Plants with meaning

Last fall I was thinking about a series of blog posts about plants I wanted to write, but it was such a busy season I just didn't get to it.  Now that it's January, and I've only got my indoor plants to take care of, I've found myself thinking ahead about gardening next summer.  Seems like the perfect time to blog about plants. 💗🍃 

You might be wondering what a blog about thrifting and recycling has to do with plants, so here's the connection: I'm always pursuing how to find the things I love without having to spend a lot of money to get them, and as my gardening interest grew, so did the realization that it's an expensive hobby!  I started trying to find ways to save money gardening, which led to my interest in growing plants from cuttings.

For some reason I've never had much luck growing from seeds, but then I've never put a lot of effort into doing it, either.  I've always shopped at Lowe's, because it has an incredible discount plant section, and that was my main source for acquiring plants.  But even purchasing half price, plants aren't cheap, especially considering how often they die.

Perhaps the biggest frustration gardening is having plants suddenly (or slowly) die, when you've taken the best care of them you can, and you have no idea why they don't make it.  Or in my case sometimes, as I come and go from town frequently, I'm not there to nurture them the way they need.  Last summer we left town for a month during a hot spell with a drought.  Even though we have an irrigation system, the city mandated we turn it off and water by hand only, which I wasn't there to do.  I was surprised how many of my plants had actually made it when I came home.

All that to say, that was perhaps why I became interested in growing plants from cuttings.  I didn't grow up in a gardening family, everything I've learned I've had to learn by trial and error.  So my first discovery was learning which plants could be divided, and multiplied that way.  

The second was learning what I could grow new plants from plant cuttings.

I started doing both.  Somewhere along the way, I had some friends and neighbors share plants they had divided.  Free plants!  That was nice, but what was even nicer was that when the flowers from my friends bloomed, it made me think of them.

And somehow, what became more important to me than saving money on new plants, was where the plant came from, or who gave it to me.  Instead of seeing my flowers and thinking of the discount section of Lowe's, I think of friends, or special places.

My friend Jeanne who passed away last year loved gardening.  She passed some iris bulbs on to me, and when they bloom I think of her.  I always will.

My neighbor Martha, who is also gone, gave me some small yellow daylilies, and some pink phlox, and I treasure them.

An obsession of cultivating new plants - plants with meaning - was born.  I love the challenge of trying to grow a new plant from a cutting; seeing if I can get it to root.  My husband asked me recently if I do it for the challenge, to save money, or because of where the plant came from/who gave it to me and I told him it's really all of the above.  They are all great reasons.  But the ones that came from someone special are the ones I care for the most.

So all of that is to explain my next series of posts.  And here is today's "plant with meaning:"

These are two small mountain laurel plants

The back story: when I was growing up in New York state, my family spent every summer of my childhood at a cottage on a lake in Pennsylvania.  It was a wonderful place to be as a child: an old Victorian cottage in the midst of trees by the water.  My brothers and I spent all summer playing outdoors.  One memory that has stayed with me all my life was wandering around the shoreline, surrounded by huge, old mountain laurel shrubs.  At the beginning of summer, when the mountain laurels were in bloom, they were absolutely beautiful.  I've always associated them with that place, and with the joy of childhood summers.

My parents still live there, and I got the idea in my head years ago to see if I could get some mountain laurel cuttings and transplant them so I could have one at home.  I must have tried three or four times, and never succeeded.  Once or twice I got the cuttings to stay alive for awhile, but they never survived the transplant.  So last summer, when visiting my parents, I was determined to get a viable cutting.

I went out to survey the plants, and even better than a cutting, I found four mountain laurel babies that I was able to dig out of the ground by the roots!  (There's a much better shot at success with transplanting a whole plant than trying to make a cutting grow.)

I put them in pots and was thrilled when I saw the first new growths on them.

In the fall, I put one in the ground under an oak tree outside.  Mountain laurels prefer dappled sunlight and moderate temperatures (most of my backyard receives full sun and intense heat in summer).  They also like acidic soil - which ours is NOT, it's heavy alkaline clay - so I mixed a lot of coffee grounds into the dirt.  I know my growing conditions are not ideal, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed.  

It's January, and so far, so good!

