First, I have to say what an AMAZING day we had yesterday! I don't want to ever forget it, so I'm putting it down here for posterity! As I said in my last post, this Abraham philosophy WORKS like magic! So here's how our day went...

Mom and I have been working on this project all week to make a change behind the dance floor at work. I'd ordered these light balls to put over the dance floor and out on the patio, and when we got them up, the lighted wall behind the dance floor was just too much. Well, a few weeks ago, Mom had been at a restaurant in Griswold with her school buddies and see a long wall with mirrors (using mirror tiles) and candle sconces in between. When she described it to me, I thought it sounded like the perfect thing to do behind our dance floor. Now, the ones she'd seen were 24" x 24" frames with 4 of the mirror tiles in each, and ropes glued in a "t" shape to hide where the mirror edges came together. Well, I found the 24x24 frames are not standard, and we didn't want to spend the money for custom frames, so we waited for open-back frames to go on sale at Hobby Lobby and went and bought 5 24"x36" frames. The frames are black (Mom thinks they're dark, dark brown, but I think they're black...) I also bought some of that thick foam board onto which we glued 6 1'x1' mirror tiles. (We used that gorrilla glue...) We didn't want ot use rope to hide the edges, and our first attempt was to use little silver beads that come in strings. Didn't work - couldn't make them look straight enough. So we scrounged around and brain-stormed until we came across some wide black ribbon. We cut some lengths and looked at it and - WOW - it popped! So we glued the ribbon (using spray-on Elmer's glue) to the mirrors along the lines where the mirrors came together. Put the mirrors in the frames. Friday, we put up the first two mirrors (the other three were on back order to come in Friday, and we had our mirrors ready to pop into the frames as soon as we could get them...) We actually screwed the mirrors to the wall. So another challenge we ran into was how to hide the screws. I'd bought some wood plugs that I intended to paint black and use, but I found that if I counter-sunk the screws enough to use the plugs, there wasn't really enough wood left to safely hold the mirrors to the walls... So, some more brainstorming and we went to Michael's. We found these diamond-like jewels in the jewelry-making department that we glued over the screw holes. Pretty! And while we were at Michael's, we also found some really nice, wrought-iron wall pieces that hold candles. We got two different kinds, two round ones that hold 5 candles each, and two sets of scrolly ones that hold 3 candles each.

So, back to yesterday... We came in with the intention of getting it finished up, and I knew that one mother was coming in to book May 1st (of this year!!! definietly an Abraham moment!) for her daughter's wedding. Well, within an hour or so, we must have gotten at least 7 or 8 calls, and ended up with 3 other couples coming in to look for various dates. So we were hustling around, working on our wall, talking to brides, showing the place (which was a mess because of our project...) And in the process of all this, we booked two other jobs - both "look and books", which are kind of unusual. Just another thing that made the day so unusual! We actually booked the May 1st this year, which I knew was coming, then we booked May 1st of next year (how weird is THAT?) AND May 8th of next year! Odd, odd, ODD! And we managed to get our wall all done. I didn't get a pic (we'd been there a lot longer than we planned because of all this fabulous activity) but I'll insert a photo here when I get a pic tomorrow after we get it all cleaned up. By the end of the day, we both felt like a million bucks! The wall turned out even more beautiful than I could have imagined, and we booked 3 jobs, which I think has only happened a couple times before...

So on to plant stuff... TODAY in the greenhouse...

OMG, I found that my Hoya merredithii x crassicaulis has a bud forming! Now, this peduncle was on the cutting when I got it, but it looked like a very old peduncle and even looked like it would soon shed the old peduncle, so I never dreamed I'd actually get a bloom out of it. And so SOON! I just got this as a cutting from Ted Green last May!! It rooted nicely and put on a new shoot of new growth that resulted in about 9 new leaves, then stopped growing. Well, probably sometime in late Jan., I cut it back, trying to root the last set of two leaves, but I lost the cutting (drat!) But I always seem to find that cutting a plant back forces new growth. Well, I haven't seen any new growth from it yet, so finding the old peduncle budding really surprised me! Here's the original leaf that's very succulent and veined...

And here's the bud forming...

Yee-haw!! I can hardly believe a less than year old cutting is going to bloom! It's happened before, but not very often! I'm really anxious to see what it will look like. I'm going to completely ignore the fact that sometimes they abort the first flower. This one really looks promising...

And nicholsoniae's bud is coming along nicely. Here's what it looks like today...

I probably mentioned before that it bloomed for me just a few months after I got it and hasn't bloomed since. It's put on a lot of new growth, but until now, no signs of blooming after that first one. I'm very excited and hoping this means it will give me more blooms now! I climbed up to the top shelf and inspected it carefully for more peduncles and found one more with tiny buds forming (yay!) and two more peduncles, one that **may** be ready to bud, the other looks like an old one and inactive (but who knows??)

Also blooming (I should say "continuing to bloom" because it's been doing so for about a month) is one of my Thai Crown of Thorns. It's a beauty! Check out these blooms...I probably posted a photo of it in one of my last blogs, but notice these little center points, that look kinda like buds forming on top of the flowers. If I knew more of the scientific elements of flowers, I'd probably understand this phenomenon. They're certainly pretty, at any rate! But it's covered with them. Interestingly, there's a sideshoot at the bottom of the plant, and it has a flower head, too, but the flowers are small and more red, like the most common C of T. My largest (and oldest) C of T that I got from Botanic Treasures way back when is actually (finally) starting to bloom, too. But for some reason, this monsterous plant never blooms very much for me. The other I got from Bob Smoley, 'Bloody Mary', got so beat up by that big storm we had last June that I had to whack it back. I don't think it will ever look quite the same :-( But it may make a comeback this summer if I put it out on the porch. Most hard-pruned plants look great after they have some time to fill back out. We'll see...

My Hoya arnotiana is showing signs of new growth in 5 different places now. I think I'd better pot it up into a bigger pot this year. It's a very heavy plant and probably needs more room. I wish it would show signs of blooming.

I think, maybe, the mount I made for the flat-leaved Dischidias might actually be working. It's hard to say for sure until I see new growth, but some of the leaves seems to be flattending out against the mount. Maybe it will actually work! Of course, the real challenge is going to be if I can keep it moist enough this summer when it gets hot. I may have to bring it in the house. Guess we'll see...

And that's about all I'm going to write about today! It's been a great weekend. It's nice today (60-something) and sunny and I should be getting lots done, but I'm being a slug. Now I'm going down to the basement to watch some TV with Mark - maybe nap a little on the couch! Kitties are in the GH laying in the sunshine and Lucy is following me back and forth from the GH to the computer. She'll go downstairs with me, I'm sure...