Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Buying Happiness

You are no doubt familiar with the saying "Money can't buy happiness", right? Well, I beg to differ. It just depends on your definition of happiness.  Jay & I spent a portion of the weekend shopping for flowers for the front shrub bed and plants for the house, among other things, and I managed to buy a bit of happiness...

First we went to Lowes and bought plants for the shrub bed - including snapdragons, dahlias, asian lilies, and another I can't think of the name of.  And Jay planted them in the shrub bed - most of them aren't to the point of flowering yet.  But soon!

While at Lowes, we saw Lucky Bamboo and thought it would make a great planting for the sunroom. But we weren't so excited about the variety of pots available.  So we went to Walmart...

Where I found and promptly fell in love with this planter. The colors are perfect for my scrap room (which did not yet have any plants). I brought the pot home empty with not a clue what to put in it.  A little happiness for my scrap room!

Then we headed over to Target to look at pots, still not having found anything that seemed perfect for bamboo stalks. Which is where I found this...


Utensil crock for my kitchen. On clearance! I also bought the three red utensils you see in it. On sale! I was needing a new one of each of these items anyway - and this looks so great with my red canisters.   Yep, a little happiness for my kitchen counter.

So, back to Lowes we went, still searching for a plant for the Walmart pot and still thinking we wanted to do something with the bamboo.  Back at Lowes I found the Peace Lily plant pictured in the pot above. I think it is perfect for my scrap room and continues with the blue/green/tranquil oasis theme of the room.

And we settled on this pot for the bamboo:


The completed arrangement has all five elements for Feng Shui.  Fire (the red pot), Wood (the bamboo plant), Water (in the pot), Earth (the river rocks in the pot that hold the stalks in place) and Metal (I dropped some coins in with the rocks!).  The arrangement of three is supposed to signify happiness (yes, I bought happiness!).  In any event, it looks great in the sunroom and I can't wait to see how it grows. Right now the arrangement is about two feet tall. I also learned a lot about bamboo and feng shui in the process. Thank you internet!

The balance of my weekend was spent house cleaning, grocery shopping, doing 10 (count em - TEN) loads of laundry all washed, dried, folded, and put away, and some decluttering. You'll understand why I didn't have time to come play on my blog and keep up with Google Reader.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE shopping for plants, and they do increase my happiness. I bought some pretty violas yesterday and today, I planted them in our front porch planter. Later I'll replace them with plants that will do better in warmer weather. It's still too risky to plant anything in the yard here. They're predicting frost tonight. Love your polka-dot pot!

scrappyjacky said...

Just love that spotty pot you've chosen for the scrap room....gorgeous.....and I'd certainly agree about plants bringing happiness.I love this time of year as all my plants come peeping through the ground...and springing back to life.

Sian said...

A very good point! An an excellent example. Flowers especially make me happy..do you know, I think I might splurge and buy a bunch this afternoon after reading this!

Unknown said...

Good post with very valid points... I love all your new green. I have an excellent green thumb when it comes to indoor/house plants... put me in a garden though, and half die as soon as I put them in the ground. Go figure. :)