planted at home

Change is constant

Oops, the amarylis that didn't get planted

Time sort of got away from me last month. When calendar pages shift not just from month to month but over to a brand new year it’s easy to feel even more behind than you really are.

Fortunately, we only have to tackle this life day by day. Tidy, finite chunks of daylight and dark, bracketed by rest, punctuated with lovely meals and if we’re lucky, shared with those we love.

Some might say a calendar is a simple construct that allows us to divide and conquer.  But I prefer to think of each little numbered square as the reminder to bite off only what I can chew and savor.  Baby steps my friend, baby steps.

Change is a sign of life

My new book!

Handmade Garden Projects
has dropped– FINALLY!   With a life of its own on bookshelves, blogs and reviewers desks my latest book is out in the real world.  *Gulp*

I believe in this book. I believe in handmade, just as I believe garden making can be a form of personal and creative expression; outdoor play as opposed to “yard work.” Now it’s time to put my back into promoting and selling this fledgling title, only one of the estimated 200,000-300,000 books published each year. That’s a LOT of book-life crowding people’s already busy real lives.

Change is never comfortable

If it’s Tuesday this must be Boise… or Tacoma… or downtown Seattle. I’m excited to tackle my busy travel schedule beginning next week when I’ll be in Boise for the Idaho Horticulture Expo. The following week you’ll find me at the Tacoma Home & Garden Show and early next month I’ll be speaking at the Northwest Flower & Garden Show – always a hometown favorite and the opening shot across the bow of another growing season here in our beautiful PNW.

As I’ve written before, promotion and selling do not come naturally to this somewhat shy person.  However, I dearly love to speak to audiences about the ever changing world of gardens in all their myriad forms and delicious flavors. I can talk all day and into the night.

would that all books could be signed in my living room!

Book signings, on the other hand,  can be a heady and uplifting mash up where I get to trade stories and share with like-minded folks — or a soul-sapping test of ego as I sit at a forlorn desk trying to keep my game-face on as strangers ask me for directions to the women’s room, the cash desk, or where they can find the latest copy of a Swedish crime novel, XXX for Dummies, or other gardening titles by bestselling authors. S*gh…

Change is good

Bottom line?  I’m a lucky gal. Bolstered by the beautiful photographs of Allan Mandell, inspired by the very heartfelt and handmade vision of the gardeners profiled in the book, kept (mostly) sane by the love of my friends and family, and with much gratitude for the wise editorial guidance of everyone at Timber Press, Handmade Garden Projects is launched into the new year.

And I finally got that lonely Amarylis bulb potted up and into a bright windowsill where I can watch its progress as it unfolds and blooms.  Happy New Years!

let the blooming begin

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