What were you doing 1 year ago?

I think i was doing pretty much the same as i am this year and thank God for the computer! I was reading every day and making art just about every day if i could tear myself away from reading about it and looking at it. I'd go off for a while on some new interest or a technique or fad thing, a class or shopping for supplies. I knew i was a lucky one to be able to do as much of this as i wanted. The stuff in my studio/computer room continued to grow as i always found something every time i left the house and my output wasnt even making a dent in the input. My dh continues to make a big act out of pretending to enter this room but cant because hes scared the shelves of books and magazines and stamps and inks and papers and misc. are going to topple over and kill him. Even the grandkids cower with their arms up protecting their heads when they come creeping in slowly and carefully with big eyes looking all around. But i think they actually love it because i let them play and make art with all this cool stuff! Most things were the same as now, and maybe i actually feel better now that some of my health issues are under control, especially the high blood pressure. Also, i think today is better than a year ago because dh has settled into a regular routine by leaving the house in the am's which allows me to sleep undisturbed until i wake up myself.

Theres another thing thats is different and i wouldnt have mentioned it except today something unexpected happened. A year ago i had no or very little connection with my friends from the gardening circles. I didnt blame them if they didnt want to be around me; i was probably crying the blues and feeling sorry for myself all the time and i understood that and i know that friends drift away if you're not involved in things together. And who wants to be around a sick and depressed person bringing you down? Anyway we didnt seem to have anything in common anymore anyhow so i couldnt do anything to maintain the friendships. They were bundles of energy and i couldnt even talk plants with them anymore, i had put up a wall and wasnt even interested.

But i still thought about it and them when it was meeting night, or when it was time to seed certain things or when i saw something sprout or buds opening on something and when the Seattle Flower show was on because 3 of us used to go and spend the weekend there and we'd have a blast and i missed those times and friendships alot. I really missed my one friend in particular and i needed her to talk to and i needed her to console me like a baby when it was hard for me to deal with seeing my once beautiful garden deteriorate and go to seed and the weeds were taking over. Or at the time when i had to hire someone to come and prune my trees and he butchered them and i would have to see them because they're in plain view everytime i'd walk into the kitchen. I couldnt stop from looking out the window and i got sad thinking about the day i brought that tree home in the back seat of the car. And then it got worse because i had to hire a guy to come and lay a thick ground cover mulch over the entire garden to keep the weeds at bay but knowing at the same time it would kill all the special and rare perennials that i had carefully grown and selected over a long period of time and had pampered and babied along and placed them in various locations until they had found their happy homes... well, those times were killing me and times like that are when you need a friend because husbands dont understand, at least mine didnt, in fact he said it looked better being able to see nice dirt.

So, here it is a year later and just today i got a phone call from my old friend. She's now making stained glass and taking a water-color class! You could knock me over with a feather!