Flower Delivery to Nursing Homes in Cincinnati, Ohio
Flower delivery to nursing homes in Cincinnati helped us conquer the feeling of a dead-on arrival, January Slow Down
The first week of January was slow as we expected. This was the complete opposite of Christmas and New Years where something was always beeping, printing, knocking or ringing.
Day after day, going down to the shop and staring at buckets full of gorgeous flowers with no orders in sight was beginning to feel disheartening.
After death scrolling for a while, I realized that I needed to do something.
I needed to quit waiting for something to come to me and go out and do it myself. I could use the time to grow, to create new arrangements for my home, and to explore the art of caring for flowers until they would hopefully find a new home. It could also be a time of giving and spreading the message of All the People’s Flowers.
Falling in Love with the Craft, again!
The first thing I did after two days of no orders, was to go down to the shop to give each flower a fresh cut, clean water and stem removal. I think when people think of flowers and flower arranging, they do not think of this part. It takes strength, patience and love. Its movement. It’s organizations. Its heavy lifting.
As I began to clean the stems with my favorite old-school music playing in the background and the sound of my son playing with things, I began to feel that urge to create! I thought, “hey, if no one buys anything in the next few days, I will do a pop-up sale or take a few to Astoria.” The soft pink lilies, were placed in tall slender vases. The yellow daisies were pinned in floral foam in baskets. And, the roses were just cut and left long in their buckets with a few thorns removed.
I also took the time to practice new skills, such as folding papers in shapes to wrap bouquets instead of only popping my creations in a clear sleeved and arranging with few flowers in Ikebana styles. Not “filling an order” gave me space to follow the depths of my mind and bring into motion new skills and things I had seen on Instagram or in my growing array of floral books! I could use this time to become more skilled at my craft.
My son marveled at the arrangements and I had fallen in love again with having flowers and not only what they can offer me financially. I felt better, lighter. I felt the need to gift some of the arrangements to my home and to my own family.
I ended up giving my oldest son a hot pink Kimono rose dressed in January in a tall-cylinder vase, my youngest a fun assortment of lime green and yellow button poms in a mason jar and my middle son, a rose vase full or purple daisies and lavender mums stacked high.
For myself, I arranged 3 small antique glasses with one stem each. One had a rose, one had waxflower and the other had a pink spray rose. I arranged them on my windowsill right next to the bed.
The flowers made everything feel calm, hopeful, warm and beautiful in the midst of a sometimes-dreary January.
They made me fall in love with my own product again and gain strength again in the mission of my shop which is for everyone to have access to flowers no matter their economic situation.
After the flower day, I remembered a display arrangement of mini carnation and baby’s breath that I had left on the counter at Astoria Place, a charming nursing home in my neighborhood in Avondale. I decided that the time had come for me to collect it and put another one in its place.
Astoria Place on a Rainy Day and an Interesting Proposal
I love that first feeling of walking into Astoria. Everyone smiles when they see me and almost everyone has time for a conversation.
When I first walked in, I was greeted with a smile. I look towards the week-old arrangement and was delighted to see the carnations were still in bloom and not wilting. The babys breath, however, had gotten a bit stale.
Other than, as I went to pick them up, a curious man in a wheelchair asked where and why I was taking them. I told him that they were old and I brought a new one. At the same time, Tina also rode near me in a wheelchair and smiled. When she smiled, I noticed her beautiful plum lipstick. She said, “We need some roses. “I said, I would bring some back when I came since last week we introduced the hot pink rose arrangement, “Kimono Dressed in January.” She smiled again! On my way out, a slender man asked, “hey whatch’a got today.” I sat down with him and we scrolled my website, allthepeoplesflowers.com. He After 10 seconds, he said. I want that one! It was the daisy teacup. “Yes, I want that one for my wife! We’ve been married 30 years. I thought the notion so sweet. I told him that I would arrange it and bring it back. My first sale of the week! I was more than happy.
As I walked out, he shared some scripture with me that he had memorized and we continued to talk about what we had planned today and if the rain would get worst.
This “sale” made me realize, yet again, what All the Peoples’ Flower is all about and why I created it. It was more than a sale. It was a connection with a person that would in turn lead to more connections between other people and more memories.
This mission also reminded me that flowers never do die because the flower arrangement itself is just the symbol of the memory being created. I went back to work, and came back with the daisy arranged in an antique teacup with images of horses and carriages. I also brough a Kimono Rose dressed in January for Tina, the lady with the plum lipstick and gold earring to marvel at as a display.
After leaving, I realized how much I loved being the “peoples’florist” with a price for every budget.
Back to work
After that Wednesday, orders picked back up, and I was happy. But I can say that I am grateful for the January slow down which became a reconnection for all of the beautiful reasons that I do this.
I am looking forward to creating more floral experience for the people here in the coming weeks and years.
With all our love, All the People
