Welcome 2015!!

I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. We can again begin with a brand new slate and a fresh outlook with new goals. There are no failures, just setbacks that can be learned from or changed. I love sitting down at the beginning of each year and plan. Those plans will be many and I may or may not attempt or succeed at doing them all, but this list of plans always signifies hope and dreams for me.

To start the New Year off right, I decided to spruce up this old blog and get down to some serious business. It's been forever since I've done any type of updating and boy could I tell. I miss writing about the projects and things I have been doing around here. There's something to be said about going back and reading old entries. It surprises me how much I've forgotten over the years.

One of the things I want to do is get back into stitching. I've had some issues with my eyes that have prevented me from putting my needle to a blank cloth. I am hoping that the issues are truly going away and I can see relatively well again - at least good enough to continue to stitch. I have so many projects that need finishing!!! So with all faith in my eyes healing, I've signed up for the 2015 Smalls Stitch Along (see sidebar for more information). I think that will be a great incentive to get back into the swing of things.

On Wednesday, we went to town to get a pork shoulder for the traditional New Year's Pork and Sauerkraut and of course I have to browse the after Christmas markdowns. We always replenish our wrapping paper and boxes for the next year and look for things that can be used throughout the year as well. I found a nice assortment of cute gift bags and bags to put cookies and other goodies in. I'm now all set for the next Christmas Cookie Exchange!

While browsing at Home Depot, I came across a marked down amaryllis that was abused and begged to be rescued.  It absolutely STANK with the smell of a putrid aquarium - almost a sewer smell to it. The poor bulb was swimming in water and it was hacked off - no flower, no leaves, nothing but a spent mass of smell.

I had to take it home and disassemble it. What I found was a bulb that had the basal plate chopped off, roots trying to grow but most were rotted off.  I washed it off and cleaned it as best as I could.

I really wish I had taken photos of the condition it was in when I took it out of the container, but my main concern was getting this poor thing planted in a new pot in soil and hope that it would recover from all its abuse.

It is now in a sunny window and possibly in soil for the first time in its life. I wonder what it's "thinking" now...

The plant was in a very tall vase type container that was filled with rocks and the spiked stand that kept it off the bottom of the container and kept it level. These things had to be washed and washed to get rid of the putrid smell. They still need to be bleached and then they will all be repurposed. That poor amaryllis will never have to worry about seeing that torture chamber again.

Now we just have to convince it to survive...