Here’s a challenge for you: fill your days with something other than technology. Sure, I love it too, but think of how precious your day could be if you turned off your cell, your iPod, your televison, your computer, & just spent the entire days – all 24 hours of it – reading, playing, walking, or anything else you can think of that doesn’t involve some sort of electronic device.

It’ll be tougher than you think.

I’m going to try & take one day out of each weekend this summer to do this. I’ve made quite a summer reading list, & I think it’d be quite lovely to reach those goals. Board games, long walks, bike rides… sounds like a fantastic summer to me. My days will be packed – what about yours?

Yesterday, we covered the steps you should take before committing yourself to a plant – it’s important to do research & put time into the decision, rather than impulsively buying that pretty vine-y thing you’ve never heard of before! Only then can you guarantee you won’t be tossing your plant away after a few weeks. Plants take time, patience, & love if you want them to flourish!

Now let’s talk variety: you may think that starting simple = limited variety, but nothing could be further than the truth. Take a look at this looooong list of possibilities!

Consider creating a terrarium!
This article on HGTV.com takes you through all the steps to create this simple & elegant garden. While I was doing research for this article, I stumbled over these little guys, & I think I’m going to have to try this next. They can grow in virtually any glass container – wouldn’t this be just a great thing to keep on your desk at work? Your own little forest to remind you of what’s outside. How fun!

Flowering Plants: Sadly, as beautiful as flowers are, most of them thrive on full sun & are quite finicky – definitely not for the beginner. There are, however, a few great flowering plants you should feel free to try! Among them:

» peace lily
» clivia
» african violet
» dancing ladies (streptocarpella; not to be confused with the ‘dancing ladies’ orchid!
» kalanchoe

Succulents: Possibly the easiest things to grow! I have one happily growing on my desk right now, & two others at home. Give them a bit of sunshine, & lots of water during the summer, but otherwise, they’ll grow under just about any conditions! Take a look at all the fantastic-looking possibilities in this category:

» christmas cactus
» cacti (the possibilities are endless!)
» jade
» aloe vera
» hen & chicks
» haworthia

Foliage: The easiest & most plentiful of the “easy to grow/hard to kill” varieties of plants. There’s something here for everyone, & plenty to create a world of green about you!

» spider plant
» ferns
» arrowhead plant
» corn plant
» ivy

» lucky bamboo (actually a variety of corn!)
» rubber tree
» prayer plant
» ponytail palm (don’t water it too often!)
» wandering jew
» pothos

» janet craig
» fatsia
» snake plant
» screw pine
» philodendron

Herbs: A great, healthy way to season all your cooking &, surprisingly, many are easy to grow in a sunny window. According to HGTV, these are the easiest varieties to try:

» basil (essential to tomato & fresh basil salad!)
» thyme
» parsley
» rosemary
» oregano (you’ve never had tomato sauce until you’ve made it fresh with these herbs!)
» chives (fantastic when added to an omelet)
» mint (try it in your hot chocolate!)
» sage (nothing beats the fresh stuff!)
» garlic chives (a great alternative to growing true garlic!)

Check out that article for all the info on growing your own indoor herb garden!

& finally, Vegetables: If you have a south-facing window that gets plenty of sun, this may be an option for you! The Virginia Cooperative Extension has a great, keep-it-simple article on container vegetable gardening. They mention:

» carrots
» radishes
» lettuce (many varieties!)
» tomatoes
» peppers

It would be a bountiful summer indeed if you grow these! Enjoy the fruits of your labor, & be sure to have fun!

Does anyone have other ideas? Have you had easy luck with other varieties?

I firmly believe that everyone should surround themselves in Nature as much as possible – turning off the a/c & letting the breeze cool you, walking barefoot in the grass, & growing plants indoors & out. Those of us who are apartment-dwellers like myself are stuck with the indoor-only option, & as much as we’d like to grow vegetables on our windowsills, the windows we’re blessed with aren’t always conducive to that pesky process known as photosynthesis.

