Both of my kids love plants and flowers.  My father, maternal grandmother, and a paternal great-grandmother were all gardeners (I’d also enjoy gardening, too, if I had more time).  My kids were born after all these people had passed away, so perhaps they inherited their fondness for greenery from them.  I know they didn’t get it from their father — he dislikes anything and everything pertaining to yard work or gardening.

Two Christmases ago when we were shopping at Wal-Mart, Peter spotted a little cactus garden consisting of 6 tiny individually potted cacti in a small plastic greenhouse-shaped container sitting out of place among the Christmas decorations.  Undoubtedly, someone had picked it up in the garden center, carried it in to the Christmas section, then changed their mind about buying it so they left it on the shelf next to the ornaments.  Peter asked if we could “rescue” the cactus garden by buying it and taking it home.  I rarely say “no” whenever my children ask for books or plants, so I agreed.

The cacti rapidly outgrew the little plastic greenhouse, so now we keep them on our kitchen windowsill, along with a container of “bug-eating plants” (a Venus flytrap and a couple of others)  that Peter wanted for Christmas last year.  Peter, with his flair for decorating, put a painted ceramic gecko and a couple of doo-dads that he made out of modeling clay next to them.  Natalie put up the little wind chime that her friend Garrett brought her from a vacation to Myrtle Beach.  I also hung up a little owl with a glass prism-shaped body and a suction cup on the back.  My mother had it on her kitchen window, and I brought it over here after she passed away in December 2006.  I found a Valentine’s heart made of red gel in our kitchen cabinet (left over from when our kids were younger and I decorated the house for every occasion), so I stuck it on the window next to the owl.