Last Wednesday, I spent a lovely couple of hours with the ladies of the Bouquet Garden Club giving a simple design class just in time for Thanksgiving! I spent an entire day prepping for the morning: counting out flowers (and subsequently recounting, because for some reason I never count the same quantity twice), sorting them into 35 hand-tied bundles, taping design foam into cubes and vases, and making three dozen handmade bows. Ever the stickler for organization and presentation, I envisioned each lady to having her own little design space with everything she needed right at her fingertips. It came together perfectly.

I stood at the “front of the class,” living out my childhood teaching fantasies with a step-by-step presentation; taking breaks to walk around the room after each step to offer help and chat with the group. At the end of our time together, 33 sweet ladies left the Garden Club with a centerpiece for their holiday table, and I went back to work with a grateful heart and lots of new friends.

It wasn’t that long ago that I was learning the basics of floral design myself. Between jobs and in the middle of a quarter-life crisis, I started working for my mother-in-law part time at the flower shop just weeks before Mother’s Day in 2010 — back before running this place ever crossed our minds. It was an all-hands-on-deck crazy baptism by fire, and I got a crash course in Flower Shop Production 101, like how to put a rose in a bud vase and setting up containers for the designers. I remember thinking that running a flower shop seemed impossibly difficult and exhausting, and when the staff made comments about me taking over the shop one day I laughed deep guffaws and replied, “yeah, sure!!”

Never say never, friends.

Now here I sit, finishing up my third Thanksgiving in the business and getting ready to close up shop a little early so I can head home and put my feet up with a glass of wine to celebrate another successful holiday. It turns out I was right that running a flower shop is difficult and exhausting, but not impossibly so with a great team and some elbow grease. To say I’m thankful doesn’t even begin to cover it.