Hello and welcome back to my musings. It has been a while since I have posted, almost a year. A lot continued to happen with our yard, garden and life in general over the last year. Nothing of importance, but yet, a lot happened as life is wont to do.

I think the hiatus was due to a bit of a burnout, or perhaps just to many personal expectations. I needed to step back and truly evaluate if some of these things were worth the expectation and if I was still happy doing them. It was time to change some of the things that I did or give them up altogether to make room for new hobbies or life experiences.

Luckily, I still love writing, so although I took a break, I do plan to continue writing with this blog, sharing our adventures with our yard landscaping, which is close to being complete and yet still so far. I also plan to keep sharing some of my shop builds that may be of interest to others, including providing plans where I can. I also plan to continue sharing my favourite recipes. Cooking, canning and baking have also not been high on my to-do list lately, but some inspiration has been niggling, so I have a feeling it will come back.

One thing you won’t see moving forward on the blog is the garden measurements. Last summer Kurt suggested I take a break from weighing and measuring our garden goodies because I was feeling very blah about the garden. Don’t get me wrong, my nerdiness is still there and I would still love that data, but I was hating the collection of it. It made gardening not as exciting. This last summer I sat on our new deck and enjoyed freshly picked strawberries as a snack, ate some ground cherries, munched on cherry tomatoes and so many other delicious treats. The best part, I didn’t have to ruin the experience by running into the house to quickly weigh everything first. Shocker…that used to ruin the moment.

So, although I will miss the nerdy data, a bigger part of me has and will continue to enjoy the relaxing grazing that comes with gardening.

Not related to this blog, I stepped back from some workload. For the last 10 years I have had the privilege of teaching as a sessional instructor at the University I work at. My career is as an event coordinator in the University’s Conference Centre, and on the side, I got to teach some event classes through the faculty that I graduated from. I have loved doing that and wouldn’t change a moment of being able to not only teach but help students put on events. I had to step back though, to take a break. I was losing that passion. I wasn’t as excited, which made teaching a chore, and that wasn’t fair to the students. They should have instructors who are excited and invigorated with teaching. I know I will still get to interact with the students when they plan events on campus, which for now, provides me with happiness.

Some things haven’t changed a bit in the last year. Kurt and I still spent lots of time outside, exploring backroads and new areas with lakes, waterfalls, meandering trails and stunning forest canyons. We went camping with Basil and enjoyed being tourists all over our province, as well as overseas. We went to fairs, rodeos, demolition derbies, farmers markets and other community events. We spent time with family and enjoyed the quiet of days with no plans.

Normally, I would have done a January post looking forward at the upcoming year and all the stuff we want to accomplish. We have no plans this year. Will we do some work on the yard? Definitely. Have we set specific goals? Nope. So buckle up, this coming years posts will likely be a bit all over the place, a little chaotic, perhaps some new ramblings will join the old. We will see. I hope you stick around and enjoy both our adventures and our mis-adventures equally.