Summer of Bravery: Going Green

For some absurd reason, I keep thinking "this summer will be the summer before I grow up" (as if that's ever going to happen) and this summer is no different in that sense, and yet it is. Sitting on a plane back from my first real scholarly conference, I made the decision that I'm going to start living the life that I always imagined would start when I was done with school. But since there's the possibility that I'll be in school for sometime, why not start now by making it a theme for the summer? I liked the title "summer of bravery," but my friend Dave said it was more like the summer of responsibility. I rejected his title and decided to keep bravery. Make first decision of the summer. Check. While I have quite a few new things I'm implementing into my life this summer which will surely mean more blog posts, I'll ease myself  (and you dear reader) into this summer with my experiment with growing plants.

I don't know why I never bought a plant for my apartment before, but this last school year we had a bamboo sprout named Mussolini (I don't know why we named him after a fascist) and I really enjoyed looking after him and to have some green in the house during the winter. So if a little green is good, more is better, right? Well, that's my logic for this summer break.  I'm going to try to take care of some plants this summer and hopefully keep them going through the winter.

The first plant I bought was another bamboo because Mussolini went with another roommate. Trying to find a bamboo plant I liked was actually much harder than I expected. I almost gave up and bought an orchid, but after talking to the garden specialist at Lowe's, I decided that an orchid would be more work than it was worth. Luckily, I found this lucky bamboo plant. Of course I had to name her, it, whatever, and that was much easier than finding the plant. I guess I like to name bamboos after less than savory characters because I named her Eris, the Greek goddess of strife. However, she earned the name, having spilled a good amount of water on me while I getting her into and out of my car. Also, I'm the kind of person who talks to plants if you haven't guessed.

The other plant is actually three: a geranium and two ivy-type plants. If plants have personalities, this one is a sweetheart. I've had to bring the poor thing in twice already because of snow and the cold. The jury's still out on a name. My roommate suggested Betsy, but I just had a semester of 1950s housewife characters named Betsy or Betty. Still, an old-fashioned name seems fitting. I'm considering Geraldine because I keep calling it Gerry anyway.

These two are serving as my pets because I just don't have the room or money for a dog and so far, I quite like them.

Sidenote: I know I'm not growing these, but the lilacs are starting to bloom and that makes me all sorts of happy.