Some people, like my mother, have an amazing green thumb. Mine might as well be purple for all the poor plants I’ve killed over the years. But I LOVE plants, & each year I get a bit better. A few years ago I was able to grow an amazing shamrock, but when I moved I had to let it go, & passed it onto my mother. Since then, I’ve let my fear of killing green things get in the way of the simple pleasures of having plants in the house. I’ve let excuses like my lack-of green thumb get in the way, or telling myself that my kitties will just eat them. Maybe the sun is wrong in my apartment? Oh, I’ve come up with dozens of excuses.

No more, I say! This year is my year, & I’m determined to learn the right & proper way to grow plants indoors. Over the years, I’ve made the mistake of trying to do much at once. While it’s true that I once had an orchid who did magnificently in the window in which she was perched, that was mere chance – I honestly had no idea how to actually care for such a finicky plant, & eventually it too met an untimely end. I brought home a bonsai once, after visiting the Philadelphia Flower Show – & had made the same mistake so many beginning bonsai enthusiasts make: I picked the beautiful pink serissa, one of the most difficult to care for. As it rapidly declined & panickedly researched ways to save my new charge, I discovered that even those who are advanced bonsai gardeners often struggle to care for this little tree. It was doomed from the beginning. Someday I’ll try my hand at bonsai again, but not until I thoroughly research an easier variety for a beginner.

Over the next few days, I’ll share with you what I’ve learned from my mother, from experience, & from my own research. We can all make our lives a little more green!

Step One: Let go of all your exotic dreams
As I mentioned earlier, I jumped right into orchids & bonsai, two disciplines of gardening that take years of knowledge, skill, & patience to acquire. As with anything else, you should start simple. Once you master fern & vine, you can try your hand at more advanced techniques.

Tomorrow I’ll have a list of great beginner plants to choose from – & never fear, you’ll not be limited to African Violets & basic ferns, although those certainly are great options!

Step Two: Remember the number 635.965, & keep it holy
As a citizen of the planet, you have the ultimate tool at your disposable: your library card. 635.965 is the Dewey number for indoor gardening, & within those shelves you’ll find probably dozens of books oozing with information begging to be read. Do some research & make notes of what looks fantastic (& possible). You might be surprised at the possibilities, & the requirements needed for what you thought was a simple plant! Do you have the sun cover required for a healthy plant? What about room? The shamrock I talked about earlier started in a 4″ pot, but quickly grew into a 24″ pot. I was completely unprepared for that! Make sure none of the plants you purchase are potentially poisonous to any of your critters, & that you yourself are not allergic!

I would also check out the bargain section of your local bookstore – there’s usually at least one indoor gardening book for super cheap, & it’s always a good idea to have something on hand. Just make sure the book you purchase has the plants you intend to grow within its pages!

If you use the World Wide Web (which you should!), make sure the site is legit & not just an ad-driven oddity. Anything you search for these days comes up with at least a dozen sites that look they were created just so people will click on their ads. Places like Martha Stewart, HGTV, & other well-known institutions are probably the best places to look. There’s a reason you learned about information relevancy in school!

Another great place for information, at least in the US, is your local extension service – affiliated with your (land grant) state university’s College of Agriculture, they’ll have tons of expert advice available!

Step Three: Brush up on your networking skills
Besides doing all of the above, look into your local “people” experts. Is your uncle, mom, or cousin an avid gardener? Your co-worker? You might be surprised at the expertise available right in own neighborhood.

There are also many online forums for gardeners available – maybe you should check one out!

At any rate, I encourage you to make friends with a local expert of some sort. If you have a local greenhouse that you’re purchasing your plants from, they’ll probably be more than happy to help a beginner.

The bottom line is this: Enlist someone, anyone, so that when something starts going wrong, you can correct it before your dried-out plants ends up in the trash after two weeks!

Step Four: Purchase your plants!
When you’ve done your research & recruited help, it’s time to make your purchases. Support your local greenhouses if you can, but don’t feel bad if you end up getting your plants from a big warehouse like Lowe’s or Home Depot, or even someplace like K-Mart.

