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National Houseplant Appreciation Day 2024

Today is National Houseplant Appreciation Day but I cannot claim to have a green thumb.

Scenic 🌲 Greenery

My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them. ~Mitch Hedberg

Kelly keeps some houseplants, but it’s not a passion for either of us. Some people are really into it, but cats and dogs are more fun.

We have a miniature forest out back, so that’s about all the houseplant we actually need. Our houseplants are 40-60′ high and are a variety of species.

We’ve got lovely conifers and deciduous giants looming over the back of our place pumping out lovely fresh oxygen. They also pump out acorns and loose twigs that thunder down on the house like a meteor shower at various parts of the year.

It’s one of our many blessings out here in the middle of nowhere. Lovely green grass. Scenic bushes out front. Kelly’s patch of seasonal flowers. Megaflora ’round back. Beautiful.

Helpful 🎍 Houseplants

5 Surprising Health Benefits of Indoor Plants

Mom had houseplants back in the day. I remember spider plants dangling from a suspended pot.

In our place, we’ve got one or two sitting around but Kelly’s attention is definitely more focused on the lovely displays out front.

Every once in a while, I hear an ad for an in-house garden. I think, “That would be cool, having veggies growing in the kitchen.” and that’s where it stays.

I don’t have time. I don’t have energy. I pretty much don’t have space. Maybe, if we ever get a bigger place, it’s something we’d give a try.

Honestly, I tried doing a vegetable garden at our place in Hamburg. The soil there was so awful that my “garden” turned into an enormous adobe brick.

Somehow, some squash did take root and grew a wealth of vines and flowers. Right when they were just about ready to pluck and eat, a species of bug that I’d never seen before, nor have I seen since, appeared from nowhere like a Biblical plague and ate the lot.

Yet another reason I don’t bother trying to do a home garden.

There are people who are good at this. They have lovely farm stands all around the county. I’ll do what I do and they can do what they do. Works for me.

Grateful 😌 For A ⛱️ Respite

The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude. ~Friedrich Nietzsche

So, after a bit of going back and forth, Carol’s Christmas has finally been tentatively approved for publication. 🙄 Hopefully, by Saturday, I’ll have an actual sales page link to share.

Once I have that last piece of the puzzle, everything will be done for this year’s Holiday Season Serial Romance. After that, I can fully engage in my ❄️ long Winter‘s nap ❄️.

Kelly and I did get some couch time together to binge episodes 2-6 of Reacher. That was fun and cozy.

I’m looking forward to more together time with Kelly while I recuperate from writing / formatting / publishing.

In the meantime, things are getting back to a less fevered pitch at work. I’m trying to catch up, and I have some reasonable hope of doing so.

That’s also rather restful. We’re still busy and we have a bunch of new clients who want to pursue aggressive targets, but it seems more manageable than the last few months.

As I said, I’m taking some down time on the writing side of things. I need to let my subconscious spin some narrative webs for me.

For the time being, I’m in consumption mode. I’m catching up on shows and movies I’ve wanted to see. I’m catching up on instructional videos. I’m catching up on historical videos.

I’m catching up. It’s only the second week of the year and I’m just catching up by slowing down. What was supposed to be my chill season wound up being quite harried.

I’m not happy about that. I’ll need to keep an eye on that this year, because I can’t afford that sort of cognitive dissonance. My hygge seasons are supposed to be restful.

Pumpkin 🎃 Spice and Christmastime are supposed to be my happy place. I wasn’t so happy. I don’t appreciate that.