So far my little mountain laurel seems pretty happy in the back yard.

Time will tell!

I have never seen a mountain laurel in middle Tennessee, or seen one for sale at a plant nursery.  I assume there is a reason for this; aside from the wrong soil I will be curious to see if it makes it through the heat of it's first summer.  But it made through an extreme freeze in December (I covered it with a blanket) so hopefully that means it's roots are developing.

I do know there are laurels all over east Tennessee (I saw them everywhere in the Smokey Mountains this fall), but the climate there is more moderate and the forest would probably be ideal growing conditions.

I planted another of the babies at the House of Goodwill in September; I could only stay for a few days before I had to leave.  When I returned in October I was thrilled to see it seemed to be doing well.  In December I was back again, and this time, it looked dead.  I'm not sure what happened in the months between, did it dry out?  Did it freeze?  It's hard to know not being there...but I was trying to hedge my bets; so if one didn't make it at one location, one might have survived at the other.

So now I've got one live mountain laurel in the ground, and two still in a pot.  I'm not sure when I'll try to plant the ones in the pot, we'll see how the one in the back yard does first.

One last note on the mountain laurels, here's an up close pic of the leaves this fall:

You can see some small black spots on the leaves.

Over the last few months the small black leaf spots have been multiplying.  I did a little research, and I think it may possibly be due to a lack of iron, so I bought some iron chelate and sprayed the plants today.  We'll see if it makes them improve!

Incidentally, when in bloom in spring, a mountain laurel looks like this:

There is nothing else like it!

Rhododendrons are cousins of mountain laurels; their foliage is similar, but the flowers are different.  There is just nothing else like a mountain laurel flower - they're unique!

Perhaps this is the plant that rooted earliest in my memory (yes, the pun was on purpose 🙂); like I said, there were no gardens in my childhood.  The mountain laurels and wild orange daylilies of the northeast bring a unique happiness to my spirit when I see them.  They'll forever be a symbol of a time and place close to my heart.

This is what I love about gardening the most. 💗

From 1996 to 2022

Here's another belated post from Christmas, but I have to do it.  

When we decided to host a foster child from Colombia for the month of December, I realized I needed to come up with some good activities for us to do during the day.  I didn't know much about Yara, except that she liked doing arts and crafts.

Rewind 26 years.  In December of 1996, I was reading the newspaper one day (wow, that sounds so old-fashioned) and I saw a food column by Martha Stewart that included recipes one could use to build a gingerbread house.  My twenty-year-old self thought it seemed like a great idea, so I made a plan with my then-boyfriend (now husband) to build a gingerbread house.  

I had never seen a kit in a store; I didn't know they existed.  I jumped in with no idea what I was doing, I mean, how hard could it be?  So we baked sheets of gingerbread and then measured and cut them into walls and a roof for a house.  It was time consuming, but it was fun!  It was the first and only gingerbread house I have ever made.  Until now.

Fast forward to this December.  I had always wanted to make another gingerbread house, but after making the first one I realized what a big project it would be.  And if the first house was just a small, square house, the second should be grander, right?  I'd think about it every year at Christmas, but it was never the right time.  

So I asked my son and Yara if they would like to build a house (they had no idea what they were signing up for), and they agreed.

So our team of three created a house.  Tavo watched a video of a gingerbread house build on Youtube, and decided to use the style of the house in the video.  So he got a cardboard box and a ruler and created a pattern for the same style house, then he and Yara built a model.  It was much bigger and more elaborate than my original house.

We spent a couple of days baking all the gingerbread and cutting the parts; the third day we assembled the house, gluing it together with the icing.  It was indeed a long project.

Would you like to see the result?

First, here are some pics of my original house from 1996 (taken with a crappy point-and-shoot camera):

This was back in the days of no internet, so the whole project was done using just our own ideas; I think it's more fun that way.

It was a simple house, but I like our chimney and the brick foundation made with red candies.

We also had a little fishpond and a garden (with little candy pumpkins and watermelon slices 😊).

I also impressed myself with our Hershey bar roof.

It was a great little house if I do say so myself.

But back to 2022.  Here are some construction photos of our house:

Here are Tavo and Yara making the design and building the cardboard model of the house:

Next we made batches and batches of gingerbread to have enough to make all the house pieces.

