Sunflowers and Marigolds in November

I found a sunflower field nearby.  I’d heard rumors of wildflowers earlier in the summer but I never managed to make time to go see them.  So when I got an email saying it was the last week to see them, I made a reservation and got my butt over there! And I’m so glad I did.

Of course, it did happen to be the hottest, dryest, sweatiest day ever that Bug and I visited but no matter, you gotta do what you gotta do when you are a self-proclaimed flower expert.

Flowers, flowers, flowers! You know how I love flowers. I keep trying to talk my girls into opening a flower stand but sadly, they are not interested. I’d open my own but I hate working holidays.

Bug and I dressed up in our flowy white dresses and pranced around the dry dusty fields, posing like silly fools next to every kind of sunflower we could find. Big ones, little ones, yellow ones, brown ones, even a few white ones!

They are so sunny and happy.

I’m so happy that I have a kid who is just as crazy about dressing up and posing as I am. I mean, I did kind of start her early.

She definitely has her own look and flaunts it proudly.

We made a friend of one of the staff guys working there and he happily followed us around taking photos. I think it gave him something to do on an otherwise slow day. I’m sure we entertained him with my crazy ideas of running through the field like farm girls back in time.  I didn’t care. It made a great photo and we got a laugh.

I was partial to the marigolds since orange is my favorite color. Aren’t they pretty? Yes, they stink and aren’t the prettiest-smelling flower but I don’t care because they are bombs of orange happiness!

Besides taking photos, we also got to cut our own flowers to take home. We brought our own trusty clippers and went to town. They only allow you to cut 15 flowers per cup which was actually plenty but it was a bit tricky finding stems that weren’t loaded with flowers. If you weren’t careful you could cut a stem with fifteen flowers on its stalk and that would be your bouquet, one big tree of flowers. Not that that is terrible but I had more of a full rounded bouquet in mind. Sunflowers are known for looking sideways and making bouquets very difficult to style.

Obviously, we managed. I look just like my mom in the top left corner. I think I might have to illustrate that for my Sue Bea calendar I’m working on. Flowers for the win!

I’m definitely in a better place in these photos than I was in the ones in my last post. Things have been getting better inside my head. Working out and eating less AND not drinking is a pretty winning combination. I do feel great. I’m scared I’ll give in and fall back in my old ways but so far so good. Temptation is a very real part of everyday life and I can’t set myself up for failure. I just have to keep on keeping on.  Slow and steady can attain great things.