The flower

So, back before Christmas when Mom came up to visit she brought me and Ashley some amaryllis flower sets. They come in a box and have the soil (in a really cool dehydrated disk- add water and it expands to fill the whole pot! It's amazing!), pot, and flower bulb all ready to go. I took a really long time to getting around to planting it, but when I finally did, it sure did surprise! I guess Mom's was a dud and didn't grow much, Ashley's grew and bloomed, but was pretty short, but mine shot up like a rocket, two tall skinny stems that just can't quite stay straight. I had to rotate it every day to help it grow more straight.

See how pretty it is? Lovely. Crooked but lovely. If you look carefully you can see the 3rd branch shooting up behind the shorter one. All seemed to be going well until one morning we came upstairs to find the flower fallen over and a bunch of dirt spilled all over the ground. Well, it damaged the flower stems and they just couldn't quite stay upright anymore. So I gave it a little help:

 Note brown pipe cleaner helping one individual stem stay upright, the rope lashing the pot/bulb to the table to keep the bulb upright and the pot firmly planted on the desk so it won't fall over any more. And finally, the ski poles used to prop up the flowers so they wouldn't sag and break the stems. Lovely, no? Oh it get's better. It fell over again. All over Dana's guitar. But I was not ready to give up! The 3rd branch was growing still. I wanted to see it bloom! So I helped it out again!

Isn't is wonderful! Creative if you ask me = ) That's a broom handle shoved between the desk and wall to stay still. The flowers that fell off when it fell I piled up in the pot as a memorial to it's trials. And yes, yes those are kabob skewers taped to the flower with masking tape to keep the stalks from falling over. They'd sustained substantial damage in the most recent crash. The sticks were a great support. But the saga does not end there!

 Alas, the sight that greeted us in the morning.

 And the fix. The new blooms are quite delightful. Definitely worth keeping this poor flower in one piece for. You're probably thinking "Good gracious. How many pictures is she going to post of this one silly flower?!" Answer: only one more.

Um, I think I'm done fixing it. Thank you flower. You have been beautiful. You had a life of trials, but brought joy to many. R.I.P.