At the time of your purchase, be sure to get all the necessary supplies as well: pots (I suggest getting terra cotta, both for the aesthetic & because plastic is no good!), soil, plant food… anything your research turned up. Don’t shirk on anything – give your plants the best you can!

Step Five: Dig in!
Congratulations! You’ve made the commitment to be the best caretaker you can be to a living thing – no pressure or anything! :) Have a great time, & enjoy your new friends!

From Time: What Gen Y Really Wants

…along come the 76 million members of Generation Y. For these new 20-something workers, the line between work and home doesn’t really exist. They just want to spend their time in meaningful and useful ways, no matter where they are. They are in high demand… have high expectations for personal growth, even in entry-level jobs.

From USA Today: Generation Y: They’ve arrived at work with a new attitude

They want to work, but they don’t want work to be their life. [...] Unlike the generations that have gone before them, Gen Y has been pampered, nurtured and programmed with a slew of activities since they were toddlers, meaning they are both high-performance and high-maintenance…

“Generation Y is much less likely to respond to the traditional command-and-control type of management still popular in much of today’s workforce,” says Jordan Kaplan, an associate managerial science professor at Long Island University-Brooklyn in New York. “They’ve grown up questioning their parents, and now they’re questioning their employers. They don’t know how to shut up, which is great, but that’s aggravating to the 50-year-old manager who says, ‘Do it and do it now.’ “

On CNN: Generation Y: Too demanding at work?

Not too long ago, the generation gap meant parents didn’t understand why ripped jeans cost twice as much as regular ones or why every other word coming out of their child’s mouth was “like.”

Now the gap means employers don’t understand why twentysomethings straight out of college expect a high salary and lots of vacation time.

Eighty-seven percent of hiring managers and HR professionals say Gen Y exhibits a sense of entitlement that older generations don’t.

Thankfully, Entrepeneur Magazine ran an article de-bunking several of these myths, which was quite a relief to see. Among them:

Myth #1: They’re disloyal.
Bruce Tulgan, founder of Rainmaker Thinking and co-author of Managing Generation Y, argues the complete opposite. “They’re very loyal. It’s just not the kind of blind loyalty you get in a kingdom–blind loyalty to the hierarchy.” Gen Yers want to know they’ll be compensated fairly for the work they put in.

Gone are the days of working for a company for 30 to 40 years. In today’s environment, nobody trusts the system to take care of them long term. …millennials are acutely aware that nothing is a “sure thing.”

It’s definitely an article worth reading – there’s a lot more at the full post.

Here’s what I know about us*:
>> We grew up with computers, & aren’t afraid to talk openly online.

>> At some point, we all get burned because of it.

>> We volunteer.

>> We vote.

>> We grew up with video games. They really & truly haven’t made us any more violent.

>> We don’t understand why you won’t recycle, or hate the green movement.

>> We read. Books, magazines, blogs… trust me. We’re reading.

>> We’re really quite upset that a college education means so little these days. We got into a lot of debt to pay for it.

>> No, really: $20,000 or more college loan debt is pretty much the norm.

>> Even those of us who had a fantastic educational experience think the system needs an overhaul.

>> Athough we’re quite happy to live in the US, we get that Cold War policies aren’t viable any more.

>> We have ideas. We’d like you to hear them, even if you don’t use them.

>> We drink Starbucks because it’s delicious. We shop at Target because it’s pretty.

>> We eat a lot of whole & organic food because it’s healthier. Yeah, we know it’s a bit more expensive. We believe it’s worth it. This isn’t a fad.

>> We’d be ecstatic if the rest of you would open your eyes & care about the world at large.

I love this article, from the Christian Science Monitor, written by a fellow millennial:

Commentators often point to studies in which 20-somethings have admitted to – horror of horrors – believing in ourselves and our ability to accomplish great things.

And they insist that our fluency in all things technology means that we’re more concerned with updating our Facebook profiles than working hard.

