Distracted

I couldn't think of anything to write about for today, so I thought perhaps I should share some fresh amaryllis photos. I didn't think of this idea until the sun went down last night, and it was too dark to try to get a good photo of my five pots of amaryllis bulbs. Lizard was asleep in the zero-gravity recliner right next to the living room window, and I didn't want to wake him! He flinched lightly when I snapped the above photo, but he was quickly back to sleep, thank heavens.

I had tried a couple of years ago to scale back on the living room greenhouse because the overwhelming collection of Christmas cactus, assorted bulbs, succulents and hoya, as well as veggies and spices I always tried to grow indoors in winter, had become a literal tripping hazard for my sweet husband.

I transplanted all my amaryllis bulbs into two big bowl-shaped pots, and I gave away almost everything else. The bulbs didn't appear to be too happy about their new homes the following year and didn't produce near as many amaryllises. I was about ready to give up on them! I bought a couple of new bulbs on clearance, and I received a couple of new bulbs for Christmas in 2023 and 2024 (thanks Jo!). I don't know if the oldest bulbs and their kids will produce blooms, but I am getting plenty of flowers this year!

I kept two tiny succulents because I loved the containers and two medium pots of succulents I wasn't able to give away. I kept one Christmas cactus pot with multiple colors of blooms and one hoya pot with two different kinds of flowers I planned to give to my mom next time I go to California. She loves the photos I send of the flowers, and she'd never owned either, so I was going to let her adopt my favorites.

We finally planned to go to California after spending Thanksgiving with Lizard's mom last year. A couple of weeks before our big road trip, I realized there was no way Lizard would be able to tolerate the trip. We'd been trying so hard to build his endurance for a long road trip, but Parkinson's is not user friendly. It refuses to be scheduled.

I called my mom and told her I wouldn't be able to come. My brother very recently taught her how to use Zoom, Facetime and Messenger on her smart phone (she'd been afraid to touch it for two years!), so now we can see each other when we talk on the phone, and what a huge difference that makes. I'm very thankful to be able to see my mom each week, even though we can't get together in person.

We didn't get to go to Lizard's mom's for Thanksgiving because we got our first big blizzard of the year two days before the holiday. We went the following week and celebrated Thanksgiving a week late. We spent the time we'd planned to spend with my mom with his mom. I'd planned to pull the amaryllis bowls out of the basement a couple of days after Thanksgiving, but travel Jenga blurred my intentions until nearly Christmas. With the amaryllises back out and five plastic bakery containers of indoor salad greens, the Christmas cactus, the hoya and the succulents, I'm back to two full shelves of plants, the beginning of a whole new jungle...

It's so hard to stay downsized on plants!!!

I thought the newest amaryllis would be the first to bloom because it was the first to get daylight. The Christmas cactus won the race. The hoya bloomed in October; I don't know if it will bloom again before spring. The 2023 amaryllis looks to be next, and one of the clearance bulbs I bought is next in line.

Plenty of amaryllis blooms are forming, and I'm having as much fun as ever trying to guess what color will be next!

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