My Own Little Charlotte

I suppose I'm feeling a little buggish this evening.  A week or so ago, I went out to smell my newest Plumeria blooms and realized that a white spider has taken up residence on the largest of the two plants.  When I went the next time, I interrupted her dinner time.



The fly



She's got a good hold on the fly.



A complete look

My favorite shot of predator and prey!

The Plumeria is gorgeous, but I think the spider is pretty as well.  She seems to be pretty happy living in the plant, pretty busy too! One thing I didn't realize, probably because I only got one bloom last year, but not all the blooms are the same.  The speckled ones are my favorites on this one, and they smell even yummier! 

Mandy

Plumeria Frost Bite and Puzzles

Whether it was last night or the previous night when then winds knocked my greenhouse around a bit, my Plumeria's were bitten by the frost.  They're in the living room now.  While they're happy to be in the house, I'm not happy about their leaves.  I went out today to move the greenhouse so that it wouldn't be sitting in water when it rains again, and it took me a while to figure out why the leaves looked so dark and icky. 

I could have gotten a better shot of the damage, but I'm being lazy and didn't want to get out of my chair!They're all crumpled and marked.  Hopefully they'll recover quickly come growing season!  When I went out yesterday, the greenhouse had gotten a little twisted from the winds the previous day/night.  I put everything back down, but still need to refill a few pots with dirt.  I figured why not just move it today and reorganize everything.  The Purslane that was exposed due to the movement also has frost burn on parts of her as well...again, not happy!  We're going to tie it down a bit better and I'll look for the halogen lights that my friend is using to add some extra warmth.  Hopefully all this will be done before the next front blows in. 

On a brighter note, Caitlin had a friend over this weekend who enjoys doing puzzles, and she and Shelby made some great progress on a retro bowling puzzle Shelby had started.  The friend eventually had to go home, so we moved the card table and puzzle party to the living room and finished it up. 

This is one of our favorite things to do during the winter when it's too chilly to enjoy being outside.  We have quite a stockpile of puzzles awaiting us, so we'll see how many we get through this winter.  By the time it's over, we'll be puzzled out for a while!

Mandy

Going Through Withdrawls!

Oh my...never again!  Almost two weeks without my beloved laptop was almost too much for me! She's been running slow and the week before we left on vaction it would infuriate me to navigate from blog to blog to anything else for that matter.  Since we were leaving for vacation, I took all four computers...yes, you read right...all four computers went to the computer doctor.  My parent's have spoiled our girls with laptops over the years, so between the three of us we have three laptops and then the main computer for whoever's laptop happens to be dead!  Bob says he's on the computer enough during the day and has no desire to be on it at night.  All of them had viruses on them, needless to say I've switched to a different protector...this was ridiculous!  A week in Ohio with only my husband's iPhone was a test for all of us...wahoo for 3G service though!!  So, that would be why I haven't been on for a while...just in case you were wondering!

While I was gone, my Plumeria bloomed...I was so happy that the bloom held on until I got home.

She smelled WONDERFUL too!

Everything else held up really nice, of course it didn't hurt that my neighbor friend took excellent care of them in the 100 + temps that graced our city while we were gone.  My Bougainvilleas finally decided to bloom too...maybe I should leave them more often!

The week away was nice.  We didn't do anything terribly exciting, but we did get to spend time with Bob's mother and his brothers and their wives.  I have to admit though, it was pretty cool going for a jog at 11:30 in the morning and not breaking a sweat until the jog was almost to an end.  No way would I even consider doing that here, much less lace up and hit the road!  The most exciting part of the trip for the girls was the plane ride home, we paid the $6 for each of them to watch tv on the 2 1/2 hour plane ride from Cleveland to Houston.  We make this trip every other summer, and this wasn't an option the last time we flew.  They thought that was very cool...ok, their mother thought it was pretty awesome, but I opted for a nap instead!

Mandy

Friday Mixup

I took a vacation day today, so while the girls were at their last day of volleyball camp, my mother and I got to spend the day together...without extra voices!  Our first stop was Schultz nursery were we picked up a pot saucer, much needed Hibiscus food and a yellow bell pepper plant and a cucumber plant.  I'm going to try these from seeds for next year, but when I saw them already growing I wanted to see how well I'd do with them.  My intent is to grow the bell peppers and cucumbers for the guinea girls.  We'll see!  Then we hit Half Price Books!!  This is our favorite spot and the fact that she's been here since Friday afternoon last week and we'd yet to make it there was nothing short of a crime again book lovers! From there we went by Ross, just to look of course.  :) I got a pot for my Plumeria and another great pot for that "just in case" moment since I never know when I'll bring another plant home! From there we had to pick up the girls and took them to the mall for some school clothes shopping...not the best part of the day considering everyone and their extended families were there!  Okay, maybe not that bad, but close enough to cause my blood pressure to rise.

I'll post pictures as the vegies grow (keeping my fingers crossed), but I've got one of the Plumeria...can't wait to watch it grow and smell it's lovely blooms!  Never mind, I guess I just thought I'd downloaded them and my camera's been hijacked by Caitlin so she can download her volleyball pictures.  Priorities!  So, I'll just have to share a photo from their summer adventure.  I think I need my eyes checked...found them!

Plumeria...shared the little one with my mother.

I forgot to share this little surprise I got the other morning.  I went out to water and my Senecio Haworthii 'Cocoon Plant' had three little blooms! They are different that any other's I've gotten so far from my other succulents, they look like sheer paper umbrellas like you'd get on a fruity drink.  The only lasted a day, looked the next day and everything was gone, stems and all!

Senecio Haworthii 'Cocoon Plant' Blooms

Pitcher Plant...made two baskets out of this one; one for my mother, one for me.

Another carnivorous plant to add to my collection of one! This one has bigger "pitchers" and they look like they have fur on them. 

Now for summer fun. Excuse the crappy size, I haven't got a clean copy yet and took this one off the oldest's Facebook page.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mandy