Plant Corner #1, Begonias, and Hoya Australis Lisa

A few people have been asking me how I'm displaying my plants.  I have several different areas in my house where our plants live at the moment and I keep expanding on those areas and rearranging but one area that I love is one corner of our bedroom. This area I've combined my love of crochet with displaying some of our plants.

The hangers are up there with thumbtacks but all the plants are in nursery pots and are pretty light weight. There are a few more plants on the side table below these as well.  Here are a few close ups of some of my begonias in this area.

My begonia maculata aka "Dotty" is right below the ones on the wall but she's in need of a trim and I need to start some propagations from her.  I've been trying to talk myself into that for about three months now.  Maybe tomorrow will be the day where I'll get brave and go for it. 

In this area I have most of my begonias except for the propagations that I have going, some heartleaf philodendron and cebu blue pothos that I successfully propagated, and several hoya.  I'll get some photos of those tomorrow.  

I did take some photos of one of my favorite hoyas tonight though.  This one was one of my "wish list" plants that I got for my birthday in April, Hoya Australis "Lisa"!

I love the variegation on this plant and how the new leaves come in pink at the beginning.  This has been a easy and fast grower and I love it so much!  This stunning beauty can make me smile even on my tough days. 

Like many of the plants in my care, the Hoya Australis Lisa likes bright, indirect light.  It's in a airy, well draining soiless mix of coco coir, perlite, orchid bark, horticultural charcoal, and worm castings. I tend to err more on the underwatering side of things to prevent root rot so this dries to 50% - 75% dry before I give it a thorough watering.

~Susan~

An introduction... of sorts

I'm starting over with my blog.  I had good intentions when I started this blog to make this a place where I shared about things that interested me.  At the time, I was very active in the online scrapbooking community and in a couple of online crochet groups.  Then life took a detour as life tends to do.  Maybe it wasn't really a detour, just the path that my life was intended to go on and now I've found myself at the point in this life's journey where I want to reconnect or connect with others who may share in some of the same interests I have.

Hello, my name is Susan and I'm a scrapbooking, crocheting, music loving, avid book reader, and plant enthusiast who loves my family.  My roots are planted deep in my faith in God and I'm on the journey of finding joy in moment.  

So, hello old and new friends.  I hope to see you all around here from time to time!

My newest "hobby" started off in the Spring of 2024 when my husband and I stopped in an area garden center to look at some plants to do our annual "spruce up the planters in the front of the house" during Spring Break.  While he was deciding what plants he wanted to try, I wandered into the houseplant section.  Here we are a year later and we have three rooms that are considered our "indoor jungle."  Part of the reason it's three rooms is our classroom plants have migrated home for the summer.  They'll get a couple months at the plant spa (aka our house) and then they will go back to our classrooms.  Here are a few of my current favorites.

Epipremnum aureum 'Lemon Top' - sport mutation of lemon meringue pothos by Costa Farms.

The leaves start out as a bright golden yellow and darken into a rich dark green leaf with variegation.    I love the heart-shaped teacup leaves! These leaves are huge compared to my lemon meringue which is another one of my favorites that I need to get a photo of. 

Epipremnum aureum Manjula

This is another pothos that I absolutely love.  This is the one that has more cream leaves.  I plan on getting a photo of my other momma manjula plant that has more green/white variegation tomorrow.  

Right now my favorite types of plants growing in my collection are pothos and philodendrons.  I also love begonias but I'm still figuring those out.  

On the scrapping front, I actually had time to scrap a bit this week and used Connie Prince's #2025 May collection to make a layout.

Thanks for stopping by my blog! 

Life, crochet, and ramblings... FREEBIE word art and printable

Every time I think I'll get this blog up and going, life gets complicated and I let it sit there in the background, neglected.  Not on purpose, but yet, neglected.  Tonight I decided to try again.  I can't promise to engage and stay consistent but I'm going to try to do better.  

Where has life taken us?  Well, last year we were on a journey of survival with my husband and I both teaching in the year we all felt like we were scrambling every day with each new curve ball thrown our way.  I'm not going to spend any more time talking about it though because it's now behind us and this year is already looming on the horizon with the 21-22 school year starting for us in another week.  Actually I have three days of in-service training next week and then the following week, our son starts his Senior year with Summer Band Camp in full swing. 

Our oldest daughter, Hannah, is a Junior in college, Nate is a Senior in High School,  and Rachel is an 8th grader.  I'm starting my 25th year of teaching in the public school and for the 4th year in a row my job has another twist and bit of chaos involved with it.  I am getting to go back to teaching 5th grade music and 6th grade choir, but due to the wonderful pandemic wrecking havoc on the choral world, my choir is half the size it normally is and lucky me, the dance classes filled up so I'm now teaching dance to 6th graders.  That's right, dance - to 6th graders.  I'm totally out of my comfort zone and honestly this has consumed me all summer.  Stay tuned for the humorous stories that are going to come out of this experience.  

