Editorial
Front Page - Friday, May 7, 2010
Heart-felt gifts join flowers as favorites for mom’s day
Erica Tuggle
Rachel Bruner, pictured with her husband, Bob and three sons, Sam, Alex and Nicholas, says her ideal Mother’s Day is spent relaxing with her family in Middle Tennessee. A Realtor with Keller Williams and the Charlotte Mabry team, Bruner says each day is a juggling act to be the best mom she can be and still excel in her profession.
“My mother was the most beautiful woman I ever saw. All I am I owe to my mother. I attribute all my success in life to the moral, intellectual and physical education I received from her.” – George Washington
 Mother’s Day is the second largest holiday for flower sales, right behind Valentine’s Day. Popular choices of flowers for mom include carnations, orchids, potted plants and the centipede vase selections (pictured) offered at Blue Ivy Florist on Hixson Pike, says owner and master florist Dale Victoria Wilson
As a full-time agent, with sales of over 3 million last year, Bruner says, the flexibility of setting her own schedule is a welcome perk that allows her to attend important events of her sons Sam, Alex and Nicholas (age 7, 5 and 6 months, respectively).
Bruner says she must be organized and a good juggler to manage the full-time-plus hours of a Realtor and still put her family first.
“I have to say everyday is a juggling act and a good team effort between my husband and I and friends and family to make it work for us,” she says. “My first priori-ties are God and family; those are going to come before work, but
I will bend over backward to meet the needs of my clients.”
She says she thinks any mother with a career knows the balance she speaks of.
“We want to be the best mom we can be, but also be the best at our profession that we can be. I think it’s good for (my children) because they see me in two different roles and it shows them that you can multi-task and be good at it,” she says.
She says her ideal Mother’s day includes time with her mother and grandmothers in Middle Tennessee, with a family dinner, and sharing in the homemade gifts her children give her.
“I am a big open house agent and love doing them on Sunday, but on Mother’s Day, I love taking that Sunday off from work and being with my kids,” she says. “But of course, I love all the handmade cards and things they come home with that are always so sweet.”
For the Women’s Council of Realtors president, Cheree Dumas, she agrees a day off to relax with family is one of the best Mother’s Day gifts. She began real estate when her first child, now 30, graduated high school.
“It was a big juggle with them because I had to do soccer practice and youth group at church and those kinds of things, but I have always been a very busy person, so I know not to spread myself so thin so I can have time for my family.”
Mother’s Day, while only recently known by its present name, has been celebrated in a variety of ways for centuries in many different counties. According to the Web site Mother’s Day Central, the holiday we know today as a time to honor our mothers began as a practice of honoring motherhood in the form of Goddess worship.
The attempt to establish a Mother’s Day to honor mothers of flesh and bone has struggled from the old world to the new world of colonial life until the early 1900s with Anna M. Jarvis. Upon her mother’s death, she took on the challenge of making this an official holiday in remembrance of her mother and the peace effort. Jarvis quit working and began petitioning anyone and everyone for the adoption of her mother’s holiday. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday in May as a national observance of Mother’s Day.
Dale Victoria Wilson, owner of Blue Ivy Flowers and master florist, says that Mother’s Day is the second biggest holiday for floral sales right behind Valentine’s Day. She says Mother’s Day sales usually include lots of fresh flowers as well as blooming plants like hydrangeas and lilies, and plants that can be repotted in the mother’s yard. She says anything that is living and growing is popular during the Mother’s Day week.
Although all her mother’s day flower stock arrived Monday, Wilson says there will be plenty of flowers available, and it is still not too late to call in an order for Mother’s Day flowers as they will be making deliveries through Saturday.
Wilson says flowers, are always a special kind of gift that all mothers, herself included, enjoy. She says the most memorable gift she received from her now adult son was when he would pick her flowers from the yard.
“You can be in the dead of winter and have someone send you lilies, which you don’t have in your yard at that time, and it’s always nice,” she says. “We are right in the throes of spring, so every one of mother’s favorite flowers are available now.”
The slogan of Blue Ivy Flowers is, “Celebrate life with flowers,” because, Wilson says, flowers are always around to mark important times in our lives including births, proms, weddings, anniversaries and funerals.
Although today’s Mother’s Day sales remain high in flowers, cards, perfume and candies, new alternatives are available for non-traditionalists. Mother’s Day cards are available from organizations that donate the funds from the purchase of their cards to charitable causes. When you buy Mother’s Day cards from the United Nation’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the proceeds go to supporting the needs of children worldwide. Buying a card from the Foot and Mouth Painting Artist Organization supports disabled artists who are unable to paint with their hands.
For mothers far away, e-cards go straight to their e-mail inbox and are offered by Blue Mountain Cards, American Greetings and Hallmark on their Web sites.
This reporter’s mother, Laura Tuggle, agrees that the simple things Bruner, Dumas and Wilson enjoy from their children is something she can identify with.
“You seriously can’t beat handmade cards and words from the heart or something that you know mom likes,” she says. Here’s looking at you, mom.
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