Saturday, September 13, 2025

Hardy House Plant

My daughter knows that every time I've gotten a house plant, somehow I've managed to 'kill' the poor house plant — either by neglect, or lack of water, or who knows what. I just don't have that key green-thumb nature touch personality, I guess.

About the only thing I haven't 'killed' that has grown up in my home are my six children, all of whom are adults now, married and living a family life of their own.

So...one fine summer season, one of my daughters purchased a new house plant for me, and casually said to me, "Now Mom, don't worry, you can't kill this one. The florist at the store guaranteed it by claiming that this one is a very hardy house plant."

"Well OK, I'll try it," I said, knowing full well where this house plant was going to end up at — a month or so from now, neglected from green-thumb care to keep it alive.

Several weeks later the hardy house plant — a twisty vine odd thing — was still green and growing slowly, with a host of tiny blooms still in full color on the house plant.

A month later I glanced at the house plant again, and yep, it was still green and growing slowly, with a host of tiny colorful blooms still on it.

"Hmm...I thought to myself." That's odd, the blooms sure are lasting a long time.

I have poor vision eyesight, and don't always wear my eyeglasses, but this time I leaned in much closer for an inspection of the hardy house plant and its colorful blooms — stuffing my nose up quite close to the plant.

To my surprise, and with a light chuckle, knowing the quirky sense of humor my daughter partakes in regularly, I realized that the blooms weren't real...they were made of SILK...the blooms were forever blooms.

My daughter was right about this hardy house plant...it's still alive and doing well, silk blooms and all.


Friday, September 12, 2025

Beloved Jest

One evening a beloved husband and wife were having a jest filled moment with each other.

And Leslie said to her husband, "I went to school in a large city, and there were 225 classmates in our grade, and at our high school graduation ceremony I graduated within 'Top-Ten' out of all my other classmates."

She said this with a smile of certainty, quite proudly pleased with the dedicated sign of achievement, and her husband smiled approvingly at his wife's impressive achievement too.

Yet he replied with less dramatic certainty.

"Well...the town where I grew up was very small (it was barely big enough to have a small mom and pop quick-mart grocery store and a few other minor store front buildings) and we didn't have very many classmates in my grade, but at the high school ceremony, I graduated within the 'Top-Eight' out of eight total classmates."