A Little Bit Every Day

Today is Monday, and the free paper comes on Mondays. I retrieved it carefully from its snow covered bag, adding it to my growing collection.

We are going to use newspapers at the bottom of our raised beds, and we are going to need a lot of newspapers. It is a simple step that we can start now, and it helps us keep focused on our project.

Little things like this, I hope, will get us into the habit of spending a minimum of 5-10 minutes every day on the garden. If the habit is strong by spring, I hope to transfer this to 5 minutes of watering or 5 minutes of weeding.

I hope!

The Family Garden Experiment Begins

The day after Christmas, December 26th, 2010. It is both an odd and somehow perfect time to begin a project that has been pushed back for years - our Family Garden Experiment.

With snow on the ground, I sit with my pencil and paper, measuring out the dimensions of our master plan.

Why on December 26th, 2010?

It just seemed like a good day to begin. In my family, 2010 has marked the end and the beginning of many things.

It is the year I finally graduated from college after a decade of balancing work, family, and school. It is the year I became a Certified Public Accountant, and put the countless hours of studying and sacrifice behind us, and the family stood ready as a whole to begin reaping the rewards.

It is the year my husband and I finally came to terms with who we were as a couple, and as individuals, after thirteen years of marriage, and began the quest of living together in a new and different light. It was the year our children both reached middle school and became more independent.

On top of these milestones, it was the year we began our quest to live a healthy, active lifestyle - and actually stuck with it until it became a habit ingrained in our very souls.

It was the end of an era, and as one era ends, another begins.

So we begin our new era just shy of January 1st, hoping in this way to avoid the failures of "New Year's Resolutions" of the past. We look forward anxiously to the day when the experiment involves more than pencil and paper drawings, lying on desks in front of windows looking out at blankets of snow.

We plan, and we wait, and we imagine all the good things to come.