Tag: Master Gardener

Spring and Fall

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DSCF8784My body will tell you tonight:  it’s quite an accomplishment to finish our Spring and Fall yard clean up projects all within 24 hours!  Whaaat?  Such is life these days.  All completed just in time for the long soaking rain storm outside my window as Winter approaches . . . the maiden tulip bulbs are going to be real happy in their new home!

I am exceedingly grateful to be functioning somewhat better despite the ongoing noxious episodes that occur most days.  Then there were two noxious-free “holidays” within the past four days.  THIS IS HUGE GUYS AND GALS!  I haven’t had more than a one-day break per week since living in the hotel at the beginning of the year when we were remediating our home for mold.  Looks like the IV magnesium treatments (counted #20 today) and sugar/sweetener-free cholestyramine are beginning to work a wonder inside of me.  I am grateful and humbled.

Despite all of this good news for some reason I needed to cry a bit today.  This year has been especially traumatic.  When I’m in one of those hour-long to several-hour-long episodes my ability to think and reflect is gone.  My mind is blank.  No processing occurs of what is happening to me.  I have heard patients with dementia describe his or her mind this way.  There just aren’t any thoughts.  Gratefully I do not have dementia.  I often wonder, however, if there will be synaptic damage from the almost 2 years of seizure attacks.  Then again, maybe the neurons just needed a little Spring cleaning, resetting, and the like.  Anyways, I believe that to grieve the loss of my health is, well, healthy.  Perhaps it will pave a comprehensive path to healing?

The end of Psalm 139 reads:

23 Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

I have heard an application of this passage that it can describe the need to reflect upon and grieve a past trauma as part of a God-honoring healing process.  The Lord knows me and my circumstances in addition to the outcome.  By opening my mind and heart to His merciful grace under the shadow of His wings, I will find rest.   I have prayed many times to “get” the purpose of all of this suffering and wondered if I was “there yet.”  I asked my husband Steve, my God-honoring spiritual leader, if he thought there was anything I was not seeing.  Was there some sin or character flaw that required repentance?  Steve was gracious when asked these questions.  We both saw the little lessons and unexpected blessings that were the “silver lining” to this illness.  We have not become embittered.  We have drawn even closer together and to Christ.  Whew.  Thankfully.

Blogging started as online journaling and has become so much more. I do hope that my writing will be used for God’s glory and point people who are going through serious trials, to the person of Jesus Christ.   To the Gentle Reader out there, you have also helped me find a plan and a purpose for this time in my life.  The process has become as meaningful as the lessons learned.  One lesson learned yesterday:  don’t leave a wheelbarrow full of mulch out in the yard!  Put it under the covered porch.  Six times it got rained on and rained in.  Geez that was one heavy wheelbarrow!

A little humor helps fer shur.  And my Stevers is a great model of the value of silliness in the middle of the crap-o-la-ski.  (You were missing my Polish, I know, so here ya go!)  Thanks for hanging in there with me.  Wish I could hug ya, eh?  :J

A Pause in the Middle of the Storm

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Best ceremony photo

I am grateful to report that I received my Advanced Master Gardener designation from the Cooperative Extension Office of Purdue University, Fort Wayne yesterday. God is good.

To become a Master Gardener in a University-affiliated program in the United States, a person takes a three-month course, six hours per week, successfully completes all class assignments and projects, takes a comprehensive exam, and completes 48 hours of related volunteer work.  Each additional rank of recognition, requires additonal volunteer hours and educational classes.  For me, the volunteer work and training was accomplished while undergoing treatment and complications of Lyme Disease!  How does that work?  By the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ alone!

Sometimes I would stop at the Extension Office to water the Vegetable Garden in the cold or extreme heat because it needed me to do so as one of the members of the Vegetable Garden team.  Sometimes I went to an educational class a “shred-over-nauseous” in the evening just to get out of the house and be around people.  And the Lord allowed me to sit at my computer last Winter and research a beautification project for my housing association . . . to help me get out of bed!  I remain grateful for this opportunity to accomplish something meaningful to me and even more grateful for the love and support of my husband, Steve.

