A follow-up on my green thumbs

Green thumbs? Not this girl. I really tried. I had a couple of plants, and tried so hard to keep them alive. (Click HERE for part 1 of this story.) My prayer plant lasted a few months, and then it began to deteriorate. I watered less, I watered more. I moved it to another room where the sunlight hit it in the morning instead of the afternoon. I loved that plant and its green patent-leather-looking leaves with purple undersides.

However, no one told me that "root rot" existed until it was too late. Root rot? Who has ever heard of root rot? To quote Wikipedia, "it is usually lethal, and there is no effective treatment." No one told me to take it out of that basket thing where it could drain. My uncle did tell me not to overwater it, but when it started to die, I thought maybe I didn't water enough. Wrong. I watered too much, and it couldn't drain, and my roots were rotting, so I hastened the plant's death by watering more. Not watering my dying plant was just too counterintuitive for my black thumbs, and I couldn't resist the urge to water. Ahh! So I drowned the prayer plant. RIP.

That gerbera daisy only lasted one season, but I don't think they're the kind of plant that lasts for years. As if I really know. That's what I'm telling myself anyway.

However, my aloe plant LIVES ON! Not only has it survived, it has multiplied! I need to get a bigger pot. So this post was not actually intended as an obituary to my plants, but to share the excitement of using my aloe plant.

Recently, I was cooking dinner, and I took a pot out of the oven. I set it on the stove, and I left the kitchen for a minute. I returned. Apparently the oven mitts lying next to my fresh-out-of-the-oven pot did not serve as an adequate reminder that the pot was fresh-out-of-the-oven hot. I grabbed the lid with my bare hand. I'm glad my mother wasn't in the room. I lost my religion for a second.

I remembered my aloe plant. I broke a piece of it off and held the gooey goodness to my finger. I wasn't impressed, so I put it in the freezer for a minute. Ice cold gooey aloe. From my very own plant! It was a little silver lining in having burned flesh. It almost made me feel better. My finger pain went from a 9 to an 8. Maybe a 7.5. I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Anytime I do anything remotely self-sufficient (which is not often), I think of Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a child, I wanted to be her. Including living in a dugout by a creek. But that's beside the point. I grew something and used it!

Anyway, I got a little thrill out of using my aloe plant. It lives. It has purpose. If you get burned, you know who to call.

And just because you read this ridiculously long post about my plants, dead and alive, you certainly deserve something a little more amusing.

Tomorrow's Friday! Hallelujah!