Lilac Love

The other night, Mr. 24 came home with these lovely lilacs which had been 'procured' from several lonely, random bushes on the side of the road in our neighborhood. Luckily, especially since we don't have any of our own yet, they grow profusely here and are easily had if you have some clippers handy when driving by.

Well Mr. 24 didn't have any clippers handy, but he did have a pair of electrical wire nippers and somehow, miraculously, he managed with those (I think it might have been fun to watch)....such genius!

Since the lilacs were a bit too fluffy for the window sill, I decided to put them right in front of the sink so they could be enjoyed whilst doing dishes...and since we don't have our dishwasher put in yet, there is A-LOT of dishwashing that goes on around here.
(After taking the above picture, I noticed that the flowers were looking a bit droopy (it hadn't even been 24 hours yet) so I removed them from the vase, clipped and crushed the stem bottoms a tad, and then replace them in the water...they've been much happier, the crushing thing really works.)

Their heavenly scent has made the dishwashing and cooking a sublime experience...

I wonder why there aren't lilac desserts...violets are used, as are roses...why not lilac? The scent hasn't interfered with cooking at all, and has actually made me want to bake something delicate and pretty...I'll let you know if that comes to fruition.

I literally could just stare at them all day...

and I kind of did at first...as I'm sure you can tell by all the pictures (and these are just a few).

Since these beautiful flowers are so briefly with us, I just want to soak them up and take in as much of their loveliness as possible (so needless to say, I've been using as many dishes as possible throughout the day so that standing at the sink is an absolute necessity).

One more thing...a little lilac side story. Once, a very long time ago when Mr. 24 and I were dating, he had gathered bucket loads of glorious lilacs, and while I was at work, he'd somehow gotten into the little 1902 cottage I was living in at the time, and left them for me to find on the large, shiny black tiled kitchen island (white base - it was awesome). I was thoroughly surprised and completely enamoured by the sight when I found them and after I had settled down a bit, I started to clean up all of the little petals that had *fallen* on the tile. Right then he called and of course I went on and on in complete rapture about it all, and then he asked if I had gotten *the message*..."what message?" I asked...."don't you see it?"...."no"....
"THE PETALS...THEY SPELL I LOVE YOU!".

Another reason why I love lilacs in the kitchen so much.