up at the butt crack o'dawn

following a tip from my friend lilcee (and countless other gushing raves), i decided to get my tired ass up out of bed super duper early on saturday morning and head out to the los angeles flower mart.  she'd brought some beautiful flowers for our friend r's baby shower and i was astonished to learn how little she'd spent on them.

and so i tiptoed out of the house at 6am, after checking on the bean and giving the monitor to the teen.  with the hub out of town, she was keeping an ear open for the bean while i was gone, and i figured that i'd be able to get back home pretty quickly.  

with no traffic to fight, i got down there really quickly.  and armed with my awesome, detailed map (hand drawn by lilcee), i knew exactly where i needed to go.

i must've looked so stupid, walking around with my mouth hanging open in awe.  there were tons of vendors, and just about every kind of flower i could think of.  the place was filled with colorful blooms, and it smelled fantastic in there.  i was totally trying to be stealth, taking pictures with my phone, because lilcee warned me that it might be frowned upon.

 and look at these prices!

next time i need to do a candy buffet, i'm totally coming here for the jars.  this vendor had a huge selection, and way cheap.

i walked out with two armfuls of flowers.  i was stoked (please excuse my super tired, makeup-less, just-rolled-outta-bed face).

here's what $35 gets you:

back at home, i pulled out the good camera to get better shots.

so awesome.  it'll be hard to ever pay retail prices for flowers again.