As I was watering my terrarium the other day (for the second time ever), I noticed something new.
There are little green shoots coming out of the plant that I call Faux Peas (on the left). It’s GROWING, people! GROWING! As are the other plants in the terrarium, albeit slowly.
For some reason, I thought the terrarium (which I blogged about here) would be a giant bust, and two months later I would be dumping dead plants into the garbage. So this is a happy surprise. Apparently succulents like sitting in a sunny window and being forgotten about, much like my Christmas cactus, which blooms almost constantly.
 Whenever people ask what the secret is to getting my Christmas cactus to bloom, I say, “Christmas cactus? What Christmas cactus?” And then I remember the plant in the corner that I never pay any attention to. So now you all know Lisa’s Secret to Healthy Terrariums and Christmas Cacti: outright neglect.
After the shock of the healthy terrarium sunk in, I started to think about how other projects that I’ve blogged about have fared. So, here, for your reading enjoyment, is a partial follow-up of previous posts:
The cat grass that I blogged about here is dead and gone. More because of Calvin’s neglect than mine. What’s the point in maintaining a dish of cat grass if your cat has absolutely no interest in it?
As for the half-dead asparagus fern that Calvin preferred over the healthy, organic cat grass …
… it is alive and well. I transplanted it and set it out on my deck (and out of Calvin’s reach) and it has been filling in beautifully.
In other Calvin news, it appears that after a thorough cleaning, my car seats have fully recovered from the ill-fated trip to the vet clinic that I blogged about here. (Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my leather purse.)
When I got home from the vet’s office, I blotted every drop of cat pee off the seat, ran the Shop Vac over it to suction up any residual dampness, steam cleaned the upholstery, left the window open to allow the air to circulate and then, when everything was dry, I coated the seat in a thick layer of baking soda to absorb any lingering odors.
I drove around with the baking soda on the passenger seat for 24 hours, which led to a few odd looks and awkward explanations, but once I vacuumed it up, the smell seemed to be completely gone.
Remember my cutting board collection that I blogged about here? What I didn’t tell you in that post was that I also owned a pig-shaped cutting board.
I didn’t mention him because he didn’t really fit in with the rest of the collection. He sat on the counter next to my fridge all alone for a couple years.
But then this spring, I found a pig partner for him at a thrift store.
And then a couple weeks ago, I found a third little pig. So apparently I now collect pig cutting boards, too.
As for my patio chair renovation, which I blogged about here, two of the chairs are holding up beautifully. The third, which I had noticed was a touch wobbly as I was painting it, has gone to Patio Chair Heaven.
One of the welds on the base of the chair broke the first time someone sat in it. No one fell to the ground or anything dramatic, thankfully, but the rust had clearly taken too big of a toll on the chair for it to be used any more.
Did you notice the German ivy on the table between my chairs?
You may remember it looking like this when I brought it up from the basement back in April (and blogged about it here).
And one last update: When I blogged about my Valentine’s Day robot here, I asked readers for suggestions for a name.
That was in the early days of my blog, so I didn’t have many readers (or suggestions).
But one person suggested “Rosie,” and that’s what I decided to call her. It’s reminiscent of Rosie the Riveter and …
it’s a good match for her partner, Roger.
Rosie and Roger.