sentimental journey

Do you ever put something away, in a safe place.... a place you'll know just where to go to retrieve the item again.... only never to find it again???? I've been looking for my birthday list for days now.... I always have a spiral tablet (with pockets) close by where I keep all my lists and important papers.... like my birthday list. This tablet went to work with me every day and even when we traveled. Because I'm learning to travel lighter, I removed the birthday list the last time we traveled and put it in a safe place. A most obvious place where I could always find it.

Do you think I can remember where that place is???? I've turned this house upside down looking for it. Every drawer has been checked, every nook, every cranny, every conceivable hiding place. I just can't find it. And I'm afraid of the birthdays I'm missing... But I wanted to look up the date my grandma passed away. It was a long time ago, maybe 20 years.

Grandma H. was a farmer's wife. She was a hard worker, an incredible woman. When she passed away, us kids (the grandkids) each got to pick one of her plants as a keepsake. I selected a hoya plant she had hanging over her kitchen window. It didn't have any sentimental value to me at the time; it was just a plant I selected.

But over the years it has become sentimental to me and every time I look at it, it brings back fond memories of my grandmother and the good times we had at her home.

It's a beautiful plant and I love it. But it hardly ever blooms. This is the first time in years. Usually you smell it before you see it because it has a very strong, sweet smell.

This first picture is a little blurry, but I wanted to get a close up to show you how rubbery it looks; almost like a fake, plastic flower. It looks like a solid piece of plastic.


A few days later it opens up to this most incredible cluster of flowerets. Isn't it precious? You can see one of the flowerets still closed as well. They look like bowls here, still curved, still in the process of opening. In a few days, each floweret will lay flat.

This last picture is just a close up.... again a little blurry but I wanted to share how intricate it really is.