What a Difference a Year Makes

I'm not a girl that goes out shopping and buys tons of shoes (ha ha ha...like I could or anything!) or purses or clothes. Actually, I hate shopping. I know, weird. I do enjoy buying books though. Just ask Mr. Wonderful. Well, if there's one little teeny-weeny thing I really love doing every year, the Saturday before Mother's Day, it's going flower shopping. It's not the shopping part I enjoy as much as the planting part. I just LOVE planting flowers.

I am not planning on rambling here since these pictures speak for themselves. I will point out, however, that Mr. Wonderful gets a little unsettled (um, nuts is a better word I suppose) when he sees me taking lots of pictures of my flowers. They just take up space on his hard drive. It's true. I've never done anything with all those flower photos until now. Well, except enjoy them whenever they pop-up on the computer. Who knew this year some of those photos would be needed so badly.

The following pictures are from exactly one year ago...

July 2009

And I just took these pictures...

July 2010

Mmmm hmmm. This is the huge pot in the first photo, the one with the Elephant Ear sticking out of the middle. This is also the pot that was emptied of its flowers, one by one. We have come to learn that perhaps our little flying squirrel friends have been munching on them. So nice of them to choose to eat from the great big pot.

I have never ever had such a pathetic batch of flowers. Never ever. It's quite depressing, actually. I refuse to go buy new flowers though. And no, I didn't do anything differently. I bought the same flowers (different colors) from the same greenhouse I go to every year.

Sad, isn't it?

But hey! Did you see last year's hydrangeas (the 4th picture from the top)? There was hardly anything there but leaves. This year's hydrangeas are overflowing. And I am thankful!

What a difference a year makes. In many more ways than I could have ever imagined.

Here's hoping your flowers are much more lovely than mine,