Sometimes, you've just got to stop and smell the roses.

This famous saying seemed so much more popular and prevalent when I was growing up than it seems to be today, which is a bit ironic given that it likely applies much more today than when we were kids.

Whether it was the grandma saying it to her grandkids or muttered in a sarcastic tone while Elmer Fudd was being schooled by Bugs Bunny, the general feeling behind the sentiment is pretty straight forward. Life is full of amazing things, and if you're going 100mph all the time, you're going to miss a lot of those things you'd otherwise appreciate.

Today, in the digital age of multitasking smartphones and the 24x7 connection to social media, the worldwide collective have given rise to new terms meant to embrace the idea of stopping to smell the roses for the latest generation. Unfortunately, #YOLO and the likes sorely miss the point of the statement by focusing far more on the rush of the experience than the ability to slow down and appreciate it.

Wendy and I are quite guilty of falling into this trap in our "do more with less" society. We work on the house, we work on the blog, we work on our jobs, we even work on ourselves. Before we know it, we've spent so much time working on things that we've not taken the necessary pause to actually appreciate all of those lovely smelling proverbial roses we've been sprinting past at top speed without even a whiff of their lovely scent.

This is precisely why I needed to remind myself to take just a second and enjoy what has been going on the last few days. Rather than stopping to smell some roses, I decided to take a detour on the way to work this morning to gaze at some cherry blossoms.

This week is actually one of my favorite times of the year in our area. It's the height of the cherry blossom bloom that we've waited through a cold and long winter to experience. The only problem, I've been sick for the last several days, completely unable to even think about stopping and smelling/seeing the blossoms. Now that I'm well enough to actually leave our house and venture back into the office, I decided its a pretty great time to wake up just a little bit earlier and wander around the tidal basin on the way into work.

I didn't have that picture perfect blue sky morning that I've had in previous years, but this year had a certain level of comfort and calm. There was hardly a breeze, the temperature was perfect, and the crowd wasn't too thick. It's hard to think that we'll be in oppressively hot heat in just six or so weeks, but that doesn't really matter right now.

The blooms seem to have almost exploded over night, each tree like a warm pink cotton ball dotting the perimeter of the tidal basin and coastline of the Potomac.

I made sure to just wander and enjoy the moment that seems to quickly come and go each and every year. I even made a quick stop at one of my favorite memorials, FDR's granite and water enclave on the south bank of the tidal basin.

I'll likely use this coming weekend to work on our bathroom, work on our blog, and get some work done that I missed this week, but I know one thing for sure, I'll definitely stop, at least once or twice, to smell the roses and enjoy where we live.

In the famous words of the scholar, Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Take it from the Sausage King of Chicago, he knows what he's talking about. Oh yeah, chicka chicka.