A couple of years ago, there was a big craze with jars. Dried cookie ingredients in a jar, put gratitude on pieces of paper and stick them in a jar, salads in a jar, mason jars as gift holders, and more.
Yesterday, I received one of the coolest gifts I’ve ever seen! A ‘plant a bulb’ in a jar.
Like a flower bulb.
In a jar!
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Planting bulbs in the ground? Oh yeah, done that. In a jar? How fun!
Christmas was looking to be a hard one without my momma. So guess what one of my besties did? She found out that Amaryllis means ‘sparkle’ and she sent the bulb jar to me.
How sweet is that?
Because honestly, I haven’t felt very sparkly lately. Crying takes the shine right out. And, I’ve been doing my share of tear dropping recently.
Sparkle in a jar?
That grows and blooms into a gorgeous red flower?
I
am
in!
Thank you, SanDee, for the pick-me-up. It makes me want to plant sparkle bulbs all around my ten acres. What a beautiful show that would be.
Love when friends ‘show up’ on days- well, on any days and all days. The ones in the beginning, the messy middle, and whatever kind show up after.
She’s been there for me and with me through so-much-stuff. Buckets full. Before my momma went in the hospital. During the devastating 10 days of tough diagnoses and all the days since my momma made her heavenly trek.
Sometimes, being in this, this parent loss thing, some things feel like an end. The thing I love the most about her gift?
It’s the beginning
of a life
tucked up in a bulb.
I took some pictures of it so you can see. The directions say that the roots take 2 weeks to develop, then in 6-8 weeks it’ll bloom. Then, the flowers are said to last 2-3 weeks.
Perfect timing.
That’ll put it blooming on the year anniversary when I lost my momma. She passed away March 26, 2022 at 11:11 pm. It’s already making a hard day better. In March!!! ❤️
Here’s to flowers and friends and things that show up and work out when we aren’t even looking for them. I’ll take those sparkles- now and in 3 months!
Thank for being here!
Jessica
©️ COPYRIGHT 2022 UNMEASURED JOURNEYS- PHOTOS TAKEN BY ME- ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Unmeasured Journeys 
What a thoughtful friend and gift! Happy New Year!
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Super sweet. Thank you. Happy New Year to you!
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I’m glad you have that Amaryllis. It’s a spirit-lifter!
John’s mother gave us a bulb every year for Christmas, and we enjoyed them. This year I was given two. Although planted at the same time, the blooms of one are drooping while the other is just about to bloom. Fun to watch!
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Hi! Oh, how neat. I’ve never considered bulbs as gifts. Such a beautiful idea. Love that you got 2.
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Here is our amaryllis that I mentioned in my other comment:
https://lindaschaubblog.net/2014/03/18/a-few-daffs-just-for-laffs/
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I’m sorry to read she didn’t get to see it bloom. What a beautiful flower.
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Yes, it was sad Jessica. My mom was good with houseplants … me not so much. She had two cactus gardens on her kitchen windowsill. She lost one cactus, an “Old Man” cactus with the white frizzy “hair” – so I got her another one and she segregated it from the others, planted in a week or so later and it had some disease and it spread to both gardens. She’d had them for years. I felt badly about it. I hope yours blooms as nicely.
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Oh no!!!
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Yes, I felt badly, even though she took adequate precautions to segregate it from the others. Some type of mites and she swabbed each of the cacti with alcohol and other preparations to no avail.
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Oh man. Seems like that bug stuff happens sometimes. This year, at my parents house, Japanese beetles took over everything! My dad has grape vines for making juice. Those beetles ate the leaves and grapes and only left the vines…
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Yes, plus you have to be careful with pesticides which complicates things, because natural treatments really don’t cure the problem.
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True. We only use natural, so they ate everything…
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Yes – that will happen for sure.
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That was very thoughtful of your friend Jessica and now you have something to forward to. My friend Ann Marie gave me a mason jar with a ribbon around it and sticky notes inside – the outside of the bottle says “Blessings” – before that I had never heard of a blessing bottle. A friend of the family sent my mom an amaryllis plant in a planter for Christmas, just a month before my mom passed away. We had never had one and I started watering it – nothing happened and then after my mom was gone (January 31, 2010), that plant took off, I looked for the post and I”ll put it in a separate comment so you can see how tall it got.
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Oh that’s right, I forgot about the blessing jars. I did one for awhile. We also did. Laugh Jar. Wrote down things that made us laugh. Still super fun to read those.
Sorry to hear she didn’t get to see it. Bet it was hard when it bloomed and she wasn’t there.
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I really should write things on the sticky notes and put it in the blessing jar. Ann Marie is thoughtful and she had made it, like you do, so it is special. It was difficult to see it blooming Jessica. I was looking for the post I had … I am positive I had pictures of it in a post that it grew even taller than this and keeled over as it got top-heavy. I wrote a post once about fruitcake. I won’t send it to you as you may get teary-eyed. But the gist of it is the same Christmas as the amaryllis, my mom was confined to bed and a friend of my boss owns a store in Eastern Market (big market that has specialty food stores in Detroit). He brought over a lot of Christmas treats and a poinsettia plant … two treats were a babka fruit bread and a Christmas stollen, so my mom said “put my little fruitcake away until we eat David’s goodies up, then I’ll eat it.” I always got her the smallest fruitcake I could find every year – I’d have a few slices and Mom had the rest. She never got to eat the fruitcake and I felt badly about throwing it away … it was in my fridge, tucked away in the corner for about five years and we had a power outage for several days, so I threw everything out of the fridge and cleaned it out.
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Oh my goodness… I would’ve done the same thing- kept it in the fridge.
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Yes, no apologies for being sentimental.
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Best way to be.
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🥰🥰🥰
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Hugs, sweetheart! ❤️
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