Resurrection Plant Rose of Jericho Dinosaur Plant

This plant pictured above is in a teacup. It's a very small plant compared to most of the plants I have (although the smaller ones would be great for doll houses, in my opinion!)

Resurrection Plant or Rose of Jericho

Selaginella pilifera also known as the Resurrection flower, is a desert plant growing in the sands of Egypt, Arabia, Syria and Mexico. For long periods, these 'roses' live in desert regions, growing and reproducing as any other plant until the environment no longer supports an adequate existence. When this time comes, the flowers and leaves are dead and fallen, they lose moisture and the drying branches curl inwards, forming a round ball.They retract their roots from the soil and allow the desert winds to carry them across the desert, until one day they arrive in a damp place where they can continue to grow and spread.

The ball then expands again, opens flat on the ground and deposits its seeds, which germinate. Once watered, the dried-up looking young plants soon begin to bud. You could say they feel their way through this process,
as they don't necessarily remain in the first place they stop, but feel into the nature of the place to see if it is adequate to enhance growth. There they may stay, and grow, or indeed they may move again many times.

This amazing little resurrection plant is often sold as a novelty due its incredible ability to turn from a dry ball to a lush looking plant ove night when placed in a dish of water. These plants have used this ability to survive since prehistoric times.Therefore another common name given to them is "the dinosaur plant." Great for show and tell, too, as every kid is amazed at watching one of these wonders of nature unfold and seemingly come to life again.

You can buy a plant at Resurrection Plants for Sale

Garden Full Speed Ahead!

This year's garden incorporates vegetables, flowers, herbs in mixed plantings. Delightful to the eyes and senses, mixed plantings also work well for beneficial insects. While you might think we lived in the country from this picture, we actually live in the middle of town. In the far back of the picture is a stand of wild lettuce, burdock, yellow dock and thistle. Wild lettuce can be calming as part of a tea. Burdock is used both as a vegetable (the root), and medicinal herb (root and seeds). Yellow dock is used for food and as an herb. Thistle (all kinds) are supportive of liver function.

It's always amazing to me how slowly a garden seems to take shape, and then it's like it is on a race track, speeding forward with incredible growth. First pictured above is the catmint/echinacea patch in early Spring. The next picture was taken about a week ago in July. The spiked purple flowers to the right are a Russian Sage plant that I thought I was going to kill last year, as I kept accidentally digging up the little start. Now established, it will probably keep up with the cat mint and start to spread next year.




While I do not welcome the green cabbage worms on my red cabbage plants, my son and I celebrate seeing the yellow swallowtail butterfly caterpillars (and others) on my dill plants. The Umbelliferal family seems to appeal best to them. And our echinacea sp. patch, along with flowering catmip, flowering Russian sage, flowering oregano, garden sage and (somewhere in the mix) lavender appeal to many beneficial insects.

Spirit of Monticello Grand Opening Party

Just a short note to let you know I will be reading cards (five minute readings) from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at The Spirit of Monticello shop in Monticello, Il on Friday evening, July 18.

It's a very nice shop with funky & fun t-shirts, shoes, jewelry, hats, soaps and lots of other stuff. Marie opened the shop a couple of months ago but this is the party to celebrate its opening.

The shop is on the square in downtown Monticello, on a corner. Call them at 217-762-7747.
Whether or not you can make it down on Friday evening, swing by and check them out even if it's when I'm not there. The party continues on Saturday (but I won't be there to say "hi").

Catherine
Botanicals from Wise Weeds

Deciphering Destiny at The Buzz

In the news, again.
What fun!

A week and a half ago, Bruce Harrington showed up at Carmon's, the restaurant in downtown Champaign where I do tarot readings on Tuesday evenings.

I enjoyed our interview. The article presents the basics very straightforwardly...One note, though, the printed version (and today's online version, although it will eventually be corrected) mixed up one thing...I do ten-minute readings for $15 at Carmon's.


Deciphering destiny
Tarot card readings offer insight to life’s unanswerable questions
4:00 am Jul 17 - by Bruce Harrington – buzz Writer

If you’re tired of relying on your daily horoscope, and your fortune cookies just aren’t cutting it, a one-on-one with a professional tarot card reader might be the answer to discovering your destiny.

Every Tuesday from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m., Catherine Novak of Beads N Botanicals in Hoopeston, Ill., can be found at Carmon’s, 415 N. Neil St. Novak, a professional Tarot Card reader, uses the cards and her intuition to give people insight into their lives.

For the complete
article check here.

Deciphering Destiny

Catherine
Tarot Readings by Phone


http://the217.com/articles/view/deciphering_destiny

The $10,000 per month Psychic

By the way, I am NOT Laura Day, but I am for hire! Seriously.
Watch the video. I like that she won't do parlor tricks!

