A spade is a spade by any other color…

or something like that…

I feel weird calling myself a gardener. Maybe because I grew up with the notion that gardeners were retired. Mostly because I have not done the following things:

1. Grafted anything.
2. Purchased a pair of overalls. {The high school pair was purchased by my parents, I’ll have you know, and was also considered highly stylish at the time.}
3. Worked in a nursery. {Other than the one at church, and I am a big ball of complain-o when that happens.}
4. Attended a seed swap.

But here are the things I have done:

1. Attracted large swarms of gnats into our house due to wrong soil choice during my first season of indoor seed starting
2. Planted a strawberry bed on the ground in an unfenced yard only to realize the neighborhood dogs were peeing on it
3. Killed a black widow spider with my bare hands {and maybe a lot of weird dancing and the closest Tupperware container I could find…}
4. Saved shower water {from when the water would heat up…ew…don’t be gross} during a drought to pour on a hydrangea bush that was given to us as a wedding present
5. Heard my mother say that flowers speak to her and totally understand what she means
6. Made my husband think we were about to wreck the car because I gasped a little too loudly at someone’s beautiful front porch planters

So I’m going to go with: isn’t it really life’s mistakes that wind up shaping your course in the most unexpectedly wonderful ways?

I’m calling myself a gardener. There. It’s done. I said it.