Residency Dreaming

Today is the third day that my husband Matt has been away from cold Kansas and in warm Orlando, FL.  No he's not vacationing or sitting out tanning, but I'm sure he wishes he was.  Instead he's been working this week at showing how great of an asset he'd be to a hospital as a pharmacy resident.  He's at this huge convention where all these hospitals from around the nation come to check out possible student residents.  To me it sounds scary and nerve wracking, but to Matt it's great.

Ever since Matt decided a couple years ago that this was the path he wanted to take in pharmacy I've been pretty excited and nervous and scared and happy and...well you get it.  I think both of us have felt a mix of emotions at the possibilities this could mean for us in our future.  Right now we (and I say we because well we are a team and in this together) are looking at hospitals across the country.  From Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Montana, Nebraska, Kansas, and I'm sure I'm forgetting others but you get the picture.
I'm so excited for my husband to finally be almost done with his pharmacy degree and pursuing his interests.  I'm also excited for us to finally figure out where we're going to be living soon.  He has worked extremely hard and been so focused on school that it drives me nuts at times.  The things that pharmacy students have to learn makes my brain feel like mush and I commend Matt and all of his classmates who are so close to being done.  I also commend friends and families (especially spouses) for continuous support.
He would hate if he saw that I was telling others about his accomplishments because he hates attention on himself, too bad because it's my blog. 

Making Up for Lost Time

Just wanted to share all the beautiful designs I've been able to do this past month or so.

Simple Traditional Triangle Design.  I mixed garden flowers in with Roses, Snapdragons, spider mums, and greenery.

 

 Both of these wreathes I designed with my partner in floral class.  They are artificial and were sold at a sale we had.

Centerpiece with candles, burlap, various mums, seeded eucalyptus, branches, and carnations.  I made this while working at a floral shop in college.  Looking at this picture always gets me excited about Autumn.  

This is just a picture of stock.  I love stock because it always adds texture, softness, and smells great.  I wouldn't have minded having an entire bouquet of this when I got married.

Above is a complementary piece that I made for a Chiefs football themed party.









The design to the right and below are Christmas themed pieces.  I love the smell of the pine, fir, and cedar.  I t makes me want to decorate a Christmas tree and drink hot cocoa.

Delayed Thanksgiving!!!

Happy Thanksgiving!!!Wait a minute that holiday was two weeks ago and I' already gearing up for Christmas.  Well Thanksgiving just went by so quickly this year that I need to reflect on it and savor my favorite holiday.  Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because in my opinion it's the most relaxed.  The only things expected of me on that day are to eat a lot, hang out with family, and be relaxed.  This I can handle.
 

This year was a bit different because I participated in a big floral sale for the holidays.  We designed various centerpieces and my goodness did we design.  It took about six straight hours to fill every order and each one turned out amazing.

It was well worth it to see the customers excitement when they came to pick up there flowers.  I'm so thankful I am doing what I love.  It is a blessing to be able to share ones creativity and talents with others.

I also got to look forward to a new tradition my husband and I decided to try/ start last year which was to run a turkey trot 5k in the morning on Thanksgiving day.  Last year us two did it and had so much fun.  This year we convinced my two sisters to join us in the run.  We promised them donuts at the end of the race and we also wore cute turkey hats.  It was a good morning for the run and made us feel a little less guilty about eating so much later in the day. 

 

Once again a great Thanksgiving holiday!!!!

Field Trip Time!!!

I got to feel like a little kid again last week when I went on a field trip to floral wholesalers down in Kansas City, Missouri.  It just made me more in love with flowers.  It was so cool to see such a massive amount of flowers in one area and smell all the different fragrances.  There were types of roses I had never seen before as well as varieties of colors I wish I could have as paint for rooms in my future house.

 

I wish I lived in this cooler of flowers.  I would never share them!!!

Jungle Juice and Autumn Harvest

I think the title says it all or maybe it doesn't if you don't live in my head.  I've been crazy busy with floral design, work, errands, and also planning fun stuff to do on the cruise my family is going on.  Jungle Juice sums up the craziness of last month planning for a trip and the exoticness that is...well anywhere that's not in Kansas!   I'm so pumped for this trip, but have never overthought so much about it like what do I do with my passport, how do I pack, does my sister know she needs to bring a suitcase, will my other sister remember her medicine and not be sad her boyfriend isn't with us, will my husband relax and not stress out about pharmacy residency applications, will my parents be able to relax,  OH MY GOSH!!!And that's just the beginning, when will the idea of this is vacation so relax take over because I'm ready.
On top of that fun stuff I have a huge floral design sale that I'm part of at Johnson County Community College a couple of days before Thanksgiving so I get to do what I love and design, but I'm a bit nervous since I'll just be making the same thing over and over again and hope each design is beautiful.   I also am working very diligently on my portfolio for traditional designs and am just about done except for I need to get the Christmas/ holiday pages completed.  AH! Sometimes it feels like my life is all about THEMES and I just get to be a part of all the craziness.

