Sigh… for the first time in I don’t know how long I have a floral arrangement that I’m just not totally happy with.

Let me back up a bit.

One thing I really like, a simple thing that makes me happy, is having fresh flowers in the house. One thing past boyfriends/husbands have had in common is some strange anathema to that concept. Some were just dense and didn’t get the memo that girls like flowers, some considered the giving of flowers to be a symbol of truly deep feelings which they may not actually feel for me (no? then why have we been dating a year?) and others even took the approach that to cut them was to kill them and thus end their beauty. Not to mention that flowers growing wild were for everyone’s enjoyment whereas flowers in the house were selfish.

Um. Yeah.

Sue me for being selfish (so not a new thing…) and I have a black thumb so house plants don’t stand a chance with me (I’m still amazed that the dish garden from Valentine’s Day is still alive because I remember to water it maybe once every couple of weeks… but at least its in the kitchen where I see it often). And I’m not even greedy! While I really adore roses, I’m happy to have anything that blooms in the house as long as its pretty and I can put it in a vase.

Anyway, backstory aside, one of the things I started doing when I moved into the apartment last June was buy myself flowers every week or so. I’d buy a big bunch of something and then divide them between vases throughout the apartment. Some would last longer than others, and when I change them out I snip off the dried buds and save them in a crystal bowl on the bookcase (I have plans for them).

Something I’ve always been able to do, however, was create a pleasing arrangement of whatever I brought home. I’m not taking arty floral sculpture necessarily, but more than just dropping a bunch of same-length stems in a vase… I put effort into it and its generally rewarding. Last night? not so much.

For some reason I just could not get the mixture of white daisies and mums to cooperate. I went through a couple of version before redoing the frog and centering them in the square vase. Though I usually don’t ad pebbles or ribbons and such, I think I may have to in order to be pleased with it.

Now, I’m sure some of my more honest friends will read this and want to say to me, ‘if this is the only thing you have to complain about and you’re being this whiny about it, you need a reality check’ and part of me agrees. The other part of me realizes that this simple bit of disharmony is indicative of the larger picture of things spinning around right now with very little control or conscience. My focus is a bit off, and I desparately want a new distraction for a while to clear my head, but I know that what I really need to be doing is cutting down the number of distraction I’ve already set before me.

My first attempt with the flowers last night was to spread them out among to compartments I’d created via the frog. I like things compartmentalized, identified, categorized, manageable. But the flowers kept slipping on the base of the vase, tangling their stems. Some things defy categorization, people are many times unmanageable, glass floors make for unstable foundations. So I pulled everything out and started over, the new frog narrowed the opening of the vase and I clustered everything inside a central opening, arranged for height. In frustration everything I do gets tossed into one central pile, neatly stacked and seemingly organized, but really chaos reigns until I separate them once again.

Tonight maybe I will try again. Try a different vase. I’ll try and sort and reorganize again. The flowers, too.