Spoiler alert – if you know me at all by now, you will know that this will not be a legitimate tutorial.

I sat on my couch yesterday morning feeling adrift. Normally I have appointments or music lessons on Saturday, but today I had…nothing. I’d been working hard all week, putting in long hours for the multiple deadlines I was juggling. Clearly I deserved to rest this morning, right? Did I want to sit on my couch and watch TV?

No.

Did I want to practice violin or drums?

Of course not.

Did I want to clean the house?

Not yet.

As I sat on the couch, feeling more self-loathing and restlessness, I thought about the hanging pots I’d purchased on Amazon. They’d been sitting on the table since Tuesday. It was 11:30 AM, a typical late morning in Texas for August – already 89 degrees outside, and with a heat index of 97. NOW. CLEARLY NOW WAS THE TIME TO GET THESE HANGING POTS OUTSIDE. I got off the couch and walked over to the mess sitting on my dining room table.

I had tried putting the handles on the pots after receiving the package Tuesday night. I was exhausted, having arrived home from evening orchestra rehearsal and trying to fight off a headache from an ill-advised attempt to switch to decaf coffee. I put one handle on before calling it quits, leaving the pots on the table for the next four days. As I picked up the pots now, I realized that I’d initially put the first handle on incorrectly. It’s supposed to look like this:

EXCEEDINGLY AVERAGE PERCEPTUAL REASONING SKILLS, LET’S GO.

After getting all the handles correctly on the pots, I took them outside. I looked at the work ahead of me. I had flowers in various stages of life – some reluctantly blossoming in the heat, others clinging to life with yellowing leaves that were the direct result of my inability to water them with any coherent frequency.

I mean. I LIKE PLANTS. I do. But I also don’t care to do that much research on their care and feeding? I just want to water them maybe once a week and watch them flourish on their own with very little human intervention, OKAY? I’ve since realized that the outdoor plants have to be watered at least every day in a Texas summer if I don’t want them to be shriveling husks of their former selves.

Also, storytime – do you see the plant directly to the north of the hanging pots? That was initially a flowering plant that died and something started growing back in its place – but I haven’t seen any blossoms. At this point I’m almost certain that I’ve been watering a weed. I guess I could easily take a photo and look it up on Google. But the mystery is also fun, if that makes sense? Like, MAYBE I HAVEN’T BEEN WATERING A WEED THIS ENTIRE TIME AND IT WILL ONE DAY ERUPT INTO FLOWERS.

Maybe.

Probably not.

It’s probably a weed.

Anyway.

I spent about ten minutes repotting my flowers, using my hands since I couldn’t find my hand trowel. At first I couldn’t get the hanging pots to hang properly on the deck wall. Oh no! I thought about it, then tried to widen the handles a bit. That worked! SOMETIMES MY PERCEPTUAL REASONING SKILLS WORK OKAY. I stepped back to admire my work, sweaty but proud.

That’s it! All this work and I could only use three of the pots. BUT, BUT. I did repot the ones that are sitting on the deck and I watered them. THERE IS TANGIBLE PROGRESS. THAT SIDE OF THE DECK ACTUALLY LOOKS KIND OF PUT TOGETHER.

Will I remember to water them?* Will I buy more plants?** STAY TUNED.

*Probably not until they are shriveling husks.
** Of course.