Years ago I found this cookie cutter kit on a discount sale after Christmas at Williams Sonoma.

It makes 3D trees, snowmen, a sleigh and reindeer.

Knowing I always wanted to do another gingerbread house, I thought it would be perfect to use.  (Or else to decorate cakes with at Christmas.)  All these years it had been waiting in the back of the pantry for the right time for it's debut.

And here is the completed house!

We had to put the project on hold because of commitments to other things; we spent Yara's last day here decorating it.  We covered the whole house in frosting and used Life cereal for the roof.

But I didn't want to leave it incomplete...

Here is the final, final house.

Tavo and I spent the afternoon of New Year's Day completing the outside parts.  

Yara painted the gingerbread people before she left.

Just like before (except for patterning the house from one in a Youtube video), we didn't use the internet for ideas, we just used whatever we could think of ourselves.

I love it!

We recycled the fish pond idea from the last house, and used all the 3D cookie cutters.

Years ago for Christmas I made "stained glass cookies" - these beautiful cookies that looked like stained glass windows.  To make the "windows" in the cookies, you cut the center part out, then pulverized hard candies of different colors to dust.  The hard candy dust was placed in cut out part of the cookie, as it cooked in the oven the candy melted into "glass."

I thought the same thing might work for our windows, so we ground up butterscotch candies and baked them in the window spaces of the gingerbread.

They came out perfectly!

The house has twelve windows; they were even solid and strong.

The house is sitting on a piece of wood we covered with aluminum foil, and then frosting.

The hardest parts?  Well, the rooves (which were large and heavy) each broke in half when we were trying to put them on.  We were all afraid they would collapse inward and the whole project would be over.  We had to glue them back together with frosting and hold them in place.  Fortunately, when the icing dries it's better than liquid cement.

We also had pieces of the 3D tree and reindeer break; the sleigh was hardest of all, as it broke in three different pieces during painting and assembly.  We covered the breaks as best we could.

I realized afterward the house was missing a chimney.

Our house was definitely a labor of love!  It was also the perfect project to occupy three "artists" for about a week's worth of time.

I'm really glad it's done.  But now I keep thinking about how to design the NEXT house...(How about one with a Santa up on the chimney?)  If my timeline stays consistent, I'll be 72 when I make that one. 

Wow. 🤯  On that note, I guess I'll wrap this up.  I'm feeling a little bit lost for words at the moment.

Some belated new year's inspiration

I thought for sure I'd post something before now but after the busyness of December, I spent the last week doing very little.  It felt good!

On New Year's Day we opted to watch church online, as there was only one service that morning and I thought it might be crowded.  There was a guest speaker (I actually don't remember his name, just that he is a pastor in Oregon) who gave one of the most inspiring messages I've ever heard.

It was on prayer, and wow, it was motivating!

Here is a link:

I've been looking for interesting stuff to listen to lately when I'm working on my crochet blanket project, or doing dishes, and I imagine I'll listen to this again.  It was that good.

On December 28th we had to drive our visiting foster child from Colombia to the airport in Atlanta to return home, so it was a long day in the car.  I randomly pulled this book off my shelf for the trip, I guess because it was short.  It has been sitting there for years.

So, when I was in college there was a dormitory on campus named after Samuel Morris (my brother lived there), but I never really knew who he was.

Once I picked this book up it was hard to put down.  Why is it so good?

Well, the story (it's not long) is about a teenage boy in Africa who had been captured by an enemy tribe and was being repeatedly tortured.  When he was near death God miraculously freed him, healed him, and led him to a Christian settlement where he learned about God, and gave his life to him.

Seeking a Christian education, he headed to America by ship and enrolled in my alma mater, Taylor University.

So why was it so good?

Well, the story begins with a series of miracles and continues with them; instance after instance of God healing, saving and setting people free.  Samuel Morris was clearly a man who God chose to use, and the hand of God was very clearly upon him.

I always enjoy hearing miraculous stories (who doesn't?); they leave me inspired to experience God in a deeper way.

I'm not quite done with the book, but I probably read most of it in two hours or less.

