Flower 2

     The little flower stall that our daughter is running has been such a success! She has enough orders and flowers to be busy almost every day. There is always watering and restocking of supplies to be done and as a silent partner in her enterprise, I am enjoying it a great deal. We made a little video for Facebook which was fun and being outside all the time is wonderful. The girls have taken to spending their afternoons reading a book under the big red umbrella.
     There have been some quiet afternoons but there has also been a triple digit day....$100.00 buys a lot of sunflowers! We have also seen some folks that we haven't seen in a while and reconnected with some neighbours. Unfortunately, we have lost some stock due to the plants being so big and tall and just falling over. Also the unrelenting sun has been hard on some of the plants, but such is the life of a business person. Our daughter is learning about the responsibilities of self-employment and how hard that life can be. Overall though it has been a lot of fun and has made for many steps on our respective Fitbits!
     I wanted to thank everyone for their support of our daughter and her summer project so far whether it has been through Facebook or by buying sunflowers or just by thinking of her. She has been enjoying her sunflower summer and is a year and a half seizure free. What else could we possibly ask for?

Flower

     One of the benefits of the social skills program that our eldest daughter participated in, instead of an over year, was the time she had to think about what she wanted to do in the future. She realized that she would like to work in the field of flowers, no pun intended. As an almost 19 year old our daughter has had little experience in this area except for what she has seen at home. I am an avid though not very good gardener; I am lazy with weeds but love to putter in the garden and find watering a welcome relief from the heat in summer. However it came to be, our daughter figured out that this is something that she cares about, something that she wants to do.
     With that in mind, we decided to attempt a very small entrepreneurial project over the summer: she would grow sunflowers and sell them. On April 25 we planted the various varieties of sunflower seeds that we had ordered from a local seed company. She has planted, watered and weeded and the results are spectacular! In our two raised beds she has grown several varieties of different sizes of sunflowers and they are incredible. From the smaller Teddy Bear sunflowers featured in a famous painting by Van Gogh to the massively tall Russian beauties, we have them all. They have been painstakingly cared for over the spring and now have bloomed, generously, gloriously laden with flowers.
     She has sold some and has found the experience positive and interesting. She could use a few more customers at this point but is not daunted. However this summer unfolds, it will be what it should be: an opportunity to learn; small steps forward in the journey.