Hi friends.  You may have noticed that my posting has been quite sporadic this year.  I have had a bit of a rough year and it’s just been hard to be very creative.  It seems that my 31 year marriage is over since my husband has decided that being with me is like throwing away the rest of his life.  I tried very hard and really wanted to save my marriage, but it can’t be done if only one person wants that.  It seems that I am just not good enough.  While it seems that depression is the root cause of this and it’s easier to blame me that to face the problem, it’s still very painful for me and I’ve been spending some time licking my wounds along with taking on all the chores around the house that were not typically on my list of things to do.  That’s isn’t a bad thing since it keeps me busy, and busy is good when you don’t want you mind stuck on why you are just not good enough.

While lamenting my gardening woes, I started to see some parallels with my garden issues and my personal issues.

I started this garden with the best of intentions to have everything be perfect.  I worked so very hard to create the perfect soil and environment for all my veggie babies.  I made my own seed starter, and I grew most of my own seedlings with the exception of tomatoes and peppers that needed too much lead time.  I planted the seedlings, watered them, weeded them and even sweet talked them and they seemed to love everything I did.

Then slowly, I started to notice some issues.  At first I thought I was imagining it, since I was taking such good care of them, how could anything be wrong?  There wasn’t a weed to be found, the ground was not too dry and they were growing nicely.  But, there were invaders sneaking in that I was unaware of. 

I planted, watered, tended and lovingly cared for my garden.  What could possibly be wrong and why was it so hard to see a problem brewing before it was too late?  Well, as with many things in life, gardening especially, there will be invaders sneaking in, and you have to fight for what you love.  And sometimes, even if you put up a good fight, it’s just not good enough. 

There seems to be some sort of sneaky pest that was already doing damage long before I noticed.  I think it started with flea beetles and the tomatoes seem to have a fungus.  I guess I over watered.  Who knew?!  It seems that you can actually care too much and try too hard.  So, I’m beating myself up yet again for not being good enough. 

I did get some great corn, eggplants, tomatoes, beans, lettuce, squash and chili peppers before the invader entered to take it all away from me, and I will have a nice crop of mini pumpkins for decorations for autumn, so I will be thankful for that, but things went bad right before the best part – the part where you sit back and relax and enjoy all your hard work.  For gardening, that equates to months of hard work before the bountiful harvest and for a marriage that equates to years and years of planning and saving for an enjoyable retirement, a retirement that probably won’t happen for me at this point.

So life is a bit chaotic for me right now – one day I’m kind of okay and the next I can barely get out of bed, and I still have a business to run and a home to tend.  I’m making a big effort to stop beating myself up for not being good enough, but it’s really, really hard.  I put my all in to everything I do, and it’s tough knowing your all is just not enough.    

I’m going to make an effort to share more on my blog and you are likely to see a wider variety of things – paper crafting, quilting, gardening and whatever I happen to be doing at the time.  I hope you’ll stick with me when I add some new crafty adventures.  I really value my readers. 

Happy crafting everyone!!