Benign Neglect

Last year, a friend was leaving the company I was working for and I bought her a purple Christmas Cactus and told her that if she took good care of it, it could live for 20 years.  At the same time, I got a hot pink one for me, thinking, there's no way I can keep it alive even a season, but it'll be pretty while it lasts.

So after it finished blooming (dropping most of the buds), I put it in the window sill with the rest of my succulents, and watered it about every other week.  I noticed some buds on it earlier this month, but since they dropped like crazy last year, I didn't think I was actually going to get flowers. 

And then I read an article, I think it was in Martha Stewart, and it turns out my benign neglect was actually the perfect combination of conditions for a beautiful set of blooms.  Water it occasionally after it drys out, let it grow where it gets normal daylight hours, and is cool during the day and cooler at night.  They suggest a basement window but my house is pretty cool most of the time anyway. 

Of course, it's not even Thanksgiving yet, so maybe I have a Thanksgiving Cactus instead.  Regardless, it's blooming and I'm happy!  I may go get another one this year - in purple this time.

Two Things

My Eyes! My Eyes are burning! This weekend I attempted to make some eyes out of sculpey clay for some Christmas projects I am working on. This is my absolute first time working with the stuff and it seems to be pretty forgiving. But. User error indicated that I am not very good at following directions or even pictures. My eyes were lopsided, fingerprinted, and not even as cute as the pictures showed. Regardless, I baked them for the time/temp indicated on the side of the clay and my "translucent" clay burned. Underneath the black is the translucent clay - now an interesting shade of burnt. I think I am sticking to button eyes.

It rained this weekend. It was the first rain of the 2008-2009 rainy season. We picked up all of .85" in 24 hours. Now, it probably won't rain again for the next three weeks or so. It hasn't rained since April 23 - and we received nearly 40" of rain in the last rainy season. Saturday afternoon I kept looking out the window - alternately seeing misty rain in the sunshine, or, the flutter of freshly hatched semi-transparent wings on the ba-jillion bugs... Ugh.

LA Sunday - Huntington Gardens 1 of 3

Sunday found us heading in the direction of Pasadena, CA, someplace new to me. We ended up at the Huntington Library, Art Collection & Gardens where we spent a very hot and humid day enjoying the gardens. The gardens are actually a collection of gardens, and we managed to see quite a bit of the Rose Garden, the Japanese Garden and the Chinese Garden. And that's just too much for one post, so today we'll look at the Rose Garden.

Arrival found us hungry, so a brief lunch was had in the Tea Room of the Rose Garden. After refreshing ourselves, we headed out into the garden and took a walk. The three acres of rose gardens were originally planted in 1908, but have been in a constant state of change over the years. Also, since the Rose Parade is held in Pasadena on January 1 each year, they hold off on pruning the rose bushes back until January 2nd. I can tell you, they looked like they needed some mid-year pruning.

The Temple of Love begins your tour of the Rose Beds, a nice classical statue of a goddess and cupid in a small circular temple. The Temple is circled twice, the interior roses are the white roses above, "French Lace" and the exterior circle are the peach roses below, "Tamora". The Huntington website has a map of the rose beds, complete with rose names on it. Quite handy.

The Rose Gardens also feature several specimen trees, like the Montezuma Cypress from Mexico. These cypress trees are over 90 years old, and are still going strong. They have a wonderful drapey feel to them.

It's a beautiful rose garden, and I am at a loss for words. Instead, I'll let pictures say the 1000 words I wish I had.

03/01 Setting Goals

Yesterday was a day for dreaming and scheming. So, in an attempt to get some things done around here, I'm going to post my list of goals for the week. It makes for boring reading, but it should help me get on the way for March.

• Notify Recruiters that I'm ready to look at contract work
• Make one Cold Call
• Sign up for SEC Reporting Class
• Clean the Garage
• Make Progress on Finishing the Blue Bathroom Vanity
• Maintain the house, daily
• Send in Passport Paperwork
• Send in 401k Paperwork
• Challenge BBS to Red Photo Challenge
• Participate in 100 days
• Blog Daily
• Work on Quilt - have 1/3 of blocks put together
• Exercise three times
• Catch up on Reading

See, told you it was boring. The good news is that BBS is happy to be working with me on the photo challenge. And I like the combos we've posted so far. We'll see just how much I actually get done this week. Love you later!

Day 002: Navel Gazing the first

It's Tuesday. The second day of the year. My goals for yesterday were overtaken in a rush of computer game playing. I've got to quit doing that. I did however, get to take my photos - both yesterday and today. Two down, 364 to go!

I didn't realize my pantry was missing so many critical staples to my recipes - so today I get to to go to the store. How can I be out of salt, out of buttermilk, and worst yet dishwasher soap (no I don't use that when I cook ~ silly!) all after just going to the grocery on Monday. Argh!

We'll see how today goes. Stream of conscience now. Gonna just write whatever until I get comfortable writing every day.

Day Twenty (or Thanksgiving Wrap-up)

I took some pictures today, hoping for my next large scale project. I think I am going to do a 6'x4' painting of some of these tulips for my new and improved exercise room. I love working on the large scale, and I'm learning so many things by doing it myself - no art classes.

As for the wrap-up... the BBS and family were here and I don't know about them, but I had a blast. We ended up at Yosemite and the Monterey Aquarium as "events" and had a couple of nothing but play days. I took over 8G in pictures, and the food, well, the food left something to be desired. I get teased all the time for scheduling my Thanksgiving day - when I need to cook something, do I have the oven/stove space, what serving dishes will I use - that I decided to fly by the seat of my pants. After all, I've been doing this for 15 years or so, I should know what I am doing. Turns out, the schedule is my lifesaver. The food was all good, just not done when it needed to be done. It was more like a traveling feast. I am definitly going to try and brine a chicken sometime in the next twelve months and see if that will make a difference.

Day Three (or Sunflowers)

Blue sky shimmering with heat
Sunflowers reaching high
Yellow faces follow the light
Roots deep in the dirt

Always grounded in reality
Looking toward dreams
Reaching and searching
Basking in the glow of the effort