5

5

7/1/13

I am not somebody who possesses a green thumb.  It’s just something that has never interested me.  For a majority of my life I did not have an appreciation for gardening.  My parents always had a garden when I was growing up, so I do have a love of home grown vegetables, but the actual process of planting and tending the garden never really interested me.  On Mother’s Day a few years ago my mom wanted to go to a local nursery and shop around for some new flowers.  My mom loves shopping.  She can walk into any store or market and spend hours just looking.  She may not even buy anything; she just likes looking at the available items.  I knew this would be the case as well at the nursery.  While I typically find the enormous amount of time she wants to spend at any given store insufferable, I decided that I would be a good son and accompany for however long she wanted at the nursery.  I chose to go and look at the huge variety of flowers that were present.  I was astounded by some of the flowers.  Colors and patterns that I had never seen before in nature were on display.  As I outlined earlier, I have not spent much time looking at various flowers, so it should have come as no surprise.  When we left the nursery that day, I found that I had a new admiration for flowers.  Unfortunately, the experience did not inspire me to start gardening, but it did give me a better appreciation for the act of gardening.  I also unintentionally came away with a better understanding of my mom’s shopping practice.  I did not buy any flowers that day, but I still enjoyed the experience of “shopping” for them.  Sometimes it really is best to stop and smell the roses.