Jelly Marbles – Clear Spheres – Home Decor – Live Plants
Mamacita says: Those green marbles aren’t really marbles at all; they’re jelly marbles. Clear spheres. You’re looking at a clear glass vase that is about a foot tall. I put a pinch of water jelly crystals in it, and added water colored with green food coloring. As you can see, that tiny pinch of jelly crystals expanded to the top of the vase, and each crystal speck became a soft, squishy, perfectly round marble the size of a regular glass marble and composed almost entirely of water.
Remove a marble from the vase, and it won’t be green; it will be clear. It’s magic!
As long as the jelly marbles are kept hydrated, they’ll stay large and round. If I let them dry out, they’ll revert to their teeny, tiny form and will barely cover the bottom of the vase.
It was Christmas, so I stuck some candy canes in the vase. When I start bringing fresh flowers into the house, the jelly marbles will keep the flowers healthy far longer than plain water will. 
Now THESE jelly marbles are in a tightly sealed candy jar, so they will last pretty much forever. I like the look of this jar so much, I’m going to keep it out indefinitely. Notice how the green coloring has settled on the bottom of the jar? If I shake the jar, all of the marbles will be green, but I think I’ll keep it this way. I like its looks.
If you come over, though, I’ll give the jar a shake so you can see all the marbles turn green.
Later in the season, I’ll tell y’all how awesome jelly marbles are for gardening, and repotting plants. Seriously, I don’t know how I ever got along without them.
Oh, yes. I remember. Most of my plants died from lack of watering.
Not any more, though.
Jelly Marbles. They’re awesome in every way.
P.S. At Halloween, you can make ghosts with them.
Quotation Saturday: Fresh New Year = Fresh New Start
Mamacita says: Contrary to what many people are thinking, 2010 is NOT the first of a new decade; it’s the last of the old decade. Count on your fingers; I won’t tell on you.
Today is still the first day of the new year. Today is Fresh Start Day. Let’s all try to give ourselves, and each other, a break, shall we, and start fresh with things that need a fresh start.
1. If you have made mistakes, there is always another chance for you. You may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call ‘failure’ is not the falling down, but the staying down. — Mary Pickford
2. When faced with a challenge, look for a way, not a way out. –David Weatherford
3. Courage is about doing what you’re afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you’re scared. –Eddie Rickenbacker
4. One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but cannot be taken away unless it is surrendered. –Michael J. Fox
5. Above all, challenge yourself. You may well surprise yourself at what strengths you have, what you can accomplish. –Cecile Springer
6. It takes chances to make changes. –Danielle Ballentine
7. Excellence is the result of habitual integrity. –Lenny Bennett
8. Whenever you feel that something as simple as a smile or a kind act will go unnoticed, do it anyway. You never know how much it might change someone else’s life. –Erin Bishop
9. Square your shoulders to the world, be not the kind to quit; It’s not the load that weighs you down but the way you carry it. –Unknown
10. Don’t go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you nothing. It was here first. –Mark Twain
11. The biggest mistake you can make is continually fearing you will make one. –Unknown
12. If I were asked to give what I consider the most useful bit of advice for all humanity it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable part of life and when it comes, hold your head high, look it squarely in the eye and say, ‘I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.’ –Ann Landers
13. A true hero does what needs to be done and needs no other reason. –Unknown
14. We have all been placed on this earth to discover our own path, and we will never be happy if we live someone else’s idea of life. –James Van Praagh
15. The impossible is often untried. –Unknown
16. People whine, ‘I haven’t succeeded because I haven’t had the breaks.’ You create your own breaks. –Chuck Norris
17. Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical. Expect more than others think is possible. –Cadet maxim, West Point, New York
18. I have always tried to be true to myself, to pick those battles I felt were important. My ultimate responsibility is to myself. I could never be anything else. –Arthur Ashe
19. Make yourself a blessing to someone. Your kind smile or pat on the back just might pull someone back from the edge. –Carmelia Elliot
20. A successful life doesn’t require that we’ve done the best, but that we’ve done our best. –H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
21. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
–Henry David Thoreau
22. Live your life so that if someone says ‘Be yourself’ it’s good advice. –Robert Orben
23. Good manners will open doors that the best education cannot. –Clarence Thomas
24. Go the extra mile. It’s never crowded. — Anonymous
25. . . . isn’t it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet? — L.M. Montgomery
26. The beginning is always today. –Mary Shelley
27. Be willing to be a beginner every single morning. — Meister Eckhart
28. The human spirit is stronger than anything that can happen to it. — C.C. Scott
29. The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning. — Ivy Baker
30. Remember tonight.. for it is the beginning of always. — Unknown
Happy New Year 2010
Mamacita says:
Happy New Year to all of my Blogosphere friends.
We’ll be spending New Year’s Eve, as we have done for the past many, many years, with our best friends, playing euchre far into the night and talking about everything under the sun. It’s a mixed metaphor kind of evening: the very best kind.
I hope all of you are doing something lovely tonight, brand-new or traditional.
Traditions, remember, are lovely things, but important as it is to keep them, it’s equally important to create them.
Have fun tonight, and get home safely.
Tomorrow begins the taking down of all the Christmas things, so I’ll be sleeping in late and inventing tasks to put off the big task that I really don’t want to do.
I don’t really want to do laundry, either, but it’s better than removing the vestiges of the happiest time of all the year.
I might even clean the oven.
Nah.
