They say learn something new every day. As I grow older, I questioned this, but recently, I did learn something new. Here is a “funny” story to prove my point.

 My husband & I enjoy a large flower bouquet on our kitchen counter. It doesn’t start out as large. Marty buys a small bunch of flowers at the market Saturday mornings during his weekly grocery shopping. He comes home, and I compost the dead or dried out flowers from the bouquet, clip the old stems, freshen them a bit, change out the water, and then add the new flowers to the vase. The bouquet is really lovely to look at, and it is one of the small niceties that we enjoyed during the pandemic. 

Marty returned to his office a while ago, and I began to delight in the peace and solitude of not having an “office mate.” He arrives home in the evening and we meet in the kitchen to cook dinner together. We really enjoy each other’s company and relax talking about the day while preparing our meal. Recently, I noticed when he comes in I don’t appreciate whatever he had at lunch. I have been accusing my husband of the worst type of flatulence and it was going to be affecting our evening if he didn’t get his act together. (I’m not kidding, either.) My husband blows me off, (ha ha) and says he doesn’t know what I’m talking about, escapes upstairs to change his clothes and returns to me complaining some more. This kept happening for weeks. 

 One Wednesday evening, I began dinner early and the smell of spoil eggs started. My husband wasn’t home yet, and I was ready to yell at someone.  I walked past the beautiful vase of flowers with murky water and realized where it was coming from. Those beautiful flowers were putting off the most wretched smell. I simply couldn’t believe how gross it smelled because they looked so fresh and new, but then I realized I also had older flowers in there too. I changed out the water and all was fine in the world. When Marty came home, I apologized and he accepted the apology quickly, like it was absolutely nothing. If it had been me, I would had worn that apology like a badge of honor for several years, if not generations. I just don’t get it with men. 

 The next day, I mentioned the story to a couple of my study friends online during a zoom call. One of them said, “why of course Donna, you change the water on flowers daily, or it will smell.” I never knew this. No one ever taught me to change the water. I always thought as long as flowers looked fresh, they were fresh. Wrong. I learned something that day. It’s how we look at things. I was looking at those flowers like they didn’t stink. I wonder if there are other things in my life that I can look at differently. 

 So, here is a question for you to ponder, how are you looking at things? Do you think something is “fresh” but may be a little stinky? Maybe you are blaming someone (like my poor Marty). Call me and we can talk. I’m a life coach and I can talk with you about that, together we can learn something new as long as we want to.