it’s fascinating on every level. Dreyer’s English by Benjamin Dreyer is my version of porn. It’s an amazing book for language lovers, seasoned writers, author hopefuls, and everyone in between. We’re all writers; we do it every day in emails, text messages, proposals, and more. 

Dreyer’s English is my favorite style guide I’ve encountered. It’s not as thick, all-encompassing, or menacing as the MLA, AP, or any other style guide because it’s for writers who want to write. Dreyer writes with a sense of humor. He simultaneously says his way is the best and also allows for every other writer/copyeditor/reader/editor/person to have their own preferences — outside of the Oxford comma — because, if we’re being honest, writing and language are an art and inherently subjective. Do not glaze over the footnotes; they are amazing, full of wit, side remarks, random tidbits, and even mentions notes his copyeditor jotted to him. Gold. Amazing quotes and excerpts from books and media of all genres and eras are used as good and bad examples throughout. Unsurprisingly, Dreyer’s vast vocabulary makes the book even more entertaining to read. It’s unusual I come across a word I don’t know, but I came across a handful I had to look up. 

One of the first sections of the book speaks to breaking rules because that is exactly what artists do, and great writers are artists, “…Great Nonrules of the English Language. You’ve encountered all of these; likely you were taught them in school. I’d like you to free yourself of them.”. Dreyer wants writers to know the rules and break them. He also wants writers to know the stupid rules, which should have never been rules to begin with because there are a great many of those. I was lucky to have brilliant professors who told me a lot of the rules were archaic and stupid, and many of the other rules are breakable. The few things they didn’t teach me, I learned through trial and error as a writer typing, reading, editing, deleting, and retyping my work. One of the best pieces of advice I learned, Dreyer pointed out more than once, “One of the best ways to determine whether your prose is well-constructed is to read it aloud.” Learning is done through visuals, and Dreyer’s English is littered with bad versions and  good versions of sentences. My particular favorite is the correction from: “A mother’s responsibilities are to cook, clean, and the raising of the children” to the much better grammatically and societally: “A father’s responsibilities are to cook, to clean, and to raise the children.” Another fun example mentions my home-state’s capital, “I think of the Internet as a real place, as real as or realer than Des Moines.” It may not be a totally fabulous nod in Iowa’s direction, but it is a nod.

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There’s one thing I always look for in grammar guides: The writer’s opinion on the series comma, or Oxford comma. I’m a groupie of the comma, and anyone who disagrees is an idiot. Luckily, Dreyer is not an idiot and had my vote of confidence when he said, “I don’t want to belabor the point; neither am I willing to negotiate it. Only godless savages eschew the series comma.” Not only does he advocate for the appropriate way to write a series, his advice is spot on, in my humble opinion. I have told every. single. writer. I have ever worked with the same. exact. advice. found in Chapter 1 — and to delete “that” from 98% of their writing. The only thing I disagree with Dreyer on is using an apostrophe s to show possession after words ending in s. (I argue “Jesus’ fish” not “Jesus’s fish” looks better, Mr. Dreyer.)

Language and grammar are political. I took an entire college class on the subject. Dreyer does not come out and say so in Dreyer’s English, but through his footnotes, writing, side comments, and examples, it is clear grammar and language are political.

By the way… GET RID OF THE DOUBLE SPACE AFTER THE PERIOD. It’s been out for a very long time, but some people still do it. It drives me crazy. Benjamin Dreyer is copy chief of Random House. He is literally in charge of grammar at the publishing house. If you don’t want to listen to little old me, listen to him. Also use the Oxford comma. Benjamin Dreyer, the big boss, says so.

I loved reading Dreyer’s English. It’s my kind of porn, or as other people would call it, an accessible and entertaining guide to using the English language. Benjamin Dreyer is funny and smart, while also being relatable. He doesn’t mind letting his inner nerd shine through, which makes him even more relatable to me because I also do this: “Sometimes I’ll read old books as much for the pleasure of their old-fashioned stylistic oddities as for their actual content. We all have our own fun.”

Memorable Quotes
“Copyediting is a knack. It requires a good ear for how language sounds and a good eye for how it manifests itself on the page; it demands an ability to listen to what writers are attempting to do and, hopefully and helpfully, the means to augment it.”
“As much as I like a good rule, I’m an enthusiastic subscriber to the notion of “rules are meant to be broken” — once you’ve learned them, I hasten to add.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

Buy on Amazon | Buy on Barnes & Noble | Buy Book Depository
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Title: Dreyer’s English; An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style
Author: Benjamin Dreyer
Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780812995701

11..., Lifestyle

11 Reasons A Florist Friend is the Best Kind of Friend

RaeAnna

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Vase | Desk | Mug | Laptop

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Vase | Side Table

I actually met and fell in platonic love with my Houston bestie because of Instagram. She’s a local florist and reached out to me about a collaboration. Over a year ago, Amanda walked into my living room with an arm full of flowers, told me we should be friends, and now, she can’t get rid of me. There are a few perks to having a florist for a bestie…. There are more than a few perks, but here are eleven I can think of. 

