Blue Monday

Blue Monday

So, apparently it's "Blue Monday" today, according to A-Channel Morning (annoying people but I have a habit of watching it religiously every morning). It's supposed to be the most depressing day, and I can see why it might because it's smack in the middle of the colder season(s), the bills are piled up high after xmas, resolutions are starting to be broken, and tax time is looming... Lucky for us, it was also a nice sunny day, which put me in very good spirits, I don't have a lot of bills really left over, tax time is tax time, I try to pretend it doesn't exist until a week before the deadline, and the days are slowly but surely getting longer, which signifies an end to the cold (though it really hasn't been that cold). SO!! I have decided to start a new tradition for my 'Blue Monday', I'm going to buy myself a nice potted plant for my office on this day every year (if I remember) because I was very nicely rewarded today when I decided to take a trip to the grocery store on my lunch break and discovered the Gardenia. The lady in that section was attempting to unpack all the boxes of plants, and it caught my eye (so GREEN!) so I dove in there and grabbed this pretty little shrub with big white flowers on it. It's now sitting on my shelf over my computer, and every so often I get a whiff of it's beeeautiful perfumey scent and it makes me smile. :)

I also found this site today, which led me to discover the book (named the same) and I'm going to pick it up tonight: www.yougrowgirl.com. I'm starting to try to plan out a garden of shade-loving plants for this year, with some large herb containers on my sunny deck. I can clearly use all the help I can get and this book seems to be exactly what I need... :)

Hopefully tonight I'll also get time to write down a 'guide to not killing my houseplants' as it occurred to me that my plants are all looking sad (or dead altogether) and it's really due to my total negligance ( I don't even know what kinds of plants they all are). That'll go on my fridge and hopefully things will start picking up.

Oh, and an interesting thing I learned this weekend, while we're on the topic of plants, don't put plants in your bedroom! During the day, when there's light, they breathe in carbon dioxide and breathe out oxygen. Overnight, when it's dark, they do the opposite and breathe out carbon dioxide and IN oxygen! Not only that, but they're hard on anyone with asthma or allergies. I was surprised to learn all that when I've read so many articles in magazines that say 'want to purify your air? Grow plants in your home!'. I never would have guessed that my stocking up on plants, to help clean the air for Luc (who is an allergy AND asthma sufferer), would actually be hurting him.

Well, happy Blue Monday, go get yourself something green!!

xx