Bloomin' New Year

 

Happy 2026 to You and Yours

Christmas Plants

 

I hadn't planned to buy a poinsettia this year, but near the entrance to Meijer sat a display on sale. I couldn't resist. 

 My husband went out shopping today. When he returned and came in from his pickup truck, he sort of sneaked some packages into the garage. At lunch he mentioned he had some gifts for me that were going to be tough to wrap. I replied that if he had an amaryllis bulb/plant I would be happy to receive it early and watch it grow. Problem solved.

This amaryllis bulb on a slab of wood grows without any need of watering. Then came a second bulb in a "sweater". A Christmas reindeer! When the red blooms appear (probably in January), they will cheer me up during the cold winter. I found last year that a really good place for them to sit is on the cedar chest in the den. The light seems to be just right. 

Now I have a row of Christmas plants to enjoy. How about you?

Lookee Here

 

We are just barely into 2025, and we have an amaryllis about to bloom. We had about an inch of snow last night into early this morning; it is nice to have a bright spot on a snowy day.

I moved the amaryllis with the knitted cover that had been in the sunroom to the den today. You can see it just beyond the Christmas sleigh. Since the larger plant did so well sitting on the cedar chest where it gets good light, I decided that would be a good place for the smaller one also. It is swelling so there is growth, just not opening yet. 

I have started to put away the Christmas decorations. Tomorrow I will take down our small tree. We still have some Christmas plates in the china cabinet and on the wall plus the poinsettia on the sunroom table. They will probably stay around awhile longer.

Last year I posted 46 times, the least in my 12 years of blogging. As long as I still get pleasure from sharing, I guess I will continue on even though there may be fewer posts. It is not unusual for bloggers to fade away as circumstances of life keep them busy elsewhere. I have some mobility problems so we do not travel as we once did nor do I get out on nature trails or visit museums. Not as much fodder for blog posts. May you enjoy 2025 with your own "amaryllis" type of beauty and hope.

Multiplying Amaryllis

 I so enjoyed watching the amaryllis grow and bloom last Christmas and winter. I told my husband that would be a good gift for me this year, too. He looked around but told me he could not find any like he had given me before.

As I entered Martin's yesterday and passed through the florist section, I spotted two amaryllis. I decided that if I really wanted one, I should buy one of these before they were all sold. Instead of sitting on a board, this little amaryllis wore a knitted "sweater". I set it on the table in the sunroom and left for an appointment in Fort Wayne. My husband was with a gentleman from Andrews University talking about some of the work he had done years ago with its archaeological digs. He was over on the main retirement campus.

While I was away, my husband returned and saw the plant I had purchased. He had finally found one on a board like last year and was hiding it in the garage. He decided he might as well let it join the one I had bought so it could get some light. I was totally surprised.

That white stuff on the ground and trees is snow. We got some early this morning and will see more throughout the day. Probably about an inch total. As long as it doesn't create travel problems for people coming for the big football game in South Bend tonight between Notre Dame and Indiana University, everybody is OK with a little snow today.

Home Chef Once Again

 Though I don't order meals from Home Chef regularly because of the cost (the heavy shipping charge really boosts the bill), in the past few months it was the meal choices that didn't interest me. Finally, this past Thursday a box arrived with ingredients for two meals and a lunch that could be microwaved in 3 minutes.

I didn't take photos of the food. The lunch was a bit weird. It was an Oriental chicken dish of chicken thigh, sweet potato noodles, edamame, and the label said roasted vegetables. When I looked at the ingredients list, I saw red pepper but the container also had purple stuff that I did not see listed. Maybe some kind of cabbage? It made many of the other ingredients purple. I have never eaten purple chicken before.

 I wanted to see if one container would be enough for 2 people for a light lunch. I had ordered two containers; but we could have easily shared. To order the lunches, you have to reach the required minimum dollar amount Home Chef has established to place an order. Mostly, that means adding lunch to dinner choices. We may add lunch to our dinner orders in the future, but probably not the Oriental chicken. 

