My Birthday Flowers

Here I am turning 40 and a boyfriend has never sent me flowers. Sure, I have received flowers before but haven't been sent flowers as in doorbell rings and there is this flower delivery guy standing at the door with flowers.

Well, my 40th birthday is very very different. When I came home from a friend's home - she did a birthday lunch celebration for me - there was a box from ProFlowers sitting on my porch. I grabbed the box (FLOWERS!!) and ran inside my house practically jumping up and down. I opened up the box and there they were! FLOWERS! There was also a note and the flowers were indeed from my boyfriend.

So, the flowers he sent me were blue irises, stargazer lilies, and lavender asters. You can see the bouquet at ProFlowers.com.

When they flowers arrived, all the flowers except the lavender asters where just buds. I know that doesn't sound really great, but that means the flowers are really fresh and will last a long time. So, I was very happy about that. To the left is what my bouquet is supposed to look like...

The flowers came with a little booklet describing the flowers I received, although the plavender asters were not in the book. I guess the asters are a filler flower... I also got two packets of fresh flower food with instructions to cut an inch off the stems of the flowers. One packet of food is to use immediately and the other to use on day three when I am supposed to cut another inch or so off the stems again.

Here is my bouquet on the first day. The only flowers that were fully open were the lavender asters. Two stargazer lilies are opening up
Here is my bouquet on the second day. Some of the blue irises are opening up and those two stargazer lilies are still opening up.
Day Three. Just about all of the blue irises are open along with two of the stargazer lilies and lavender asters. You can see there are lots of stargazer lilies waiting to open up. Tomorrow is water changing and stem trimming day.
Day Four. I trimmed my flowers, changed the water and added the second packet of fresh flower food. Now there are 3 stargazer lilies opening up. You can see I've rearranged the flowers.
Day Five. Two stargazer lilies are fully open - so pretty! The blue irises and lavender asters still look great, too.
Day Six. Three stargazer lilies are fully open now. I can smell the lilies every time I walk into my living room. I rearranged the flowers and inadvertently knocked a bloom off an iris, rats.
Day Seven. Four stargazer lilies are fully open now. My flowers are starting to look like the ProFlowers picture!
Day Eight. I took out all the irises since they were starting to die. So the flowers did make it through seven days which ProFlowers guarrantees. The flowers still look great. The other lily blooms look like they are going open up soon.
Day Nine. Five lily blooms are open.
Day Ten. Six lily blooms are open. Some of the lilies are starting to look old. I imagine I'll be doing some more trimming soon. Four lily buds left.
Day Eleven. Seven lily blooms are open. Three lily buds left.
Day Twelve. Waiting for two lilies to open.
Day Thirteen. Took the dying flowers out of the bouquet, trimmed the stems, and replaced the water with fresh water. Still have a good number of lilies left and the asters still look great.
Day Fourteen. One lily left to open. I'm still enjoying these flowers two weeks later...