The saying "stop and smell the flowers" isn't really about flowers. It's shorthand to remind us that life's savory times are all around us. In our haste, we may miss special times without appreciating how wonderful those moments are. Even more sadly, rushing past today, we may not get another chance to hug someone, call someone, or tell somebody, "thanks".
Thanksgiving week coming up on Christmas is a good time to remind ourselves that family matters twelve months out of the year, not two. It's a good time to celebrate your spouse, praise your child, and tell your fellow workers how much they mean to you. It might even be a great time for you to break your routine and go help out in a food bank, a shelter, or make any other effort where you can step outside your routine and reflect on life's lottery. Sometimes things are great; sometimes they're not. Most likely for the majority of us, life goes on with wins and losses, but it does go on.
Since there's truth at the heart of every saying, my personal reminder to stop and smell the flowers is a six inch flower pot filled with something fragrant right at my nose level. Coming or going, as I take a few steps outside my front door I am rewarded with cinnamon-sweet stock's heady fragrance, but there's also some alyssum and petunias nearby that add their scent to the mix. I'm lucky to have a small wall to hold my planters, but a window box or hanging planter would work just as well. It's tougher to do this in the hard winter climates, but a fragrant potpourri from summer's roses might be a good substitute for an outdoors annual. No matter what your growing situation, choose something you love to smell, so you're always tempted to stop and inhale and remember the real reason you're stopping to smell the flowers.
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