African Violets

Grocery store flowers get a bad rap, but when I saw these beauties for only $5 I had to snatch them up. Their boring plastic containers are hiding inside the (much prettier) ceramic pots. They've been in my kitchen for over a year, happily blooming - as long as I remember to water them. I sit in my favorite chair next to them every day with a cuppa coffee and a book - sometimes my sketchbook comes too.

Grandma frequently had African violets in her kitchen, too. These remind me of her, puttering about with her oven-singed wig and quick to offer her latest baked yummies. Sometimes when we'd be running errands she'd drive way out in the country to the violet whisperer - a farmer's wife who propagated and sold violets from her garage. I was very young and don't remember much, but I imagine every windowsill in her house was crowded with pots of flowers, violets on top of the washer and dryer, pots over every surface of her patient husband's workbench - all trying to catch what little sunlight the Michigan winters offered. A little sunlight makes me happy too!