I am a very busy mom and I am sure that you are too. Between work, being a cowriter for My Sentiment Exact Lee, this great new opportunity I have with Growsup.com, 3 kids, activities and volunteering it is hard to carve out time for myself. We so often as mothers say “I’ll do what I need tomorrow” or “I’ll hit girls night out next month” or “I’ll start pursuing my passions when then kids go to school”. Why do we treat ourselves so unfairly?
I have always loved sticking my hands in the dirt and I have made that a priority. There is something about growing that plant from a small little seedling into a beautiful flourishing life bearer. I have grown plants in place they should never grow and I have taken bulbs and nursed them to giant seed heads and harvested their seeds. I have a huge area of Calla Lilies in my yard as proof. My thumb is various shades of green and it comes easy because I love it.
I began a few large landscape projects in the Spring-Early summer that I had planned to finish once the weather was below 95 again. I had planted a beautiful garden in the back full of different shrub roses, perennials, annuals, herbs and veggies all co-mingling with their different colors and textures complimenting one another. If I dare say my vision and progress so far was fabulous. Then something happened.
My junipers which had been a little sad this last year started declining where I had moved them to. I lost about ½ of them. My shrub roses in the back started looking bad. Aren’t they supposed to be the easy ones? My veggies were not growing anymore. I had these lovely thriving pepper plants in pots that then seized to grow after a few weeks of putting them into the ground. Again, same story with the eggplants and tomatoes. Most of my herbs were still doing great, as were my Crepe Myrtles and hardy perennials. What was going on? Unfortunately I already knew the answer. But I was in the middle of the Big D.
The year before I had trouble with some tomato plants and when I eventually just pulled them up I noticed galls on their roots. (If you are a gardener you know where I am going with this). I said no way. Not me. I am an organic gardener. I treat my soil well. I don’t know anyone else having this problem. Fluke! It won’t happen to me. DEN….
There months ago I got a letter from the homeowners association about the problems on the West Course. They were trying their best to get it under control. I thought, I live on the North, it can’t get to me. DENIAL!!!
Back to present. A few weeks ago I pulled out those pesky plants that for months never grew. I was over it. I had to face the truth. Their roots were galled and short. I took my plants in for verification and I received the dreaded report. Nematodes….. Those little parasitic bastards! They beat me! You can’t control them; you can’t do anything about them. I could work my ass off in the garden to minimize them but I don’t have hours a day to spend in the garden. I have a lazy garden style hence my co-mingling. So I give up. I will forgo the beautiful for the ordinary. I will let my passion blow away in the wind.
But wait, what about me. Gardening is my outlet. It is my “thang”. Then that little voice hit me. “Erika, haven’t you wanted to buy a mac-daddy sewing machine?” “Erika, what about that quilting project you never finished because you got pregnant”. “Erika, you always loved sewing and was good at it; why not take up sewing……” Really, could that be my new “thang”? I did some research, read some fabulous blogs, checked out some of the fabulous handmade items for kids on Growsup.com and man my creative juices began to flow. I thought “I could make that. I’d love that in my house. That would make a great gift. I could totally make that myself for a fraction of the cost and change it this way and that way. I want to embroider, I want to do cutwork, I want to make pillows and chair cushions, I want to make fabulous mod quilts. I, I, I.” It was a wonderful revelation for me. I began looking at machines on-line with every free second I had and became overwhelmed. I just threw up my hands and just asked god to send me a machine so I could hone my skills and figure out what direction I wanted to go so I could spend my money wisely.
So where am I going with this. #1, Make your passions a priority. Your personal happiness flows over into every aspect of your life whether you and everyone else realizes it or not. #2, if God forbid your passion gets squelched like mine, don’t let that need for a personal creative outlet takes your life out of balance because there is something bigger and better for you around the corner. #3, if you are a spiritual person, know that last night my beautiful friend Hilary said to me “My desk is so covered in things to do that I don’t have time to sew, you want to take my Viking sewing machine for a while until your figure out what you want?” Prayer answered. And last but certainly not least #4 Balance is not found in the same-old-same-old. Things change, and we have to be open to them. Balance is being able to sense the shift and move with it like the tides; be one with the Ebb and Flow.
I will always love gardening; that will never go away. I can however direct my need to create something beautiful toward another outlet. If this one doesn’t work, then I will be willing to try another. Who knows, maybe I will even start my own sewing blog if this whole thing works out. I’ll keep you posted.