So, to settle my nerves I've turned to my self-care stress reliever of crocheting. If you get to looking for me, you'll find me in the corner crocheting up a storm.  I've made baby blankets galore, which turned out to be a blessing for my husband since 5 of the staff on his campus were expecting a new addition to their families by the end of last school term.  I've spent the summer replenishing our stash.  I just finished up a shawl for me that I need to take a photo of and started another baby blanket this week. I think this about sums up my feelings...

If you like the text in the middle of the card, you can pick it up HERE for free.  It's in png format so you can size it down (never try to re-size things larger because that distorts it when you go to print).  

The graphics I used on the card are from the 2021 June: Strength digital scrap kit by North Meets South Studio. I kept it simple because I wanted the text to stand out a little more but this kit has a lot of lovely elements in it.  The card is a printable 4X6 size and if you would like it to print for yourself, you can pick it up HERE.

Sometimes I'm inspired by random images I run across on Facebook.  This was shared in one of the crochet groups I'm a member of and I thought it was really cool! This is Malaga, Spain, where the women who lived there crocheted and put together this shadow-giving miracle. Below this is a pedestrian street with shops and cafés.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. I'm going to crochet, work on some motivational prints for my two classroom spaces, and maybe go take some photos outdoors. That last one may not happen but the thought is there. I'd love to hear from any of you that stop by the blog! My plans for the blog as of now are to still share scrapbooking ideas, inspiration, freebies, recipes, crochet ideas/inspiration, faith based posts, and just life in general.

See ya later!

Choose Joy Free Mini-kit

Today was one of those days where I started on a project and it morphed into something totally unexpected.  I started off with the idea of making a Word Art with some watercolor splashes.  Something that would only take a little bit of time but I was going to use that to make the front of a card for some friends.  Off I went searching through the CU files I had on my laptop which led me down a rabbit trail (I never found the brushes I was looking for.).  I started playing around with different things I found and before I knew it, I had a mini-kit designed.

Now, it's been a while since I really put on my designer hat and after today, I'm sure I'm not going to pick it back up for a while longer other than these random moments like today.  I'm too much of a perfectionist and I get wrapped up into the design and neglect other things (like laundry that was already piled up).  That was one of the reasons I stopped designing in 2012, I couldn't balance my design focus with my family's needs.  However, from time to time I'll have something here on the blog to share with my digital scrapbooking friends.

Here's what started my foray into designing today.  Super simple but it was fun to play!

I may offer that card front sometime but instead of that, today I'm giving you a mini-kit. Now, I have to be upfront with you.  I didn't include some of what is on the card in the kit.  The kit went a different direction but I think some of you may enjoy the mini-kit more.

DOWNLOAD FREEBIE HERE

If you wind up using the mini-kit, I would love to see what you make!

I'm off to crochet for a little bit and then off to bed because I have an 8 am class tomorrow.

Have a great week!

Susan

My Hope is Built....

It has been a beautiful day today.  I have enjoyed having our windows open and being able to listen to the birds outside.  It's peaceful and I've enjoyed taking a day just to enjoy being still and working with some digital scrapbooking things.  I actually started this post earlier today because of a piece of music and that led to me spending some time scrapbooking/crafting/designing.



The words I used in the WordArt title kept spinning through my head this morning.  The hymn " The Solid Rock" is a favorite of mine and was written by Bill Mote in 1834.  I felt pulled to use these words from that hymn in something creative today.  The kit I used is by Connie Prince called Garden Party.

There are pieces of music that I have held close to my heart that God has used to speak to me.  Some in instrumental form and others in song form.  Hymns of faith, songs of worship, and songs that have a depth of emotional connection beyond the notes on the page.  These pieces of music have the power to bring me to my knees in a reminder that I serve a God that knows my every thought, hears every prayer, and only wants to pull us closer to Him.

My heart is breaking for the brokenness of our world but my hope is built on the promises that God will bring us through these troubled times.  I have seen the resilience of His people.  That even when we are separated, we find ways to connect with each other.

This song by for King & Country spoke to my heart today and I hope it brings some comfort to you as well.

______________________________

Scrapbooking friends, crafting friends, I have a gift for you for stopping by the blog today.  It'll only be available for the month of May but I hope you can use it in some way.

BLOG FREEBIE

DOWNLOAD HERE

Jeremiah 29:11

From 2016 to 2020 ... Time warp

Well, that went well.  The adventures for the past 4 years have kept us rather busy and I honestly forgot about this blog that I started.  Hannah grew up and graduated High School then started her Freshman year at Angelo State University, Nate survived Middle School and is almost finished with 10th grade, Rachel has had one crazy last year/first year type situation as instead of finishing out Elementary School as a 6th grader she was part of the first 6th grade class at one of the newly established Intermediate Schools.  Well, that all was until COVID-19 hit. 

This last quarter of the 2019 - 2020 school year has been spent making the best of a horrible situation.  We keep looking for the silver linings and praying for better times to come.

