Mother’s Day Weekend: Stop and Smell The Roses

“You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses.” – Pablo Picasso

I have a confession to make: I’m obsessed with our rose bushes in our yard.

My camera roll is usually filled with travel photos and now they are filled with pictures of our garden roses. I feel like I am living in the Twilight Zone.

Roses Are Red, And Pink

For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been picking freshly bloomed roses from our rose bushes. We have Knockout Roses, Double Knockout Roses and recently I discovered we have Tea Roses (those are long stemmed.) Also, after watching hours of YouTube DIY rose petal projects I managed to make homemade infused rose water, infused rose oil and potpourri. The scents are amazing! 

“Let the beauty of what you love, be what you do.” – Rumi

If I could master doing these things, I think it would be cool to someday have an online rose products shop and sell homemade rose soaps, potpourri, rose oil, perfume and room sprays using our organic rose bushes. We don’t use any chemicals on our roses and we’ve had our rose bushes for years now. I’m also thinking of growing lavender too – another favorite scent of mine.

I’m trying to learn how to distill the petals to make rose hydrosol – (the clear rose water that is scented and used for room and face mists.) However, I’ve been using the infused rose water (rose colored water) for my face which seems to work just as well except for the rose water stains I have to wipe away off my bathroom countertop when I’m finished!

I also made homemade all natural fungicide and bug repellent for our roses and treated them with the spray. I’ve also spent hours pruning and sprucing them up to make them look nice because I obviously have nothing else better to do with my time!

It’s weird! Who am I and where is the old JaMeka who could care less about gardening?

You can check out our roses in my IG Highlights by heading over to our Instagram page.

A Simple Kind of Life

Coronavirus lockdown taught me to literally stop and smell the roses in our own yard. It’s a beautiful scent! I can’t believe the possibilities from something I really didn’t have the time nor cared to appreciate that was literally growing at home in my own yard!

“We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie

That’s one thing I’m learning on this lockdown: there’s more time now to appreciate and enjoy the simple things now that my life is at a slower pace.

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

To be honest, I am in no hurry to get back to “normalcy”. Daily life normalcy gave me stress, resentment, my nerves were so high strung before this lockdown. So many bad feelings trying to deal with daily hectic life and never ending schedules. 

While I am thankful for still being able to work because I can do my job from home, unfortunately many people I know are in a less fortunate situation losing their jobs, closing their small businesses and loss of income to stay afloat. This lock down has forced me to reflect and reevaluate my life. It has helped me realize how differently I want to live it than how I used to live.

I really don’t miss my old life of “normalcy” one bit (except for being able to travel or to hang out with family and friends!)

I wonder if this is how retired people also feel about their lives?

What new activity do you find yourself enjoying these days? Comment below and share this post with your friends!

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