happy new year!

happy new year to my dear readers!  we are heading to japan tomorrow evening for vacation (finally) and will be celebrating 2013 across multiple time zones.  we'll have to stop by the duty-free store before boarding and grab several bottles of bubbly and pop one each time we hit midnight -- kidding.

make sure to check photosbybusyb.blogspot.com on the regular.  i'm going to try to post pics along the way (so long as we have internet access).  we got ourselves a 14 day rail pass and plan to use it EVERYWHERE.  we're hitting up tokyo, osaka, kyoto, nara and ogimachi and there'll be plenty of eating and drinking along the way.  somewhere between all of this, we'll do the touristy bit too, i.e., visiting some UNESCO sites along with seeing Mt. Fuji and the snow monkeys.

my japanese is a bit rusty and i'll be relying heavily on pete's language skills.  i'm still trying to remember how to ask someone to take a picture of me, but every time i try to say it, i end up saying "can i take a picture of you" -- a bit creepy, right?

and this can't be a post about new year's with revealing my own new year's resolution.  clearly, do more flowers and take more pictures and, of course, lose weight.  one year, my resolution was to be more patient, which lasted no longer than 2 weeks.  in order to make this a successful resolution year, i'm going to be flat-out indulgent:  do more international traveling, something that you don't need to twist my arm to do.  see, i'm already starting 2013 on the right foot....

with this, have a safe and happy new year!

sweet peaony and random mumblings

peonies, sweet peas, mums and busy ivy

every now and then, i mistake some random guy for pete.  happened yesterday at whole foods.  some dude with a shopping cart was lurking behind me while i picked through the berries and i started talking to him, mainly because i was looking down and he was wearing a similar coat to pete.  he kept walking away from me and i got really upset until i finally looked up.  it wasn't pete.  sort of embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the time that i hooked arms with a stranger in bloomingdale's.  pete won't let me live that one down....

and unto flower talk, i had to do something with the leftover sweet peas....  i added some peonies and mums and i'm calling this bouquet sweet peaony.  in a similar vein, if pete and i combined our names, we could be "bother" (my favorite) or "pether" or "beter" -- any other suggestions?

sweet peas, peonies, mums and bush ivy

sweet peas, peonies, mums and bush ivy

raspberry + citrus

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

both a little color study and a little something that i put together this morning.  i managed to squeeze a photo or two before delivering the arrangement to one of my favorite people.  i hadn't realized until today that the sun takes its pretty a** time rising in december; it was a no show until 7:05am.  but the the sweet peas do make up for all the winter darkness and gloom.

so i thought it would be kinda interesting to manipulate the photo file a bit, perhaps for a little drama or maybe even a little vintage.  let me know which one you like the best.

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

juliet garden roses, japanese sweet peas, kumquats and bush ivy

roses and hydrangeas

something blue...and lavender with a sprinkling of jasmine vine.

briana + taylor

check out two cuties and a charlie brown christmas tree (a little white pine sapling from my november walk in the woods with petey and his family)