We all have our problems

The project for the day is to haul the rest of the plants in. Most of them are already in their winter homes thanks to the great weather last week. The big aloe and her babies are on the porch swing. I am going to try root pruning the mama plant. It keeps trying to escape. First I have to scrounge up pots for the babies before doing anything drastic.

The night-blooming Cereus are in full bloom. I want to leave them outside as long as possible. The flowers are as stinky as they are beautiful. Unfortunately the rest of the plant is unattractive and has a tendency to reach out and grab anything that gets within its reach.

Every year I buy a few new pots. I have no idea what happens to them. I don’t give them away, nor do they end up in the trash. They simply disappear. I have checked all the places where the pots should be but there are no pots to be found.

I swear that my next house will have a dedicated space for all these plants and pots. As I have no intention of moving any time soon, the plants will simply have to fight it out on their own.

Relocating plants is one of the things I do to celebrate the changing of the seasons. Some people decorate for upcoming holidays. Some people go on major cleaning sprees so that their house is ready for any company they are expecting. Me, I grumble about not having room for the houseplants that had the audacity to grow over the summer.

My sister-in-law just had surgery on her ankle and foot. Her problems are far worse than my pot dilemma. I have noticed that any surgery on that area of the body takes forever to heal. Her doctor told her that the surgery went well and she was to wear a boot to make the recovery easier. Here’s hoping that the surgery fixes her problem and that she doesn’t have to wear the boot for any longer than necessary.

One of her granddaughters has stated that she doesn’t like the boot her grandmother wears. She doesn’t ask her to remove it. She simply lets everyone know that she doesn’t like it. The last picture I saw of the child she had an adorable gap-toothed grin and was as cute as ever. She also was wearing a cast on her arm because she broke it. I haven’t heard if she dislikes the cast as much as she disapproves of her grandmother’s boot.

Both of them have far more problems than my missing pots.

Sometimes we all need to put things in perspective. Once we compare our problems with other people’s problems we may realize that we are the lucky ones. I had a broken arm when I was in fourth grade. I tripped over a boy and banged my arm on the reinforced edge of a marble step. I ended up with a cast much like the one adorning the child in the above paragraphs. I remember that it itched like crazy. I do not envy her at all.

The point is that we all have problems. Some are trivial, like what I share with you. Some are serious and are far worse than we imagine.  We can never truly know the extent of what goes on in someone else’s life.

The only thing I know for sure is that my sister-in-law’s granddaughter doesn’t like her boot.