Confession time. I did not, in fact, complete my great project for 2022. I got super stinking close, but did not cross the finish line in time. I donated 335 items over the course of the year. I never went back and pulled out another 30 before New Years. I intend to complete it soon, even if I blew the deadline. I just ran out of things in the house I wanted to purge, and I never pulled boxes from the garage in to sort while we were leading up to the holidays and I was taking care of grandbabies.
It's okay, though. I'm not mad. I've decided a little delay is in my best interests, because it is keeping me from going back to those same thrift stores where I would be donating, looking for things to use in my new plant obsession. I've already pulled out a few decorative items that I wasn't ready to part with, and found new purposes for them, such as the hanging lantern now housing air plants, and the other lantern that is destined to be a terrarium, once I have studied more on what goes in them.
This is all in service of my twin goals for 2023, as it turns out. This year's grand project will be first to use things I already own, whether that is decorative items, toiletries, craft supplies, or food. Second, I'm planning on getting rid of straight up trash. I have years' worth of medical bills and similar papers that have account numbers or other personal information on them, and I have been meaning to shred them. One way or another, shredding or burning or whatever, I'm going to declutter that sort of thing. There is also a wealth of hard to recycle junk sitting around here, taking up space and collecting dust. All of it needs to go.
After weeks and weeks of agonizing over how to put some of my plants up on moss poles, and deciding I would create them out of burlap and coco coir chips, I finally made good on my intentions today. I cut out a piece of burlap and sewed it into a tube. I pried off hunks of a compressed block of coconut chips, and rehydrated enough to pack the burlap sock full. I wrapped it once with twine, and then again to tie it to the metal plant support that had been loosely attached to my Little Apple philodendron. This is where I realized my error. A large summer sausage sized tube of wet coco chips weighs more than the entire philodendron plus pot plus soil. I needed a way to keep it upright.
As I sat and wondered what I could put it in that would be heavy enough to support it, Mr S-P made a pointed remark about the pots from last summer, many of which were tucked away on the north side of the house. I was working up the courage to brave the snow to get one, when my eyes landed on a big pot still sitting on the porch. I grabbed it, emptied out the dried up plants from warmer days, and set the philodendron--pot, stake, and all--inside of it. It needed more support, so I went to one of those cluttered corners where hard to recycle junk was stuffed, and grabbed a length of bubble wrap. It wasn't a beautiful solution, but it was an effective one. Plus it hit both of my goals, use what I have and get rid of trash. Win-win!
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