Spring has Sprung! (not really)

It's been sooo frigid lately, but since it is early March, the sun has been shining brightly and I swear spring wants to spring! When I wake up in the mornings, I can hear a family of birds in the alleyway from my bathroom window, and they make me think that warm weather is not far away! If only the air temperature could just catch up with the bright sun and things started sprouting, everything would be on track!

To try and usher in (or welcome) the spring into my life earlier this week, I bought some pretty pink flowers to spruce up my living room.

Ranunculus, tulips and lisianthus (maybe?) add some cheer to my little bookcase.

(oh, and that is a random picture of my brother and me on his high school graduation)

Sometimes I really miss my days working in a flower shop in New York. I started off working in the flower kiosk in Bryant Park, then moved to the shop in the West Village. 

Good times. 

Working in Bryant Park in itself was eventful! But I'll get to that some other time.

I had plenty of time to observe (spy on, really), photograph, and draw the people in the park and the flowers I was tending to:

Every Thursday at the West Village shop, we would get shipments of flowers from the Netherlands, and it was like Christmas morning every week! We would unwrap boxes and boxes of Dutch tulips, roses, tropical flowers from Australia and South Africa, anything and everything you could imagine. It was amazing! And the shop smelled soooooo good!

Roses! Lilies of the Valley! Peonies! Hyacinths! Pineapple flowers! Jasmine! Orchids!

Ahh, the bounty!!!

That seems like another life ago. After I moved back home, I worked in another flower shop locally- it was the best! Someday I'll turn my flower notes and drawings into a book- and also do a series of flower paintings/collages!!! That's been on the back burner for years.. I've gotta resuscitate that this spring... stay tuned! For now, taking a short walk to the flower shop around the corner from me does the trick. 

Come on, Spring! I need you!!!

-P.S: here's a freaky nature fact -  tulips keep growing even after you cut them and put them in a vase. Weird!!!