Steve encouraged me to cut back on my work schedule and take the Master Gardener class before illness first struck in October of 2011.  After that it was the friendship of our special project group within the class that kept me going as viral hepatitis set in:  Jim Battin, James Poiry, Sue Hauck, Cindy Trygg, and Beth Fiato.  Sue Hauck is in the picture above, to my left (I’m the gal in black) and Cindy Trygg is in the audience:  two sweet gardeners extraordinaire that took an interest in me and kept the friendly connections going after the class ended.  When I began treatment for Lyme Disease in January of 2012, Fran and Karen Yorio and Bill Diedrich joined what was to become the Willow Run Community Association Beautification Project and kept it all going with great support and feedback when the going got tough for me.  Later in the year, Cindy, Jim Neuhouser and Jo Ellen Smith allowed me to work at my own pace and sometimes alone late in the day to hang in there this past summer with the Veggie Garden team.   These crazy hours of volunteering and ongoing training, with the support of kindred spirited Master Gardeners and Interns, helped me earn this designation.  Thank you!  You da best!  I could not, would not have been able to do anything without your friendship.

Last night was a pause, a moment to reflect, despite the ongoing chaos that is in our home right now.  We ate banquet food and listened to a presentation on prairie management from Blue Heron Ministries, Inc.  Just that we were out for a special night then returned to the hotel room to crash while our home begins the mold restoration process.  Throughout this past 1 1/2 year, I am grateful to know that gardening, one of my favorite passions (with Steve being number one, of course!) will be there when the dust settles (and goes away!) in our home.  Maybe this Spring I’ll plant a commemorative specimen to represent this amazing journey of discovery, of healing.

Hmmmmm . . . Any ideas what that should be?  :J

I just gotta be me!

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That's me in 2007
That’s me in 2007

Ten years ago would find me hosting a team of entrepreneurs at a job fair, working in healthcare four days per week, planning holiday travels, and riding my  bike or taking long walks in my neighborhood.  I lived in the west suburbs of Chicago and spent a lot of time in my car.  Traffic, you know!

Twenty years ago would find me learning to landscape my yard and live the married life, working full time, planning holiday travels, adjusting to a new diagnosis of a pain condition, and feeling glad to have my Master of Science degree completed at last.  Painting and decorating the townhouse would preoccupy the weekends in addition to long drives to a Christian mega church on Sunday morning.

Thirty years ago would find me finishing my fieldwork in occupational therapy at a State hospital in Michigan, beginning to search for my first professional job, and balancing family dynamics as a college graduate under my mom’s roof.  Time with friends and a steady boyfriend dominated my free time.

My how times have changed!  This past year I got sick with a serious illness, met the qualifications to become a Master Gardener, started a jewelry business, hosted a booth in two craft shows, took a hiatus from weekly kayaking in a performance surf ski, and learned the true meaning of love in the eyes of my beloved Steve.  The only things missing are the planning of holiday travels and spending a lot of time in my, er, truck.  No car anymore and no suburban living anymore!  I live in a small town near what they call a “big little town” and I like it.

Work is different too.  I work 2 to 6 hours most nights, in the middle of the night, for my online jewelry business and not in a clinic somewhere.  You could also say that I work to get well from Lyme Disease and its co-infections, requiring about 4 hours per day of various tasks that would bore you to list them right now.  (See the Survival Tips page if you’re interested!)  I’ve always valued “work” and have worked since my first babysitting job as a teenager.  Twice before I’ve started my own business.  The study of occupation has been with me and has helped me re-invent my career many times over the years.  I am grateful for most of it!

If I just gotta be me, then I guess I have landed squarely at a place that reflects who I am and who I have been all of my life.  I do believe my life is softer around the edges as the Lord has allowed many trials and blessings to shape who I am today.  There is so much more to learn, do, see, be.  In this moment, I am grateful for all the Lord has given me, good and bad.  After all, I met you didn’t I?  :J

Take this moment in time

To create something beautiful:

A world where we move closer together

With eyes for our Savior, Immanuel,

Where our stories speak with gentleness for

The paths taken and those we did not,

And the work of our hands makes a difference

In today and beyond . . .

For grace will be our companion

His love, peace, and joy.

Life becomes a journey worth the taking,

Yes!

Would we really want it any other way?

(Julie Lech, July 2006)