Forget the uselessness of writing off an entire generation before its members have even had the chance to do anything with their lives; this underestimation has been happening since kids danced the Charleston, talked about flower-power, or listened to hip-hop. Using one label to describe millions of people from all types of socioeconomic and educational backgrounds is the kind of intellectual shorthand these same pundits are all too happy to ascribe to us millennials and say it comes from our warped attention spans.

…millennials haven’t necessarily had it as easy as everyone might think. [...] Studies by Demos and the Center for American Progress have suggested that the combination of declining incomes, growing debt, and high costs of education, home ownership, and healthcare are conspiring to make this generation the first to not surpass the living standards of their parents.

We have a lot of the same dreams as Generation X, the ‘Boomers, & The Greatest Generation. We want to own a home, have a great job, raise a family. But we’d like to do this without harming, & preferably helping, the world around us. We’re not lazy, or indulgent, or have a disturbingly high sense of entitlement. We’re just different, & see the world through different eyes.

& with the rapid changes going on right now, I’d think everyone would be looking for a fresh perspective. There’s a lot of work to do, & this is the generation that will see it through. We’re passionate, obsessive, adaptable. We live to laugh & try to cram as much as possible into everything. Yeah, we use weird abbreviations & demand the best of everything. We’re many things, including your new co-workers.

*Obviously, this isn’t all of us. But it is a lot of us.

Let’s face it. Dressing for work is complicated! Most of don’t work in the black power suit environment, & only the lucky few work in the fabled land of t-shirts & jeans. Most of us have dress codes that say “dressy casual” or other such nonsense – but what exactly does this mean? Khakis,polos, & button-down shirts are all well & good, but it can feel pretty stale & sad very quickly. We’re the generation that’s all about self-expression – so how can we move from Hot Topic shirts & ratty jeans into the work environment?

I personally find it difficult shopping for clothes that are appropriate, yet fun. Based on advertisements & what you see on television, you’d think offices welcomed spaghetti straps, low cut shirts, & short skirts. It’s a little ridiculous how many adorable camis are in my closet that I can’t wear to work.

I have yet to mention the cost factor. Few of us land jobs paying those magical high figures we hear about, & with the economy the way it is… yeah. Shopping for clothes can be all kinds of crazy expensive, & so few of us can afford to shop at “high end” stores. I tend to get a lot of basics, like solid colored stretch tees & camis, at Target or Old Navy – watch for sales. Target puts stuff on clearance on an almost daily basis, so be sure to scout the racks every time you go! The stuff I get at those stores tend to last one or two years, & then when I have to replace them, no harm no foul. I don’t feel like I’ve wasted a lot of money on easily replaceable things. I’ll get a couple higher priced things each season, but I take the advice of many a fashion guru before I buy: if I don’t truly love it or feel comfortable in it, I don’t get it. Having style is much less about what’s “in” than about what you feel incredible wearing. If you don’t feel that way, everyone knows.

Of course, balancing that with office appropriate can be a nightmare. I feel amazing in a cami & a pair of jeans, but I obviously can’t wear that to the library. I never imagined I’d be the person who only owns two pairs of jeans, but the truth is that I honestly don’t need more! I only get to wear them on the weekends & for a few hours each evening. These are the things they ought to prepare you for in college!

But the reality is this: once you’re out of college, the options for Gen Y can be quite limited. I’m certainly not Stacey of What Not to Wear, but these are some ideas I came up with, using mostly items from stores like Buckle, Kohl’s, Target, & Old Navy:

Click through to see prices & origins, although not a single item here is over $50. Most are under $30. Personally, I recommend wearing the camis that you can with sweaters throughout the winter, & then find yourself a fabulous shrug to wear with them when it’s warmer. A versatile, budget saving wardrobe can be worn through the entire year. Accessorize to your heart’s content, & always wear fantastic shoes.

Ta-da! Your baby boomer co-workers in their sweater sets & holiday-themed embroidery will be so jealous of your style that stays within dress code policies.