A Creole spice packet was included with the trout to sprinkle on before cooking in a frying pan. It was a tasty addition. My shallot sauce only vaguely looked like the picture. It was more a tan color than white. It was also greasy. The instructions said to let it cool and add a teaspoon of cold water to reduce the greasiness. Didn't really work.

 The meal was flavorful as the mashed potatoes had mayonnaise and cheese added. Since trout is not readily available in my grocery stores, I would probably order this again. It did not come with any vegetable so I cooked some carrots. 

The pork chops were good but nothing special. My husband said the sauce reminded him of stroganoff. Probably would look for something else to order. 

I get tired of meal planning sometimes. At least with Home Chef there are many options, except I am picky.

My amaryllis had 4 blooms on the first stem. About the time the first bloom was shriveling up a bit, the second stem tried to open. It was crowded next to the already-blooming stem. I cut off the drying bloom, and now there is room for the next stem's blooms. I check the progress each day with joyful anticipation. A nice touch to a new year. 

Amaryllis and Christmas Goodies

 

I suggested to my husband that I would like an amaryllis for Christmas. He bought me two! In the past the plant has been in a pot. I have never seen them attached to a decorative board. On Christmas day none of the blossoms were visible. Today the first bloom opened fully. You can see there are some more flowers slowly opening.

The bulb on the other board has growth, but not yet stems.

It will be nice to have a second plant that blooms later in the winter.

We still have Christmas goodies to eat.

I bought the Cheryl's cookies for myself. I froze some of them. Just 5 left on the plate. 

The red tin holds the last of the Moose Munch. There were 3 bags, and I must confess though they were a gift to my husband, I am the one who has eaten most of it. We did get an early pre-Christmas start to munching.

The See's walnut fudge I just opened up today. I have been saving it for this weekend. I had a piece at lunch. Delicious!

Still have in the jar peppermint pretzels that I bought pre-COVID. I opened the large bag around Thanksgiving time. We are still working on the tuxedo cake I bought on sale at Costco. I froze some of it; looks like we will finish the unfrozen pieces for New Year's Eve for my husband's birthday. I am grateful that I did not lose my sense of smell or taste from the COVID infection. 

HAPPY 2024 TO YOU AND YOUR FAMILY

Azul (The Game)

 About two years ago I read a review of a new board game that interested me. I couldn't find it in area stores. While shopping at Meijer before Christmas this year, I browsed the jigsaw puzzles and saw near them some games. There I spied Azul, the game that had  received good reviews. I bought it for my husband for a Christmas present.

We have tried playing some rounds. We found the manual sort of vague about some things; I watched a couple playing it on YouTube. That answered some questions.

Up to 4 people can play. Each player has his/her own playing card. Each card is identical.

At the top is the scoring grid. Below is the pattern line on the left and the wall to be tiled on the right. A player must cover the painted design on the wall with the matching tile. At the bottom of the playing board is the floor line.

The game is played in stages. In the first stage, the pattern line must be filled with tiles. Each row progressively is longer (and thus harder to completely fill). Each row of the wall contains the same 5 designs but in different order. In the second stage of the game, the tiles from only complete pattern lines are moved to the wall line directly across. That is when scoring begins. 

To obtain tiles to fill the pattern line, the tiler goes to the factory displays. For 2 players, there are 5 factory displays. For each additional player, there are an additional 2 displays; so for 4 players, the number is 9. 

The factory display is represented by a circle.

Before starting play, tiles are randomly drawn from the bag. Each factory display receives 4 tiles. The factory displays sit in a circle in the middle of the table. In my factory display above, I placed 5 tiles so you could see what the tiles look like. However, for playing purposes there will only be 4 tiles per factory display. 

There is a single white tile with the number 1 in blue that is not in the bag; it goes in the middle of the table surrounded by the factory displays.

Each player at his turn selects tiles from just one factory display. The tiles must match each other. If there are 3 black tiles on a circle, he must take all of them. He puts the matching tiles on one of his pattern lines (his choice). He cannot spread them out on other pattern lines. As the game progresses, if all he has left to fill are the smaller pattern lines, the tiles he draws but cannot use go on the floor line left to right which results in negative points when the final scoring is done. 