After a challenging year full of so much division and drama in the world, it felt great to begin the new year with a reminder of how powerful and loving God is.  The more we give ourselves to Him, the deeper we go in our knowledge of who He is.  

Our church is in the middle of 21 days of fasting and prayer to begin the new year; I'm excited to see what this month brings.

Happy New Year!

More Christmas goodwill

A quick December update today!  Almost two weeks ago we drove to the Atlanta airport to pick up our visiting foster child from Colombia for the holidays.  We've had a very busy and interesting two weeks.  I thought I would share a few highlights of our activities.

A week after her arrival, we took our foster child, Yara (not her real name, but Colombia does not allow the children's real names to be posted online), to a really amazing event at our church.  Our church has a really unique (and huge) ministry to foster families in the area; in fact, that was how we discovered our church in the first place.

Anyway, once a year the church sponsors an event for Christmas, where the church collects donations of new items for foster families.  The foster parents are allowed to make a wish list for each foster child, with one large (read: expensive) gift requested, then a list of the child's interests, so items can be purchased in line with those.  Then the youth group goes shopping for all the items on the list.  We heard two hundred kids (and adults) from the youth program showed up at Walmart one evening to shop.  What Walmart didn't have from the kid's lists, was ordered through Amazon.

The end result?  We were able to take Yara on event day - called "Fostering Hope" - to receive the large gift we chose for her.  Then she was able to navigate a room full of tables overflowing with gifts, with her own personal shopper, selecting things she wanted from each table.  I told you it was amazing!

This helps foster parents so much, with not only financial support, but emotional support too.  Every foster parent makes a stop in the church prayer room, where volunteers pray over the foster kids and families.  And gifts are not only for the foster kids; the church also gives to the biological kids in each family; their way of recognizing that biological kids are serving and sacrificing as well as being part of a foster family unit.  As we were leaving the event, someone gave a $100 Amazon gift card to my son "just for being amazing." 💗 (He is!)

Tavo helping Yara pick out new pajamas.  Her "personal shopper" has a new scarf for her on the right.

My husband and Yara, the decision of what to choose from the art supply table was difficult!

She loves art.

(Note that the clothes she is wearing all came from the church.  The church has a year-round "closet" available of new and used donations that foster families can "shop" in whenever they have a need.  (It's all free for the families.)  It's a huge help when a family gets a sudden placement of kids who arrive with nothing.  Yara came to us with just a backpack.

Our temporary foster family.  What a fun day!

Here's a pic at the end of Yara with all her new stuff.  There is even a team of people who wraps everything for you!  Most of the foster parents go without the kids, so the gifts will be a surprise, but since we didn't know her tastes, we asked permission to take her with us to choose what she wanted.  She just has to wait till Christmas for most of the gifts.

We had no idea what big gift to ask for her (we had to submit the request in October), but we thought a bike might be fun, even if it's just for three weeks.  We have a tradition each year (because Tennessee has enough warm nights in December) of going out several evenings riding bikes together around the neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights.  But we didn't have a bike for Yara.

So it was a huge surprise to discover that she didn't know how to ride a bike!

My husband had to walk alongside her, holding it up while she wobbled the first afternoon out.  But by the end of the second day she was a pro. 🙂

Here we are in front of a random house looking at lights.

It's always fun!!

A few other highlights:

Yara wanted to bring bunuelos, a Colombian pastry, to Greg's family Christmas party.

Now Tavo knows how to make them too!

I ordered three of the same "Woobles" kits, so we could all make a crochet project together.  Our Felix the Foxes are a work in progress!

It's been the perfect project for three people who like creating.

Not sure how Tavo's came out the best (since he has zero experience), but he helped Yara redo hers...there's a learning curve!

We had our Colombian friends over for dinner and games.  Fun times!

To be honest, it has not been ALL fun times.  We've had our ups and downs, even in just two weeks.  We're still not sure where this is going, or how it's going to end yet.

At the end of the day, we focus on the positives.  Tavo, our son, was in Yara's shoes six years ago when he was a host child.  He keeps telling me how much she reminds him of himself then.  (Read: extremely quiet and guarded emotionally.)

