Meme Time - 10 years ago

ok Rachel tagged me to do this and i was like arggchhhkrghkkk i'm all excited, i've never been tagged before and not sure how to do it but one thing i do know is that i'll talk way too much! So here goes:

What were you doing 10 years ago?

1996 seems like a million years ago and i lived a totally different life then. I had energy! just a little arthritis, no PBC, no computer and gardening was my life. I had designed and landscaped our yard and garden which was ever changing and evolving and the maintenance was an every day necessity. It was hard work but i loved it. I also loved all the fun stuff with like minded friends shopping for seed and plants, flower shows, gardening clubs and competitions and even got in some distant travel to study plants and make videos. I grew specialty and rare perennials and grasses and an ever growing collection of pelargoniums, hardy geraniums and fuschias, grapes, a few apples, tomatos and misc. One area of my gardening was in the growing of the flowers that i found pressed the best and alot of these plants were in hanging baskets. In the evenings i picked and pressed and in the off season i made pictures and greeting cards. My daughters sold the cards at their work places for $4. and the pictures sold at craft fairs averaged about $100. with the biggest and best being $300. My grandaughter Jennifer was 11 that year and she helped me with the set up and as the cashier at the fairs and the profits were split 50/50. We called ourselves the Jen-Lor Co. and even made cute matching t-shirts for the occasion. It was alot of fun and i loved the whole scenerio and spending the time with her. She and i used some of those profits in 1996 and splurged on a 3 day trip to Victoria, B.C. which is about a 2 hr ferry ride and a short drive to the Empress Hotel which is a very haughty-ta British inspired type place. We got lucky and our room was upgraded to a fabulous suite. We got all dressed up to play the role of royalty and we took in high tea and later the death by chocolate experience. We had an old fashioned horse and buggy ride and visits to the Provincial museum and the wax museum, swimming and shopping of course.

So, i was into art then too but it was a lot different than the art i do now. I also grew 1000 - 1500+ potted plants from seed each year as well as the shrubs and trees and made some of the backdrops and design pieces for my 17 day display at the Pacific National Exhibition. For setting up this event every year i hired my grandson Mark and we called ourselves the Mar-Lor Co. Every year i paid him daily whatever his age was and that year he was 13 and it took us 3 days so he got $40 because i gave him a dollar tip, lol. I wish i had pictures to show the themed displays we made but i only made videos at that time.I'm not sure what the theme of '96 was but it could have been the year we did Thailand.

It was also the year my sister passed away at age 52 after living a sad and lonely life for many years. It was a blessing in some ways but left me forever guilt-ridden because i didnt know how to help or even how horribly bad things were for her until it was too late.