patriciastaylor

Plant of the Week – Catnip, Bringer of Cats

I love cats. Love ’em. Cats are the perfect combination of affectionate and aloof. I wish I could build a mansion with my own two hands just so I would have enough room for every cat that goes unwanted. What better way to attract those cats than a nice patch of catnip in the garden?…

Plant of the Week: Pecan, the Delicious

I love everything about pecans. The nuts, the tree itself, the wood that falls during a good storm, what pecans mean to me, everything! The title says pecans, but I actually want to praise the entire tree! The pecan nuts themselves are just so wonderful. Growing up in the South, pecans are a staple of…

Plant of the Week: Aloe, the Healer

As I sit here sipping on some delicious, pulpy aloe juice (I like pulp, so sue me), I can’t help but reminisce on the plant this delicious beverage comes from. I adore aloe. I’m the type of person who wants to own a lot of houseplants but can’t bring myself to spend the money to…

If You Live Somewhere With a Dollar Tree (or equivalent) and Dirt, You Can Become a Gardener For Less Than $2

I’m poor. I’m a gardener. I resent, I despise, I loathe the notion that getting into gardening is an expensive venture. How dare you? How dare you rob others of the idea that they can be a gardener just because of their financial state? I’m here to tell you the good news–the people who tell…

Plant of the Week: Morning Glories, the Shy and Mournful

I’m sure it’s clear by now, but I’m an introvert through and through. Perhaps that’s why I love morning glories so much–they, too, are introverted. I still remember the first time I saw a morning glory. I was young, no older than seven, when my dad showed them to me in our yard. I still…

Plant of the Week: Pumpkins, the Martyrs of Fall

This Halloween, I carved my first jack-o-lantern. Growing up religious, Halloween was forbidden, declared evil and dangerous and of the devil. Now that I’m finally able to celebrate it, my love for pumpkins has grown tenfold. Oh, sure, I liked pumpkins before, but I never had a connection with them until this year when my…

Extroverted? Here’s How to be Quiet and Reflective

AUTHOR’S NOTE: this entire piece was inspired by this tweet. Thank you @tomandlorenzo for this week’s article idea! Needing to be around other people must get tiring, especially during a worldwide pandemic that shows no signs of stopping. You’d better face it, bud–your introvert friends were right. There’s value to be found in staying at…

6 Reasons to Get in Shape (That Don’t Involve Your Looks or Your Health)

If you’re like me, “confidence” and “weight” being inseparably intertwined in weight loss bullshit makes you angrier than a cop politely asked to stop shooting minorities for sport. Yeah, I’m fat. I also like myself. I’m cute as hell and my artistic skills are better than yours. I also don’t give a shit about my…

Plant of the Week: Chamomile, the Nostalgic

I’m tired. You’re tired. We’re all tired and sad and miserable and exhausted and, if you’re not, you’re likely the type who would find themselves in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and think it was just a bad case of the flu. All I want to do is curl up in my bed and…

Plant of the Week: Love-Lies-Bleeding, the Hopeless

This will be one of the articles in which I cover a plant I aspire to know more about rather than one I already have personal experience with. Amaranthus Caudatus, Love-Lies-Bleeding, is an annual flowering plant in the amaranth family. This isn’t the interesting part of the plant, of course, but a little trivia never…

Plant of the Week: Corn, the Giver of Happiness

Let’s start the first in my new article series with a plant I’ve come to appreciate so much more ever since I started gardening: corn! I love corn. My love for the delicious, insanely useful veggie has followed me for my entire life. You don’t grow up in the South without corn and, if you…

My Unfiltered Thoughts on Anticipatory Grief, the Purgatory Between Life and Death

I won’t lie to you, this article won’t contain any empty platitudes or hollow sympathies. If you find any words of comfort here, know that they come from a place of sincere empathy, because my mother is dying, and I can’t stop it. This is anticipatory grief. Anticipatory grief isn’t the same as post-death grief.…

6 Gardening Tips For Beginners I Wish I’d Known

Is this the ideal time of year to blog about gardening? No. Will I anyway? Yes. Gardening has become part of my identity. I see it in my dreams. I buy seeds that I most definitely can’t use right now. I will wreck shop at the farmer’s market once the plague is over. I love…

The Value of Absurd Humor

I once heard it said that all comedy is derived from some form of misery. I wish I could deck the guy who said it, as that is not only a sadistic, but incredibly erroneous and harmful notion. It’s fitting that the guy himself was painfully unfunny. The type who believes himself to be on…

Cats: An Introvert’s Best Friend

Cats are, perhaps, some of the most misunderstood domesticated animals we currently have. From the stereotype of the Crazy Cat Lady to jokes about cat people being lonely to the tragic deaths of black cats at the hands of Pope Gregory IX, cats are, for the most part, seen as inferior to dogs at best…

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