Thanksgiving Flowers

  The leaves are falling, there's a crisp fall smell in the air, running is never better because of the beautiful scenery, and everyone is starting to talk about the holidays coming up.  One big one just around the corner and my favorite one is Thanksgiving.  For the holiday the floral club I'm involved in has designed and are selling table pieces for that special day.  They're so beautiful and I just couldn't help but not share them.

Practice Design

I'm in love with this design I did.  It has a huge hydrangea in the background where I nestled two other dark purple carnations within it.  I also just love the Bells of Ireland that are curving out and leading your eye to that one dark purple carnation in the middle.  Since yellow is my favorite color and compliments the purples I of course had to add some Solidago as well.  I just had to share it because it made my day and wish I hadn't sold it and just kept for myself.

Vacation Dreaming

AH!  In only 34 days my family are going on a cruise.  It's a pretty big deal because the farthest my family has ever gone together on a trip was to St. Louis when I was in high school.  St. Louis was fine, but we did have car trouble and I did almost get strip searched at the arch (this was post September 11th and the security thought my back brace could be a weapon) so we are well overdue for a great trip. 

 As a kid we traveled mostly to Omaha to visit family and did lots of day or overnight trips to places like Topeka, Lawrence, Parkville, and Atchison.  We have talked for years about going on a big family vacation and I remember my sisters and I begging when we were kids to go on a trip where you have to take a plane ride.  Well  now that we're older we realize they were saving up for our college instead of taking us on bigger vacations and while we're thankful we still want to travel. 

 So once more it's only 34 days until our cruise.  So excited to spend some quality time with the family and at the same time have days just with my husband.  I can't wait to watch my sisters experience the Caribbean for the first time, snorkel with my husband, and enjoy nice dinners with my parents.  

Flower (and husband) Power

I was cleaning out my camera today and my goodness do I have a lot of floral designs in here.  Here's a bunch of pink and white bouquets I did for a June 2013 wedding.  I loved this wedding because it was a union of two dear friends.  The flowers were roses, carnations, and hydrangeas.  I'm so happy I found this picture because today I needed some reassurance I'm following the career path I want.

I had a crappy day full of floral obstacles, scheduling, timing, and well pretty much anything I could think of went wrong in the morning.  I was ready to just give the day the title of crappiest of the month already, but then my husband texted me words that changed my day around.  On top of that I found an amazing note at home from him when I needed it most.  It's amazing how others can change your mood with just written words. 

Now looking over all my photos of processed flowers and I'm reminded of the power of flowers and how much they mean to me.  Thank you Lord for my amazing husband and the power flowers have in my life!

Welcome November!

Goodbye October and hello November!!!I'm so happy to have a new fresh month.  October was pretty challenging because my husband had a crazy schedule so we didn't have much time together.  So with that combined with my work and class I've been anticipating November.  I love November because the leaves are still falling and in full Technicolor.  There's also Thanksgiving which might be my favorite holiday.  Today I went on a run in the morning and usually I bring my ipod to listen to music, but the day was too beautiful not to give it my full attention.  I ran an easy three mile course and then did some much needed stretching afterwards.  So far it's been a great first Monday of November and I look forward to more crisp fall days as well. 

 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!  Today is Halloween and I sure love this holiday.  It's so fun to be able to dress up and also see everyone else being creative with their costume.  My husband and I got to go out in our costumes this past weekend to celebrate and we had so much fun.  Matt dressed as a hot dog and I was a witch and we had a blast meeting others in cool costumes and dancing the night away.

Today I had floral class and we had a design contest.  The designs had to be Halloween and Fall themed.  It was a blast as usual.  I love all the varieties of flowers and colors.  It gets me so excited to do this everyday in the near future. 

Beginnings are the Best

Finally after procrastinating and many futile attempts I have started my own blog.  I've been wanting to do one of these for so long and finally raced down the bandwagon and jumped on.  My name is Sarah and I'm 26 years old.  I live in Kansas City and love everything this town has to offer.  I'm married to the love of my life Matthew and have been with him 6 years and married two of those.  I'm a passionate floral designer and love anything that has to do with flowers.  I am equally passionate about running and the peace it brings to my life.  These two huge interests in my life are the influences for my blog title Roses and Running Shoes.  Life is crazy and amazing right now and I can't share my journey with everyone!