{"id":759,"date":"2012-05-21T22:20:07","date_gmt":"2012-05-22T02:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/?p=759"},"modified":"2012-05-21T22:23:41","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T02:23:41","slug":"what-do-you-want-to-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/?p=759","title":{"rendered":"What Do You Want to Be?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt\u2019s time to start living <\/em>–<\/em>the life you imagined.\u201d <\/em>–<\/em> Henry James<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

What is it that you wish you were that you are not? Regardless of how old you are, I know that there is something. We all have a secret list of \u201cI want to be\u2026\u201ds.<\/p>\n

One of the things that consistently shows up on my list is to be a gardener. Yes, that\u2019s right I want to be a gardener. Every time I turn the corner of the street leading to my own, I am reminded of this. I live in a gardening neighborhood. Everywhere I look there are beautiful and unique gardens. The neighbor in the house on the corner gardens in the rain and drives a serious lawn tractor. She also has beautiful weed-free garden beds. I want to be her.<\/p>\n

My fellow homeowner is a natural, if somewhat haphazard, gardener so we do actually have gardens, largely his creation. But, I want to garden, too.\u00a0 And I have tried, both in this house and in others I have lived in, with limited success. \u00a0I don\u2019t really know why. I start strong and then I seem to lose my motivation. Gardening is a lot of work.<\/p>\n

Does this ever happen to you? Is there something you have tried to do and never accomplished?\u00a0 I always wanted to be a writer and now I am. So why can\u2019t I also be a gardener? This year I intend to try.<\/p>\n

Several years ago, I planted a shade garden and have continued to expand it \u00a0each year with new plants. This garden is composed mostly of Hosta and Heuchera commonly called Coral Bells. I have had moderate success, with the exception of two years ago when all the Hostas were eaten by a plague of slugs. I tried chemicals (bad, I know) salt, and hummus containers filled with beer. Nothing worked. Those disgusting fat slugs just got drunk and kept on chomping.<\/p>\n

\"Shade<\/a>
My Shade Garden<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here is my current challenge: a jungle of weeds surrounding my Oriental Poppies, We \u00a0established this bed several years ago and have neglected it.<\/p>\n

\"Weeds\"<\/a>
The reason that I can't call myself a gardener<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have discovered that gardening is very conducive to writing. It gives you a lot of quiet time to think, create dialogue, and work through plot points. \u00a0It turns out that a lot of writers are also gardeners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
My brave and lonely little poppy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only problem is that Grace keeps disappearing and I have to stop what I am doing to track her down. There is a ground hog the size of a small sheep that lives in the bushes next to the fence. So where is Grace?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Grace hunting ground hogs<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I have always believed the first thing to do when you embark on a new role is to dress the part. At least you look like you know what you are doing. I am a dedicated costume person. Here are my latest accessories.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
My gardening stuff<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Is there anything that you really want to be? If so, why not go for it?<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s time to start living –the life you imagined.\u201d – Henry James What is it that you wish you were that you are not? Regardless of how old you are, I know that there is something. We all have a secret list of \u201cI want to be\u2026\u201ds. One of the things that consistently shows up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-759","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gardening","category-goals","category-grace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=759"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":769,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759\/revisions\/769"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=759"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=759"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kathleenferrari.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=759"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}