Plumeria Winter

There are a lot of sites discouraging keeping Frangipani, or Plumeria plants in the house.  They usually state how, even though it's a lower toxicity than its relatives, it's related to many much more poisonous plants and they wouldn't risk it being in the same area just in case.

This seems a bit of a stretch since tomatoes and deadly nightshade are also in the same group but no one is worried when they eat a salad. 

I'm more worried for the plant.  This is our plumeria plant after our cat decided that its leaves were perfect toys to bat around.  It had one more leaf but it was chewed on so much that it fell off.  This half leaf is all that's currently left but it being winter I half expected it to be losing leaves anyway.

As you can see from the stem though it had a nice summer even though I can attest that it only had a short summer at that.  I planted it a bit late in the season.

He currently lives at the office with a couple of the cacao trees that I have kept alive for some time now.  I will keep him here until the threat of frost is gone and I can put him back outside in the backyard where it seems to thrive.  In the mean time he gets to hang out here.

This specific plumeria was brought back from Hawaii when my wife and some friends went to visit for a couple weeks.  Originally it was supposed to be for one of their moms but it was left at our house for so long that I decided it needed planting and was told to just keep it.  The passionfruit seeds on the other hand never did sprout.  Not sure what's up there.

The loss of all of its leaves is not a bad sign.  In this area it will overwinter this way and keep just fine until spring when it will leaf back out and hopefully double or more in size.  Some other friends of ours had a couple dozen of these which they would put in the garage every year.  Sometimes they would lose one but usually they all came back bigger than ever.

Thoughtful Journal Series Launch

 

We're launching a series of books to help people think about all of the things they do from travel, to food, to daily life.

The first two in the series which have already come out are The Thoughtful Travel Journal and The Thoughtful Tasting Journal: Chocolate.  We started these because we've started traveling more again and realized that pictures, although good to take, are only a part of the experience we had.

The Thoughtful Travel Journal will help us and you to better record and be able to reflect on the the journeys we make.  The beginning of the book has tips on how to journal, be mindful of your experience, and tips on things you might not otherwise have though to write down.  Many of the journals that have been published for others to read started out as private journals of people who merely got to do interesting things that we today now want to read about. This could be true of anyone's journal.  What you think is ordinary, to your children or grand children might be a glimpse into the life of a beloved family member.

Our families still tell new stories that they had forgotten about or that they didn't think were that interesting at the time until something brings it up.  Just think how many stories never got told just because it was never jotted down.

The other book that we put out recently is a Stamp Book for collecting rubber stamps from various locations. There are a few places in the states where you can get such a book stamped but we traveled to Japan where it's a huge past time.  Every city we went to had multiple stamps including most train stations and public buildings. Other places to check for stamps are museums, corporate buildings, and shopping areas. All you usually have to do is ask and even if they don't have a stamp they will most likely know where the closest one is.

Cruise Coincidences

 

We went on a cruise around Japan recently and while on one of the shuttles from the ship we noticed one of the other passengers had the same USB backup fan we did.  A different color of course but it was still neat.

I hadn't realized when I got it that it was in the shape of a bear with little ears and all.  I thought the little ears were just bumps to keep it from rolling away, which they don't.

These seem to come in a number of colors but the upshot is that they really do work pretty well.  I prefer to use the fan option as the storage for phone charging really is more for emergencies than anything.  We got secondary backups for the trip which came in really handy.

But for looking stylish and having a good fan I don't think anything I've seen matches this little guy.

Aloe

I've taken care of  many aloe plants during my life.  I first used an aloe plant on a cut before I was ever even in school.  My grandmother cut a piece off of one of the plants around the back of the house and split it open, placing the gooey side on the cut and leaving it there for a minute.  Then she removed it and put on a bandage.

Shortly thereafter she got into the aloe craze and we were drinking the green stuff just about daily.  It wasn't great.

I remember that same company for some reason also had a ph color changing lipstick that she used.  I don't understand the point of it but she thought it was neat.

Years later, several moves, and a wedding later and I found myself taking care of my wife's great uncle's aloe greenhouse.  It only had aloe plants in it, wall to wall.  I watered them so well that several of the plants flowered and he started complaining about the water bill.

After moving to Arlington I got some more aloe plants which I promptly neglected, so much going on, and they died after a couple years.  They're super hardy even when you don't water them much.

This guy though is healthy and as long as I don't leave him in the car too much longer he'll be fine.  I plan to have him on the back porch along with several other plants.  The plumeria we recently got being one of them and it's doing great.  So many new leaves.  I'll probably be repotting that one soon even though it's in a fairly large pot as my pots go.