So, what have I been up to?  Trying to keep up with the ever changing path life takes us on.  I'm still teaching music, just a slight shift in what that looks like.  This year I only taught 5th grade advanced ensemble (choral/instrumental) and 6th Grade Choir.  Next year, depending on how things play out with going back to school, I'm supposed to take up the mantle of teaching 6th Grade Choir and one other class still to be determined.  I'm still teaching piano, playing for Sunday services, and blogging for a designer friend.  Right now we're all back under one roof until the time comes that Hannah can return to her college campus and all the kids are trying to wrap up the school year with online/remote learning.  Gaylon and I have been teaching online but I think we're all ready to greet Summer and take a moment to regroup.

Now that we're all caught up on flash forward 4 years, you may be wondering what my plans are for the blog.  I'm hoping to be a little more active and share a variety of things.  Digital Scrapbooking of course because that's what made many of our paths cross, some inspirational/faith posts, music, recipes, and my rediscovered passion - crochet!  We'll see if I can keep up with this for a while.

Crocheting has been my stress reliever lately.  My family says it has taken over.  Well, not really, they love the things I've made for them but my yarn stash and WIPs (Works in Progress) have exploded around the front room and my bedroom.  However, as I've been listening to student recordings, I've finished up several projects and only have one WIP at the moment.  I actually have a couple of things planned out to start but I'm trying to use up some of the yarn I have.

Here are just a few of the projects I've finished in the past month.

Dragonfly Baby Afghan

2 Bonfire Totes
(The one on the left was a request, the one on the right is now one of my WIP bags)

A few cuddly Octopi.  Here are the first ones but I still need to take photos of the rest.

Messy the Fox
(Rachel asked me to make her a fox.)

And tonight I finished up Buddy Puppy.

I almost forgot!  My aunt gave me a crochet magazine that had an afghan she thought I might want to make.  Well, there were parts of the pattern that I loved so I took those parts and made a piano bench cover.

I hope you will come back to visit!  I would love to hear how you are doing and feel free to leave me a link back to your blog!

Hebrews 11:1

~Susan~

Family Vacation 2016: ART White Water Rafting Tour

It has always been my hope and dream to be able to take a week to two week road trip vacation with my family.  I remember going on trips like that every few years growing up.  Up until this summer we just couldn’t make it a reality for many different reasons.  This year we were able to take all three of our kids and visit part of New Mexico and Colorado and we loved it!

I’m going to be sharing highlights over the next little bit but they won’t be in any particular order.  Yeah, I’m random that way.

Part of our adventure was going on a white water rafting tour down the Arkansas River.  Let me pause here and clarify that none of us have ever been on a white water rafting tour before and only my husband can claim to be a “outdoors” personality.  We of course did a beginner level tour but I would be remiss not to admit that I did have some fears to overcome such as worrying that the raft would flip over or that we’d loose one of the kids (namely the youngest one) overboard while going through the rapids. 

After we received and put on our PFD (personal floatation devices) and helmets, we had time to visit with the two families that were going with us. There was another young girl Rachel’s age and they immediately started talking as if they had been friends forever. It was sweet. None of us had the heart to tell them that they wouldn’t be in the same raft on the trip.

I don’t know what special event led to me being the one chosen to document the checklist as they gave the safety guides but there were moments that I was afraid I would miss the directions on what to do if you found yourself outside the raft in the river while trying to keep up with the checklist. Maybe the guy that handed me the clipboard and asked me to keep track thought I looked scattered and hoped it would keep me focused.  Really it just jacked up my anxiety another notch (oh who’s kidding it went up several notches!)  Another thing I didn’t realize at that moment was that my family was the only one that had volunteered to paddle! More on that in a moment.

When we went to get in the vans that were going to transport us to the starting point Rachel and her new friend immediately went to sit together.  At this moment the brother (about the same age as Rachel as well) asked Hannah if she would sit with him.  Watch out, I think he may like older women when he gets older!  Nate sat with them and we got in the same van along with their parents.  Skip ahead to the moment the girls realized they weren’t going together, you would have thought that they were BFFs going off to separate universes!   Hugs, tears, and good-byes said we got our instructions on how to sit in our respective spots on our raft and off we went.  It was about this moment that Rachel realized she wasn’t getting to paddle.  Cue one unhappy 8 year old who thinks she’s going on 16.  Our guide, Audra was amazing though and tried to convince her that she had the best seat in the raft.  Really it was for safety reasons, Rachel just wasn’t quite big enough to stretch her legs into position to be sure to stay in the raft in the rapids.  It was also at this moment that I realized the other two families weren’t paddling in their rafts.  It worked out for us because there were four of us plus our guide and I have to say, it was a lot of fun!!  Hannah and Nate loved it and it was a great bonding experience for us.  Rachel had fun too, especially when Audra told her that one of the rapids didn’t have a name and asked Rachel to name it.  Now there is a rapid in that section of the Arkansas River called Rachel’s Rocky Rapid, at least with the ART tour when Audra is the guide.

Out of all the things we did on our vacation this ranked as one of the top adventures and something that the whole family says they want to do again.  Of course Rachel wants to go when she can get to paddle so here’s hoping Gaylon and I can still do things like this for the next 5 – 10 years!

Kit: Floating Along by Designs by Connie Prince
Photos by Arkansas River Tours

Here is my favorite photo from our time on the Arkansas River!