After the player takes his tiles from a factory display, the remaining display tiles of that factory are put in the center of the table with the specialized number 1 tile. The factory display circle is set to the side.

Once there are tiles in the center, a player can choose to take tiles from the remaining displays or from the center. The rule remains that only matching tiles can be taken and all of them that match must be taken at the same time. The first player to take from the center, puts the specialized number 1 tile on his floor line. He will receive negative points during final scoring, but he also will be the first to play in the subsequent round. 

At some point, all of the factory displays (circles) will be used up and set aside and each player during his turn will have to take tiles from the center. To get tiles he needs to complete his pattern lines, he usually will have to take tiles he cannot use and must place on the negative floor line. 

Once all of the tiles have been taken, wall tiling begins. Only completed pattern lines can be used. So, if the player has 3 matching tiles in a pattern line, but the pattern line has 4 spaces, he cannot use any of the tiles in that line to tile the wall. The tiles sit until the next round when the player will try to complete the line. 

For a completed full pattern line, the player moves the right-most tile to the tile line directly across and covers the painted design. He moves his scoring grid marker 1 point for each tile. The remaining tiles in the pattern line are discarded (put in the lid of the game box). As the wall tile lines fill up, if a tile is placed directly adjacent to another tile the score is not 1 point, but a point for each adjacent tile as well. During the first round, these adjacent tiles will only be above or below, but in subsequent rounds, tiles in the same wall tile line may be next to each other as well. 

The game ends when one of the players fills all 5  tiles in a horizontal row. The rule book was rather vague about if the remaining players could finish transferring the qualified tiles in a pattern line to the wall line or if all play ceased. The YouTube people allowed every player to finish the transferring. There is a bonus for filling the wall tile with all 5 tiles. There is a bigger bonus for filling a vertical row, but the vertical row does not cause the game to end. There are 10 bonus points for each style of tile that has all 5 on the board.

Obviously, the game cannot be completed in one round since only one style of tile is transferred each time from the pattern line to the wall line. If you already have a tile of a certain color/design in the wall line, you cannot take factory tiles in later rounds that match that tile and put them in that pattern line. There would be no way to play it since the wall has it. This has consequences for what to do with tiles you had to draw but don't really want. They have to go on a different appropriate pattern line (i.e., one without that design already played on the wall line) or to the floor line. Negative points can really mount. 

The other side of the playing board has an alternate style of playing. There are no designs painted on the wall. The objective is still the same, that is to lay 5 different styled tiles on the wall in each row, but the player decides how he wants to place them to maximize points. Too much logic for my poor brain. I will stick with the side with the painted designs. You really have to play several rounds of this game to feel like you know what you are doing anyway.

This morning my amaryllis is finally blooming. I think when I ordered this I thought the red "trim" would be more pronounced. The flowers really are not very colorful.

I got my first Moderna shot yesterday afternoon. I don't see any redness nor swelling, but my arm is sore, especially if I try to lift it above my head. I don't the pulley exercise is going to be done today.

A Smile On My Face

 Even though I didn't go somewhere warmer this winter, I have some blooms to cheer me up.

I bought this calandiva (a variant of Kalanchoe) at Meijer about a week ago. I needed some printer paper and decided to shop in-person after many weeks of not being in a store. Meijer often has interesting potted plants.

I have had my amaryllis over 9 weeks. It finally looks like it might bloom in another week. Oddly enough, I noticed another flower stalk this week; not sure how long it has been growing. It certainly will not bloom until long after the first stalk has bloomed.

Starting to bulge open. A flower next week maybe?

Second stalk near the bottom.

Grace Village still has no monthly birthday party, but it continues to send over a birthday carnation and a muffin (two muffins for us so I guess the activity director thinks my husband needs one). It arrived today via a volunteer messenger.

The thing that really put a smile on my face this week is what I saw when the snow melted away and the sun came out yesterday. Daffodils! I know it won't be until at least March when their sunny little faces appear, but now I feel winter is waning and spring will come before too long.