Archive | May 2014

The Daffodil Principle by Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards


"Tulips Talk The daffodil principle"The Daffodil Principle byJaroldeen Asplund Edwards

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come to see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead “I will come next Tuesday”, I promised a little reluctantly on her third call.

Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and reluctantly I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house I was welcomed by the joyful sounds of happy children. I delightedly hugged and greeted my grandchildren.

“Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in these clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see badly enough to drive another inch!”

My daughter smiled calmly and said, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.”
“Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears, and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her.
“But first we’re going to see the daffodils. It’s just a few blocks,” Carolyn said. “I’ll drive. I’m used to this.”

“Carolyn,” I said sternly, “Please turn around.” “It’s all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”

After about twenty minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church.
On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, ” Daffodil Garden .”
We got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path Then, as we turned a corner, I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight.

It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes.
The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow.
Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

“Who did this?” I asked Carolyn. “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.”
Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house.

On the patio, we saw a poster. “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking”, was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.” The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”

For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop.
Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration.
That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time–often just one baby-step at time–and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world .

“It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”

My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said.

She was right. It’s so pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use today?”

Use the Daffodil Principle:
Stop waiting…..
Until your car or home is paid off
Until you get a new car or home
Until your kids leave the house
Until you go back to school
Until you finish school
Until you clean the house
Until you organize the garage
Until you clean off your desk
Until you lose 10 lbs.
Until you gain 10 lbs.
Until you get married
Until you get a divorce
Until you have kids
Until the kids go to school
Until you retire
Until summer
Until spring
Until winter
Until fall
Until you die…

There is no better time than right now to Work Hard and be happy

 

 

 

Poetry Inspired by Mothers around the World


Mother’s Day is the perfect time to pay visit with Mom, spend time with her, hold her hands,  look into her eyes and say – “Thanks, Mom!”.  Here are a few inspirational quotes and sayings about mothers and their love by some famous and infamous people throughout history.  Choose your favorite saying and add it to the card message you include with your order of FLOWERS for that special Mom.   To help you with your flower selection, call us at  954-981-5515 or 800-966-3336. Be sure to order early for best selection and preferred delivery times.

• “Mother is the name for god on the lips and hearts of all children.” ~ Brandon Lee 

 

 


• “A mother is the truest friend we have, when trials, heavy and sudden, fall upon us; when adversity takes the place of prosperity; when friends who rejoice with us in our sunshine, desert us when troubles thicken around us, still will she cling to us, and endeavor by her kind precepts and counsels to dissipate the clouds of darkness, and cause peace to return to our hearts.” ~ Washington Irving 


• “Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible.” ~ Marion C. Garretty 


• “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother.” ~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 


• “Richer than Gold You may have tangible wealth untold; Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold. Richer than I you can never be — I had a mother who read to me.” ~ Strickland Gillilan 


• “There is no velvet so soft as a mother’s lap, no rose as lovely as her smile, no path so flowery as that imprinted with her footsteps.” ~ Archibald Thompson 


• “The Miracle of Life nurtured by a woman who gave us love and sacrifice…MOTHER” ~ Joel Barquez 


• “This heart, my own dear mother, bends, With love’s true instinct, back to thee!” ~ Thomas Moore 


• “A man loves his sweetheart the most; his wife the best, but his mother the longest.” ~ Irish Proverb 


• “God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.” ~ Jewish Proverb 


• “A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to making leaning unnecessary.” ~ Dorothy Canfield Fisher 


• Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother. ~ Lin Yutang 


• “My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” ~ George Washington (1732-1799) 


• “When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts. A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.” ~ Sophia Loren, from Women and Beauty 


• “Youth fades; love droops, the leaves of friendship fall; A mother’s secret hope outlives them all.” ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) 


• “A man’s work is from sun to sun, but a mother’s work is never done.” ~ Unknown 


• “The commonest fallacy among women is that simply having children makes them a mother–which is as absurd as believing that having a piano makes one a musician.” ~ Sidney J. Harris 


• “Only mothers can think of the future-because they give birth to it in their children.” ~ Maxim Gorky 


• “The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.” ~ Honore’ de Balzac (1799-1850) 


• “The mother’s heart is the child’s schoolroom.” ~ Henry Ward Beecher (1813-1887) 


• The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. ~ W.R. Wallace 


• “I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me. They have clung to me all my life.” ~ Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) 


• “Mothers all want their sons to grow up to be president, but they don’t want them to become politicians in the process.” ~ John Fitzgerald Kennedy 


• A mother had a slender, small body, but a large heart – a heart so large that everybody’s grief and everybody’s joy found welcome in it, and hospitable accommodation. ~ Mark Twain 


• Every mother is like Moses. She does not enter the promised land. She prepares a world she will not see. ~ Pope Paul VI 


• “Children are the anchors that hold a mother to life.” ~ Sophocles 

• A mother understands what a child does not say. ~ Jewish proverb

Visit Eden Florist online at www.EdenFlorist.com.  We have a large selection of flowers for Mom. Give mom the give of love with flowers this mothers day from Eden Florist.