I'm not a master gardener by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a bit of a green thumb and I enjoy getting out in the dirt and producing something that looks great or that can feed my family. However, there are some plants that give me fits. I can't grow celery to save my life. I don't have the space nor the patience to understand how corn grows (even though I live in Indiana) and I'm not in the mood to get a headache over some exotic variety...

Trees aren't my speciality either. 

So I must confess, I am a little amazed at how well my Earth Day tulip tree is doing. I picked up this tree (well, it was a stick at the time) at Indy's Earth Day Festival and I placed it in a bag of water until Mother's Day when I decided to take a chance and replace one of my trees that died in the drought with this little guy....I'm a little afraid of how well it's doing. Within no time the tree began to bud and bloom and it's grown faster than I ever thought possible. I mean, it's been my understanding that trees aren't easy. They can be deceptively beautiful and then turn on you. Yes, it's the state tree which means it "should" do well...but I "should" eat broccoli too and I don't, so why shouldn't a tree have a mind of its own? 

When I was a kid, I planted a pine tree that was promptly killed in a freak lawn mower accident and at one point I was determined to build Narnia in my yard with the seeds from those helicopter things that fall from the trees each spring. (Sadly, my mother wouldn't let me water the forest with the hose and my dream of living in the woods was over before the first sapling emerged from the Earth. Needless to say, I am thrilled with the current development and I am in hopes that my little guy can survive an Indiana winter and come out strong. 

It gives me a good feeling to think that I started this tree at such an early stage and that as it grows, perhaps I will be able to share the story of its planting with future generations....it just goes to show that sometimes, you have to "give trees a chance." 

My mother had one very simple rule around the house: Don’t make a mess.

All gifts had to be vetted for their mess potential and anything that could get into the carpet, stick to surfaces, or require a bath was vetoed. I was not allowed Play-Dough, clay, paint, Magic Sand, Silly Putty, and all bubble gum was rationed from a special cabinet. I had an Easy Bake Oven, a Snoopy Sno-Cone machine and a foot-powered blender that made Kool-Aid, but it was never a good day to use any of them.

People ask me why I don’t cook and the reason is very simple-my mother didn’t believe in cleaning up after me! I was not allowed to do anything more than open a can of corn, lick the bowl after she mixed a cake batter or get some juice from the fridge (depending on how full the pitcher was.)

Unfortunately, I was a kid who liked to make things and one day while watching some science show on Nickelodeon, they showed an easy recipe for a toothpaste alternative using ingredients found around the kitchen. Excited, I immediately went into the kitchen to gather up the baking soda, baking powder, and salt, which was located high above the stove and required a stool, two phone books and a coffee can to reach. (I’m telling you, the woman went to elaborate lengths to avoid messes.)

I happily emptied half of each container into a giant zip-lock bag, shook it up and took it into the bathroom to try out. When I was finished, I wrapped the whole thing in a yellow paper towel, hid it in my bottom desk drawer, put everything away and forgot about it.

A year later, my mother found it while conducting a mass cleaning of my bedroom on her day off. Let’s just say a two-pound bag of white powder in my bottom desk drawer was enough to give her a coronary. Gingerly she tasted it in hopes of discerning what exactly she’d found in her 11-year-old’s room but with no previous narcotics experience, she had no clue what “it” was supposed to taste like. She threw the whole thing into the trashcan, took out the garbage and prayed the police wouldn’t come knocking.

I swear it took her three hours to work up the courage to ask me what I had hidden in my drawer. Busted, I became flustered and offered up explanations that did little to help my cause.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it. I knew you would be mad if you thought I had been messing around with it.” I pleaded.

“Julie, for God’s sake, what IS it?” She demanded.

I will never forget the look on her face as she learned that I was the “tooth powder” Czar of the Eastside. I couldn’t tell if she was relieved that it wasn’t that “other” thing, if she didn’t believe me or if she was ticked off that I had been fooling around in the kitchen in the first place. “Well, I threw it out,” she declared, determined to have the last word in the argument. “That kind of thing might attract ants.”

“That’s OK,” I assured her. “Now that I have the recipe, I can always score some more.”