Sunday, August 8, 2010

Fallow Garden

This has been a resting year for my garden. Not by plan, but events in my life have made it so.

It seems gardens take a hit when life gets busy. I thought this year would be my best garden year ever since my beds were made ready to plant last fall, but it was not to be.

I have found that raised beds even with a soil-less mix and ground cloth will still grow weeds, since weed seeds are also airborne. And expensive rubber mulch  over groundcloth cannot keep out these tenacious plants. My garden is overgrown with weeds! I reclaimed one bed this morning before it got too hot to work. I will keep working until the beds are back in shape but it will take time.

This has been a year of big changes. My daughter had a baby boy. My husband was unemployed for six months. He found a job at the company where I work through connections his director had with the director at his new job. My position at work was "eliminated" the third day of my husband's new employment. I found a new position within a week within the company. My husband and I are learning completely new software modules at work. He supports PeopleSoft and I have returned to consulting in a whole new area. We had both been subject matter experts and go to people in our previous roles. It's hard being a rookie again, but very good to have a job. Having a job is a good thing in these hard economic times.

In April, the week after Easter, my mother had a stroke. For two months I was traveling every other weekend to see her. My brother traveled on the opposite weekends and  my sister lives in town. Between the three of us we made sure she had family with her most of the time.

My mother passed away at the end of June from congestive heart failure. Grief is hard, but with everything else going on I have to keep going on. I took three days bereavement which allowed me to help with all the funeral arrangements and attend the service and then headed right back to work. It hasn't been easy, but keeping my mind busy has been helpful. I have been through grief a few times before so I knew what kind of things I would be going through. The first time I grieved, I had no idea what was happening. It was a very dark time. Knowing is half the battle and helps to deal with it.

I thought I should catch up my readers, if there are any left at this point, about what has been going on and why my blog had been as fallow as my garden.

Buzz it up

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