But I have found something I've been looking for ever since our foster child placement left us just over two years ago: a greater sense of purpose.  Our two years of foster care were the hardest of my life, but I also woke up each morning with a sense of satisfaction greater than I've felt at any other time in my life, knowing the majority of the minutes in my day were serving someone with great needs, someone I was not related to in any way.  I've been looking for that feeling ever since.

My son gets up every morning and makes chocolate and breakfast for Yara.  He has come full circle; where once he was the receiver, now he's the giver.  And he tells me he wants to adopt from Colombia himself one day because he understands the kids.  (See?  He IS amazing!)  Seeing God transform his life gives me hope for us all.

If that's not the spirit of Christmas, I don't know what is.

Christmas goodwill

This is not a post about thrifting, or antiques or other cool old stuff.  But since the blog is called "The House of Goodwill" I'm probably not too off-topic.

This post is an update on the lives of my family and me.  And it will be brief.  (I've got lots to do today!)

I spent the greater part of the last two years working on (and finishing - more or less) The House of Goodwill; work that mostly consisted of painting and furnishing the house.  Before that, I was a full-time foster parent for almost two years.

I've spent the last year praying about what God has next for me.  How can I serve?  What can I do?  How best to fulfill the purpose of my life by helping someone else?

I couldn't help but think about my son - who is adopted - and the amazing way I observed him come to know God and give his life to Him.  And I wonder sometimes where he would be if he wasn't here with us.  I know God used us in his life.  If he could do it once, he can do it again.

And while nothing we do in life is guaranteed a result we hope for, we don't love and serve others for results.  We do it because it's the right thing to do.  It's what God wants us to do.

I saw enough adoption profiles before finding our son to know there are a million other kids out there just waiting; hoping and praying for the family they were denied.  I felt a stronger and stronger sense that this is what God has for us once more.

So, all that lead to this: tomorrow, we will be driving to the Atlanta airport to pick up a thirteen-year-old girl, from a Colombian foster home, to spend the holiday with us.  She will be with our family for three weeks, leaving on the 28th.  She will come to us from a program called Kidsave, that finds adoptive homes for older kids in foster care (in this case, from the country of Colombia).  It is the program through which we found our son.

We are so very excited to share the holiday with her; considering her life so far has mainly consisted of losses, hopefully we can bless her a lot.

Here is her profile:

Isn't she beautiful?

Whether she wants to be adopted by us is yet to be seen.  (The program in part is to help families and potential adoptees see if they feel they are a match.)  But we have made the decision to adopt again regardless.

(And I would just like to take a moment to point out - if it isn't clear - that we are not planning to adopt solely as an act of charity.  While I understand that in a sense it is, when we adopt it will be to have another son or daughter.  Several people implied to me in the past that the adoption of our son was some form of charity or good work we did; this only helps me realize some people have no idea what adoption truly is.  Yes, it's a good work.  But I'm sure no one knows the incredible blessing that my son has been in our lives, or the joy he's brought.)

We hope to bless her.  I know she will bless us.  I'll try to post but I know we'll be busy...so just in case I'm not online much this month I'll just say it now:

Merry Christmas!  May peace, love and goodwill fill your holidays and your hearts. 💗🎄

a Thanksgiving weekend day out

I kind of started a tradition a few years ago; on Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend I like to go antiquing somewhere nearby.  This year I went to Shelbyville, Tennessee, an hour from my house.  There's a place there I love; it always has beautiful things.

One of my favorite things about this store is it's outdoor space.  It has a HUGE fenced-in area full of vintage outdoor furniture and decor.  

I love all the potential fun projects here.

I'm always gardening in my head, and I imagine all these statues and planters in beautiful spaces.

I wasn't planning to buy anything, but I saw this great fountain, and well, I've always wanted a fountain but never found the right one at the right price.

She needs to be cleaned but I thought she was lovely, with the double basin.

I just need to add the fountain parts.  It will be a fun project!

And when I saw this iron cart, that was in really good shape, and really solid, it had a great price too.  $110.  Usually iron outdoor anything is quite expensive.

I could fit a lot of plants on this!

It just needs a little sanding and a fresh coat of paint.

I also really liked this urn:

Something tall and something trailing need to go in this.

It will be so pretty!

And finally:

I liked the style of these vintage Halloween yard decorations.

Again, a little fresh paint and they'll be perfect.