By the way, she’s Amanda owner and creative genius behind Amanda Bee’s Floral Design. Click here to find her website. Or give her a follow on Instagram or Twitter or Pinterest or Facebook too. She’s the best. I’m not just saying that because I’m staring at a gorgeous and underpriced bouquet; she really is completely talented. 

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Vase | Side Table

  1. Flowers For some odd reason, florists have flowers lying around, and Amanda’s house smells like a greenhouse on steroids. 
  2. Creativity To be a floral designer takes a lot of creativity. It’s such an interesting perspective, and she brings it into every part of her life and now mine. 
  3. Knowledge I like to know things. Plants and flowers are everywhere, and I don’t know very much about them. I can always text Amanda a picture of a plant or flower, and she’ll have the answer. It’s like having my own personal plant dictionary at my disposal.
  4. Wholesale If you’ve never been to a wholesale flowers, you should. It’s magical.
  5. Dirty People think florists are soft and fragile, but they’re willing to get their hands dirty. Taking care of flowers, making them pretty, dethorning them, and all that crap is hard work, and it’s dirty. Amanda is never afraid to get her hands dirty and get to work doing stuff.
  6. Beauty Flowers are dirty and a pain, but they’re pretty. Amanda always brings small and beautiful elements to just about everything in her life.
  7. Teacher Amanda is full of knowledge, and she’s always teaching me new things, like how to know if a flower is healthy, when to dry them, pressing techniques, and so much more. 
  8. Flowers Sometimes when there are leftovers, I get some fun flowers. It’s a solid perk. I also get a genius arranging flowers I buy because I am genuinely not good at creating interesting arrangements. 
  9. Firm I always functioned under the idea: flowers are fragile. They are, but they’re not. You can use a firm hand to get them to do what you want them to do sometimes. 
  10. Ingenuity I’m not saying she forages, but I’m not saying she doesn’t. Floral design isn’t just flowers; it’s about creating beautiful floral arrangements for spaces and people. Branches and fruit and feathers and more can go into arrangements to create depth, movement, and texture. Watching a truly creative designer do what they’re good at is fascinating.
  11. Flowers Have a mentioned being surrounded by flowers and a literal flower girl is just plain good for the soul?

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Books

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

RaeAnna

Read Sure
Length 352
Quick Review Through the Victorian language of flowers, a newly emancipated foster girl finds acceptance and forgiveness.

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I love my flowers from Amanda Bee’s Florals!

The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh was loaned to me by my friend, Amanda of Amanda Bee’s Florals. It’s a great easy read combining a few things I love: language, flowers, and books. I needed something light to interrupt the maelstrom of books I’m reading to catch up after vacation.

Victoria Jones is newly emancipated from the foster system. She had always been a problem child and felt no reason to change. Homeless, she found a job in the one place she could: a flower shop. Her only good foster home taught her about the Victorian meanings for flowers. Her years of challenging everyone and everything combined with the foster system and constant changes, she lacked social skills. Flowers were her only means of feeling whole and communicating with the world.

Diffenbaugh demonstrates a deep understanding for the struggles foster kids endure in the system. She and her husband adopted a son out of the foster system, and the co-founder of the Camellia Network. It is an endemic close to her heart. The Language of Flowers is deeply touching and heartbreaking. Victoria yearns for the universal human desires of connection, acceptance, forgiveness, and love. Flowers help her find everything she is looking for from within and the outside world.

The meanings of flowers have always intrigued me, so this was fun to read. At the end of the novel, there is a short dictionary of flowers and their meanings. The writing is well-done and compelling. The plot is well thought out and supports the underlying theme that the foster system repeatedly and continually lets children down every step of the way. It wraps all the loose ends up nicely into a happy ending. The foreshadowing throughout the book is subtle, but still obvious enough the plot lays itself out in the first 87 pages.

I enjoyed reading The Language of Flowers in an afternoon. It was a pleasant surprise from what I thought it would be: a sappy love story. It has much deeper themes with an underlying call to action.

Memorable Quotes
“Mothers must all secretly despise their children for the inexcusable pain of childbirth.”

Title: The Language of Flowers
Author: Vanessa Diffenbaugh
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Copyright: 2011
ISBN: 9780345525550