What's Your Favorite May Flower?

I have many favorite flowers even if that sort of contradicts the word "favorite." But each of the blooms is definitely a favorite when I'm looking at it or perhaps sniffing its fragrance or letting the flower walk me back a memory trail. Peonies do all of those things for me. I love the flowers. I love their spicy fragrance. I love their abundant blooms and the way they just come back year after year and decorate our yards. And I love the memories they bring. You see when I was a little girl, an aunt who was like a grandmother to me had two peony bushes in her yard. Bond lived at the homeplace so she and my father had probably grown up with those peonies blooming every year too. 

As you can see in the photo, I was impressed with the blooms at a very young age. That's my cute blonde sister on the left and me trying to pick a bloom instead of look at the camera. I did like those peony bushes. When I got a little older, I liked to run and leap over them. There were two bushes side by side in the middle of the yard. One bush wasn't as large as the other bush, so I could clear it easiest. I'm surprised my aunt didn't put a stop to my jumping game, but I don't suppose I ever hurt the bushes. Well, at least not too much. I'm so glad I was able to dig up a start from one of the bushes and plant it in my yard. It's a treasure trove of memories. 

The old homeplace was sold a few years ago and the house torn down. And then the new owners moved in a manufactured home and kept mowing down the peonies until now the bushes are no more. I know those bushes must have been there in that yard for over one hundred years, but the new owners didn't have the same treasured memories of them that I did. But I do wish I could have dug up more of the bulbs to let them continue growing somewhere else. A little bit of my heritage of flower loving ancestors. But at least they are still blooming in my yard and even if they weren't, they would still be blooming in my memory.

Do you have any flowers like that in your memory?


Don't Forget to Enter the Honor Mom Contest 

If you haven't entered my Honor Mom Giveaway Contest, you still have time. Deadline is midnight EST on May 30, 2015. To enter leave a comment here on my blog posts in May with a way to contact you should you be a winner. The contest is open to USA and Canada. You must be 18 to enter. 

Some of you who get my newsletter said you had a hard time replying to that e-mail. I'm sorry if you had difficulty. I appreciate those of you who didn't give up and managed to get the message sent. But I know that sort of thing is frustrating. I've also had some of you say it's hard to leave comments here on my blog posts. I don't know why, but if you would rather enter by sending me an e-mail here's my address. annhgabhart(at)hughes(dot)net. 

If you want, you can share a favorite Mother's Day memory with me. That's not necessary to enter, but I like reading your stories. If you missed Sandi's story on my last blog post, you should go back and read it. Sandi knows how to tell a story to make you laugh. Just click on the Because I Said So Mom.

One prize in my Honor Mom Giveaway is the beautiful New King James Version study Bible pictured above along with the winner's choice of one of my books. 

Another prize is an autographed set of my Rosey Corner books, Angel Sister, Small Town Girl and Love Comes Home. Mom's stories about growing up during the Depression inspired my Rosey Corner so those books seemed the right prize for an Honor Mom Giveaway.

Thanks for reading. And I'd love to hear about your Mother's Day or your favorite May flowers.

Scenting the Trail to Better Scenes

Do you have a favorite flower?

I have a hard time picking one favorite, but the peony is definitely in my top ten. Their lush blooms, their spicy smell, their faithful, every year blooms are three of the reasons. And another is the memories. My aunt had two peony bushes in her yard when I was a kid. My mom has a picture of me when I was maybe two or three standing by the peony bush wearing a big hat. My two sisters also took pictures by the peony bush that day. I think the peony bushes were the big stars in the photos.

Whatever the reason for my love of the beautiful peony flowers today, one thing for sure the very hint of their spicy odor can transport me back in time. Memories are often brought to mind by odors. Sometimes it's not a particular memory, but just a good feeling. Smelling peonies makes me remember an innocent time when the sun was shining and life was easy. But I also have a tragic memory connected to the peonies when there was a death in my family and the coroner who came to pick up the body drove over the peonies that were in full bloom. There was something so incredibly sad about those crushed flowers.

Those kind of memories, both happy and sad, burrow deep in our minds. As a writer, I have to find a way to pull readers into my stories, to help them feel that sadness or joy, to put in images or sensory touches that the reader can recognize and relate to because he or she has seen or perhaps smelled something the same.

Fragrances awaken memories in our hearts. It's good to remember that while you're writing and take a sniff or two of whatever might be there in the scene you're setting. I don't know that I've ever written the fragrance of a peony into any of my stories, but there are some peonies in the yard down in my Rosey Corner stories. So maybe that fragrance will help me tell a part of the story someday.

I'm sending out a newsletter tomorrow with some fun news. So if you'd like to be on my newsletter list, you can go to my website and send me an e-mail saying you'd like to receive it.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have many pleasant fragrant memories.

The Peony

Peonies are my very favorite yard flower. They have always been so since I was a kid and one of my favorite games was jumping over the peony bushes in the front yard of my grandfather's house. I had to take a running leap and sometimes my foot clipped the green bush as I hit the other side. Don't ask me why that was so much fun. Just believe me when I say it was. Those bushes issued me a challenge every time I looked at them.

~~And then the flowers are so big and full with that great spicy scent. A rich flower that faithfully returns every year and requires hardly any maintenance. The white ones in my yard are taken from those jumpable bushes back when. I've got some pink ones too. Those are from my mother-in-law's yard. I dug up every bulb after her death and we were selling the house. They could have the house, but not her peonies. Of course peonies aren't perfect. The blooms are heavy and when it rains the beauty of the blooms hits the ground. That's when it's time to fill up a vase and enjoy the blooms and their distinctive odor inside.

~~Peonies also figure in one of my saddest memories. I had a beloved aunt. She never married and she loved me and my sisters like a doting grandma. And we loved her every bit as much. My aunt suffered from depression. One May over forty years ago while the peonies were in bloom her depression proved fatal when she committed suicide. I was a month from having my first baby even though I wasn't much more than a child myself at seventeen. And when the hearse came to get my aunt's body, the driver ran over the peony bush and mashed all those beautiful flowers. I wanted to lift those blooms back up, bring them back to life - to change what had happened. But I couldn't.

~~That's how life is. Full of tragedies. Full of beauty. Full of love and sometimes sorrow. All intermingled and twisted together so that there's no way to pull out the beauty without knowing the sorrow. So I rejoice in the peony blooms each spring and each spring I remember a time when the blooms were ruined. But I don't want to dwell on that sad spring. I want to remember the peonies in bloom and a little girl taking flight over the bushes and an aunt who loved me well.