Saturday Morning.

I haven't written in a while and that, I suppose, is because life gets busy, but this morning I had an adventure that could have died before it started.

My alarm woke these old bones up much too early for a Saturday - seven in the morning really is too early for a weekend - and I ever so slowly got ready for what I thought was a brilliant plan last night. I was going to see the local farmers market! That's right, our fine suburbian city has a farmers market ranked number one by some agricultural magazine or another (which, if we're being honest, are never quite reliable are they?), and I was determined to see it in full swing. I hopped in my car at eight o'clock and drove the few minutes to the designated downtown area, anticipation flowing out of my eardrums for what great finds I would score at the market. I pulled up to the corner of 2nd Street and 3rd Street, and saw 87.5% of the stalls closing down for the day.

That's such a specific percentage, Anna, you say. Well, that's because I could count how many little white tents there were, and seven of the eight were shutting down their business. And when I say little white tents, I mean a two-person (maybe four if they were all standing), six foot by six foot canopy over where I assume there used to be a table, but that's always the first to go in the cleanup process. I squinted over to where the last stall remained and I saw something resembling potatoes or onions. On the one hand, I could score a great deal on a sack of potatoes; on the other hand, the only other resident at our house does not share the same delight I do for a light and fluffy vat of mashed potatoes.

So I whipped out the old iPhone and picked a thrift shop nearby. I followed the directions, walked right up to the front door, then saw the sign that read Open: 10AM - 10PM. A-ha. It is still somewhere between eight and lunchtime. I got back in the car and looked up the nearest park. At least I could breathe in the fresh air while taking a lap around a piece of greenery. I "arrive" at my destination only to find out that there is no parking. I'm on what feels like a one-way street, sort of pulled off to the side, next to a creepily vacant playground desperately making pincer motions on my phone to figure out where I should go. I accidentally zoom out way too far, and up pops the name of a garden nursery just off the highway I drive going home every day from work. Every time I fly by I wonder What is in that beautiful glass house? I make the seemingly short trek out to this nursery and spend the better part of two hours walking amongst the greenery.

Can I just say that there is a certain level of inner peace achieved while walking through a plant shop? For me, it's like walking through the Adopt Me aisle at the pet store, where each living thing just wants some food and water, shelter, and someone to take care of it. Except obviously nothing at this place had eyeballs or claws or would accidentally on purpose wake you up in the middle of the night. This was a fairly large establishment, and while I did choose to skip the solely outdoors plants, I feel like I saw a bit of everything.

I should mention that I've been thinking about getting another indoors plant ever since I read a couple of articles detailing the best air purifying plants to have in your house. Each article has a few core species mixed with a few the writer is partial for, but they are all based on the absolute science NASA produced quite a number of years ago. While the article is informative, a search for air purifying houseplants is a bit more cut-to-the-chase. In most of the lists, there appears a plant called the Snake Plant, or Mother-In-Law's Tongue, which at first I did not like but is apparently growing on me.

To the left you can see a second variety, without the pinstripe yellow. 

I would have bought it and left, but I need some sort of outer vessel to put it in and a place to put it, which I believe warrants a sort of buffet table in the living room or near the dining room window.

I rummaged through the herb species for the better part of an hour (I now believe they have one of everything, and an entire section for types of lavender I feel proves that), and came across some wildly aromatic species that I must have. However, if you know my record for keeping plants at all, you know that I have managed to kill a bowl of succulents, two cucumbers, a tomato plant, a tray of chives, two varieties of cilantro, a gorgeous basil plant that ended up growing woody, and a golden oregano plant. The only plant I have managed to keep alive and will forever do so is a golden pothos given to me by my exceptional mother-in-law who has taken care of it for at least eight or ten years, possibly longer. Now, imagine the look on my husband's face when I said I wanted to grow some herbs again.

The two species I absolutely fell in love with were these: a type of mint called Strawberry Mint (the leaves smelled like the best blend of juicy strawberry and subtle mint - like the world's most organic strawberry mint jellybean) and the forever elusive Thai Basil (one whiff and I am transported back to the little Thai restaurant near my parents' house that serves the most amazing Panang Chicken and Summer Rolls).  To round out the hypothetical trio of herbs I will hypothetically be putting in a large planter pot (and for goodness sakes with drainage holes, how much rain have we had this year?) I think I'll go with some regular variety of cilantro, seeing as how that's the one herb I buy the most.. I am getting hungry just thinking of everything I could make with those four.  My own summer rolls, some simple iced strawberry mint mojitos, carnitas tacos.

I wanted to buy at least four other plants that I don't remember the names of but were of the indoor shade houseplant variety. Our house faces south, without a lot of windows on the east side, so my best bet for growing indoors would be a hardy shade tolerant species. I think I'll start out slow, then gradually add on until I become the crazy plant lady.