Many people don't understand that intuitive counseling is not a precise science. It's unlikely that any psychic is going to peg events, trends, occurrences one hundred percent. There are too many variables.

On the other hand, listening to one's intuition can definitely move the odds in one's favor.

Catherine

The $10,000-a-Month Psychic

When business people need a crystal ball, they turn to consultant Laura Day, the 'intuitionist.'
Tony Dokoupil
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 1:29 PM ET Jun 21, 2008

When Seagate Technology, the $11 billion-a-year maker of hard drives for the Playstation 3 and Microsoft Xbox, went searching for a consultant to run one of its management workshops in the fall of 2006, it bypassed the usual list of Silicon Valley gurus. Instead, Seagate's executive director of software engineering, Gabriel Lawson, invited Laura Day—a stylish New Yorker with no tech experience—to train his Colorado-based team. "She was amazing," Lawson tells NEWSWEEK, recalling Day's quick insights into the poor coordination between the company's research and marketing teams. "Anybody who can afford her will get 100 times their money's worth." What exactly is Day's expertise? While she likes to downplay it as mere "intuition," her clients prefer another explanation: she's a psychic.

Day's feel for the unknown has become a hot commodity among certain high-profile business people...

For the complete
article check here.

The $10,000-a-Month Psychic

Catherine
Tarot Readings by Phone

http://www.newsweek.com/id/142632/page/1

MRSA is not the only bacterium resistant to antibiotics

Just yesterday I attended a teleconference by David Winston on the subject
of MRSA and Bacterial MDR and how certain herbs and essential oils may be the
solution to the growing problem of infections resistant to antibiotics.
According to the CDC, hospital-associated infections affect nearly 2 million patients
and contribute to nearly 100,000 deaths each year.

I’ll talk more about information that David shared in future blogs as well as some of my experiences in working with clients and customers.

In the meantime, I thought the following article was particularly timely.

A bad germ gets worse
C. diff’ rivals MRSA as the next deadly bacteria
threat, experts say

By JoNel Aleccia, Health
writer, MSNBC

Amy Warren had never heard of the germ that made her so miserable.

In January 2005, weeks after giving birth to her daughter, the Ohio
mother of two knew only that she was in pain, suffering cramping so
severe she felt like she was still in labor. Then came the diarrhea,
uncontrollable bouts up to 50 times a day, which left Warren
weak and raw and stranded in her Maineville home.

"I was so sick; I thought I had colon cancer and was dying," Warren recalled.

Three tests failed to detect the source of her intestinal trouble. A fourth, however, confirmed Warren as part of a toxic trend: She was among growing numbers of people sickened by an
especially virulent form of the bacterial infection Clostridium difficile, known as C.
diff.

Doctors told Warren she’d contracted the NAP1 type of the bacteria, a mutated version that
produces roughly 20 times the toxins responsible for illnesses ranging from
simple diarrhea to blood poisoning — and death.

For the complete
article check here.

Bad Germ Getting Worse

Closing of Danville's Hobby Lobby Silver Lining for Hoopeston Businesses

I was looking around for some other info and found this article online.

Apparently our local weekly paper is posting more articles on line
nowadays, which is great.

This article is about Danville's Hobby Lobby closing and how Hoopeston
has a lot of shops that can fill the gap.

The upcoming closing of Danville's Hobby Lobby craft and home décor store has local crafters in a panic. However, local businesses in Hoopeston are stepping up to fill the gap.

Beads N Botanical's owner, Catherine Novak, says, "I've been hearing that a lot of people are very upset about Hobby Lobby's closing. Most of them haven't realized that several Hoopeston businesses carry the crafting and home décor items that they need."

"For instance, at my shop, we offer a nice selection of charms, seed beads, semi-precious stones, sterling silver beads, sterling silver wire supplies, Swarovski  crystals, jewelry, herbs, herbal products, handmade incense, more than 200 fragrance and essential oils, reed diffusers, origami and other crafting supplies. Plus, I will always special order items not in stock."

Novak adds, "Anyone looking to learn how to make jewelry can take one of our basic classes in making earrings, bracelets, necklaces, or wire wrapped pendants."

While Novak teaches many of the classes herself, an upcoming class on making dream catchers, on Saturday, March 29, will be taught by Woodland's Marlita, also known as Rainbow Buffalo.

BTW, I was the one who submitted this article, although the Chronicle staff included information on corporately held stores, not just the small businesses that I had listed. Just the Facts printed
this article, but only keeps up links for a week.

Chronicle
News Article

Not sure if any other newspapers put this out.