Amaryllis... Apparently not?

 Years ago my Mom started a lovely Christmas tradition where in she would give me an amaryllis.  I would dutifully plant the bulb, and weeks later, would be astonished at the beauty of what it produced.

 This year, she stated that she wasn't sure what color this one was.  Rather an odd occurance because generally she chose according to color.  That said, it was quite a surprize when out came this immense, stunning white group of flowers. Good choice Mom! :)

Isn't this lovely. almost other worldly.

So, imagine my surprise when I google amaryllis (because I love to throw in a link or two to make an otherwise dull post more inviting!) and I find what I think is.... my amaryllis. Or rather, really a hippeastrum. Commonly confused with amaryllis.  Well, I have to say, if they didn't market the little suckers as amaryllis, we wouldn't think that they are amaryllis.

So you be the judge... is it Amaryllis or Hippeastrum?

And for a completely unrelated topic.... meet Watson.  He is my neices new puppy.  Sweetie and I are the designated babysitters.  Aren't we lucky.  I don't have to tell you that I already have a folder full of photo's and videos of dear little Watson on my coolmax  harddrive. 

Multitasking to the extreme

What do you do when you are home from work with the flu? I found that I cannot even be sick without multitasking. Not to be sexist or anything, but I really think this is a woman thing! We get so used to doing 14 things at once that we can’t allow ourselves just to lay on the couch and veg. So as crappy as I felt there I was sipping cases of ginger ale (the only thing I would consume for three days) sorting through the thousands of photo’s stored on my cool max. http://www.coolmaxusa.com

A few months ago I was complaining to sweetie about how slow my laptop was running and he said I had far too many photos stored on it. And being the sweetie that he is he bought me a portable storage device for them, hence the Cool Max. Not really believing him...I still transferred thousands of pictures (without taking the time to do a good sort) off my laptop. When I deleted the files from my laptop, there were over 13,000. I guess he was right because the thing is running like new!

In the masses of pictures I came across this one... I called it Killer Lily.  It looks almost menacing doesn't it?  Or is that a fever induced paranoia?

This spiny little sucker is a Sea Holly. I love taking pictures of it but I hate weeding around it. It is incredibly unfriendly. Just a brush against it produces blood. And I hate blood.   One day I will tell the story of how I stepped backwards onto a bamboo spike in my garden, and how my sister had to come and rescue me before I bled to death all over my bathroom floor.