Rather than fill in the gaps all at once, I’ll just post an entry of what’s been happening since I last wrote. I’ll try to share many of the highlights that occurred in 2018 over the next few weeks. (Since I have the photos, I might as well share them, right?) It’s been a great year of development and I’m eager to share what I’ve been learning and doing.

The photos above show a few of the many wreaths we made last year during a wreath-making party with friends and a few family members. If you’ve never hosted one, you should! Just be sure to do so when there’s still plenty of daylight. I attended one yesterday and it was a blast.

This year I’ve been working on wreaths too and I promise to share images of them soon. I only just started making them yesterday and am not quite finished yet. Good quality greens make good wreaths though and that’s the most important advice that I can give.

Next month, on December 5th, 2019 this blog will turn 11 and it seems fitting that I should begin to write again. I’m wanting nothing more than to return to regular casual posts but I’ve been busy and tired. This is not uncommon for folks like me. I’m still chronically ill and am currently in the second year of physical therapy for the damage I sustained from the two falls that were not properly cared for years ago. I still take too many medications and writing can be challenging for me but it’s worth the anxiety of getting something wrong on here.

This time last year we were redoing the kitchen. It’s mostly finished now, but we still need trim. We kind of ran out of funds but it was worth it. Being allergic to so many foods I need to cook a lot so last November/December I was really focussed on helping our contractor with decisions. One of the roughest spots was running into fire damage. We had so much of it from various fires but it’s all better now and the floor and walls are back in working order. The space wasn’t completely gutted, but it came close. There was so much in there that had to go.

(Oh, and I also painted most of the walls downstairs. I needed them to blend with the new kitchen color and that took a lot of time to figure out. I’m so glad I put the time and effort into it though because I have spent the last year enjoying the house a lot.)

Around the garden I had blooms from the gorgeous Camellia sasanqua ‘Silver Dollar’. I mention it because it’s one of the first plants I purchased at Cistus Nursery back when I began to garden here at home and it’s still a favorite.

Also in December a kind botanical friend sent me cuttings and seeds for Christmas, and then of course, it snowed. That happens sometimes.

At work, well, I continued to learn and flourish (at least I think so). By that point I’d continued posting these pretty photos for the nursery on Instagram and I’ve obviously excelled at getting dirty.

The cold can be rough when you have hereditary angioedema. It can make us swell, but I now take the anabolic steroids I’m prescribed whenever I work hard and it does seem to help overall. I hate having to take them, but they’re all I have for now.

2018 was also the year of the houseplant for me. I’ve always had them and have loved them to pieces but this year I dove into them like never before and I guess that’s because I hope to sell more of them. We shall see. All I can say is that in the last 12 months I’ve propagated more of them than I ever have before and it’s fun.