Iceplant Photo Parade And Reality In The Neighborhood

10 days ago I had a post, in which I showed you my iceplant, or iceflower as we call it. You can check the photos, here. Those were still in the bud phase and I said two weeks are needed for them to open.

I've been away for the weekend and today when I returned home, I saw the flowers are open, so I didn't want to miss the occasion as I don't know for how long the flowers can last. I have these flowers for years and shame on me, I know very little about them.

This is how the flower looks like when it is open. It's not an usual flower, with nice and textured petals and here the petals are extremely tiny, imagine 3mm long petals. Yes, I forgot to mention, these are macro photos.

On this photo there are unopened buds, half opened buds and fully opened flowers.

A new discovery I made today is that those red bubbles are turning yellow or green in time. I had no idea about this till today. This is how inattentive I am and as I said, I have this flower for years.

This photo is better, you can see the details better here.

Reality In The Neighborhood

It's very difficult for me right now to write about flowers, but I've tried. It's the time to show you this beauty as it's not a usual flower and I bet a lot of you have never seen such a flower.

After coming home today I wanted to check the news as this weekend was a family event and was no time for news. What I saw made me worry. Looks like things in Ukraine is getting worse. Kyiv is attacked again and so are other parts of the country. It's been 8 months already and this madness doesn't seem to end. Looks like Russia has adopted a new strategy. I contacted @zirochka, to see how she is as I was worried about her.

Winter is coming and it's going to be tough for everyone, one way or another. Those living in the war zone will have to endure not only the danger, but the cold too. Others living outside the war zone are going to face economical difficulties as prices are surging.

Going shopping and seeing the prices is a wake up call every day. No one can see the future, but I am suspecting this is just the beginning. The financial crisis that is coming will last for years, maybe decades, so having a strategy and trying to avoid bankruptcy is most likely the smartest idea.

Last night I was dead tired and yet I tried to curate as I do every single day. While browsing through the posts, I saw one that was full of complaints. The poster is a well known complainer, who most likely feels good when they can complain. My first reaction was something like: "Dear God, this person has nothing better to do than to complain all day, every day." I know how difficult is to deal with a person like that as it brings a lot of negativity in everyone's life. Unfortunately there are many who are like that, complaining all the time and only feel better when people feel sorry for them. I'm not one of them, you're not gonna see me complaining day in, day out, however, today I felt like saying something.

My plan is to stay positive and use my knowledge to preserve my capital, as well as help others in need. It's not an easy job, but who said life is easy?

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