I also found a few gardening books I liked (my favorite title - "The Facts of Light" - about houseplants).  I had so many outdoor things I thought the owners might give me a discount, and they did.  It never hurts to ask...

There was so much great stuff, though.  Here a couple of things I didn't buy:

There were some interesting-shaped pieces of driftwood for sale.

I thought this would be cool on a wall somewhere with a small owl inside the hole.

I've always loved vintage deer statues like this!

I'd love to put him in the yard somewhere at The House of Goodwill - the deer are everywhere there.

Well, I did my part for Shop Local Saturday!  As I was checking out, I was telling the owners how much I like many of the beautiful old historic homes in Shelbyville.  "There should be a lot more.  The biggest and most beautiful one isn't here anymore," they informed me.  "It had terracotta columns in front and was the showplace of town."  Apparently, a developer bought it and tore it down at 4am in the morning and replaced it with a bank and a parking lot. 🙄😠

Was there really nowhere else to put a bank?  Stories like this make me so sad!

I am thankful for all the old places that still stand. 💗

Some fun finds in Florida: a thrifting report

I just returned from a six day trip visiting my parents in Florida.  I went to help them do their Christmas shopping for the family, wrap the presents and start decorating their house.  We were busy!  But I did manage to take an afternoon for one of my favorite hobbies. I 💓 thrifting in Florida!  There seems to be an endless number of antique stores, flea markets and thrift stores within 30 minutes of my parent's house.

I was short on time, so I just picked three places: Angels in the Attic, a church thrift store three miles from my parent's house (an old favorite that I visit every time I'm there), an antique mall (which was enormous), and a Goodwill just down the road from where they live.

Here are some of the interesting things I saw:

One thing I love about antique malls is that every item is different, and there's not usually more than one.  I am always seeing something I've never seen before, and there are a lot of one-of-a-kind things that you're not going to find at your local Target.

For example, this carved sea horse.  This is great, and didn't come from a factory in China.

This booth had some beautifully carved items.

I have a soft spot for vintage milk glass mugs that remind me of my childhood, like these Raggedy Ann and Annie cups from the '80s.

I often wonder if they can be microwaved?  I've googled the question, but haven't found a clear answer.

I think they can be...(?)

It would be a lot more fun to have them if they could be practically used!

Like I said, I love to see something I've never seen before.  I was fascinated by this enormous driftwood (vase?) that was about 4' high.  It had three blown glass (vases? bowls?) that had been form-fitted to fit on the driftwood solidly.  (You could remove them easily, but they weren't easy to tip or knock over.)

I think it was around $350.

On the table next to the huge driftwood piece, were four smaller versions.

I thought these were the most amazing vases; pieces of art that in the right setting would look amazing.

I bought the one on the right (with the clear glass); it was marked down from $100 to $65.

I love a great vase that can be filled with just two or three stems!

The glass was really thick and solid, and like I said, the vases down wobble on the wood at all.

Where would I ever see this again?

Angels in the Attic, the church thrift store, has the best book room!  Everything is cheap, clean and well-organized.  I also love that they sell used magazines I like for a quarter.

My dad (above) and I have spent a lot of time in this room over the years.

And finally, Goodwill.  This (obviously new) Goodwill is the most modern Goodwill building I've ever seen.  It was really beautiful, and it had a lot of great stuff, but it was also expensive.

There were some great coffee cups.  I'm always looking for good ones to add to the cabinets at The House of Goodwill.

Very true!

Almost bought this one!

I'll say it again...you're not going to see this stuff at Target!

I thought these two wooden lamps with a Revolutionary War theme were interesting.

Both of the characters on the lamps were holding lanterns, that you could stick a smaller bulb in for mood lighting.

Like lots of cool vintage stuff, in the right setting I think they'd be so great.

And finally....

Ok, so I am less afraid of used stuff than almost anyone I know.

But even I have my limits.

I think I just found one.

I'll pay the extra few dollars for a new one, should I need it.

I just wish I had more time!  I paid the price for my thrift store visits: on the way home the backpack I had brought was WAY heavier to haul around the airport; it was full of books I'd bought.

Worth it, though.

And amongst my "fun finds" was the discovery that I do have some boundaries.  Who knew?