I’M CELEBRATING A YEAR of being “on my own” this week, a year since I left my city career behind and moved to my rural garden to find my way, and life, among the frogboys. With this post, I’m also marking another milestone: It’s Post No. 200. Almost nine months into blogging, it’s a good start.
A lot has happened this first year out: A Way to Garden grew, with its 200 posts and nearly 4500 comments (thank you very much), and also now with Andre. I started The Sister Project, which in its first two weeks of new life has had about 10,000 clicks and 300 comments. Three weeks ago, I sold a book idea…and this week I am kicking off writing it with a few days of retreat (a funny thing for a woman who spends so much time alone already to say).
I have filled in each quandrant of the mandala my friend Ken Smith created for me when I began this new life…we may have to subdivide!
I just wanted to take this moment to say thank you to all of you visitors, old and new, who have encouraged me. You cannot imagine what it has meant to have you here by my side. I wish you all peace (and love and monkey business)—the usual offerings from the usual suspect here, who’s well dug into her own Rebel Side of Heaven after a year of exquisite freedom.
Like everyone right now, I am a little scared, but also a lot excited: Good things lie ahead if we keep believing in ourselves (and keeping our sense of humor doesn’t hurt, either). Rather than panic, I think I’ll just do what Curtis Mayfield taught me and Keep on Pushing, hoping you’ll decide to push on along beside me a little farther on down the road. 
Dear Margaret–
Big congratulations on all the milestones! And isn’t it wonderful to have them come together in the darkest month, when everything is just gathering energy to spring forth in the coming year?
I’ve so enjoyed keeping up with your garden through your posts and look forward to continued quirky and informative takes on growing.
All the best to you!
–Johanna
Congrats, your buddy made me smile this morning. I have this love affair with your frogs, I do not where it has come from. I hope to see them in person this spring.
Thank you for becoming a part of my life, Awaytogarden starts my days as well as TSP, which is brilliant.
I wish you all the best, most of all joy and peace.
Susan
I’m about to hit my 100th post after 6 months of being downsized out of my job and 3+ months of blogging. This is lots more fun and I congratulate you on both of your accomplishments. As Susan says, you’ve become a part of our lives. Thanks
Margaret,
It sounds like a GREAT year in uncharted territory! Congratulations!
And thank you for sharing much of that year with us.
AWTG is my first stop after catching up on the days news after a long day at work. It never fails to put a smile on my face, lift the spirits as well sharing a little garden wisdom.
Cheers and best wishes for wonderful things in the year ahead!
Thanks to each of you for these words and your support. And for loving the frogboys (Susan, isn’t that a good face? A late-fall shot I saved for today.) And Each Little World, thanks for sharing that you, too, are on the journey of independence. Scary, wonderful, all the range of life’s emotion.
Congratulations on your many successes. Ten thousand clicks in two weeks is pretty good. I’ve learned a lot watching your meteoric rise.
happy ‘I’ve lived in the woods for one whole year’ anniversary Margaret
x
Congratulations!
You’ve done so much and shared so much with other gardeners. Inspiring to “keep on keeping on” in these tough times.
My husband and I are both retired and trying not to panic as we’ve seen our 401k funds plummet 50%. He’s playing music so much more and I’m writing and gardening so much more. We left the stress of the corporate world behind and trying to not let the current economy get in the way of our peace of mind.
Cameron
Cameron: Well said. Me, too. We have good lives (even if not as much $ in the bank). Grateful. Thanks.
I have so enjoyed your postings Margaret. Your insights are inspiring and your photos beautiful. I’m excited for you and your book project. I too am working on a book of my own and having places like your blog to turn to in my quiet times helps me to keep a smile on my face and in my heart. Thanks for all that your blog brings to my life.
Love the sources. I’ve started receiving some mailings and it nice to look them over on these cold Minnesota evenings.
congrats,
Grace
Thank you, Grace, and welcome. It is a good time of year for writing, when we can tuck in and focus while the garden sleeps. See you again soon.
Your timing couldn’t have been better to get out of the corporate world. Making a big life change such as this must have been fraught with not only excitement but also some fear. However, this project of yours is so beautifully composed and thought out you can have no doubt that you are exactly where you are supposed to be. Congratulations and keep up the beautiful work!
Brian
keep on truckin’ margaret
was wondering, now that it is getting late early these days, what you’ve been reading in the eve (now that the presidential race and joedaplummer pychodrama has ended cnn’s attraction); i assume like all of us it is not your brokerage statement
i have been reading alot of wendell berry lately; his written worldview is very consistent with a desire to simplify and synchronize with nature’s rhythms, with which gardeners’ with corporate aversion (either nascent or in full bloom) might sympathize
My husband just lost his job, so we will be beginning again on the 1st… We’ll be fine as he’s returning to freelance work which he has done before, but in these uncertain times (and at our age…)it was a great shock to get the news. How nice that you were able to “choose” to begin again and I’m glad to hear that it’s going well.
I’m pleased that you aren’t “lost” to us either! I loved your writing and your “voice” in the MSL publications. I do not have the simple aesthetic that you do (I am more like your sister I guess!)but I do admire it…. I love my things!!!
On a mundane note; what sort of camera are you using? I took 35mm slides for years with an SLR but the digital ones were so expensive years ago so we bought what I call a clicker. It takes quite good shots, but I am ready to buy an SLR. I want to take closer shots of nature and my quilts!
Happy Day to you!
;-D Debbie
Kathy, Brian G, all of you loyalists: Thanks, so many times over.
@Chris: May Sarton is what I am reading, specifically “Plant Dreaming Deep,” and “Journal of a Solitude.” She has been my hero for decades (Sarton wrote like 17 books of poems and dozens of fiction and nonfiction works; she lived alone in a remote New England town and the books about that part of her life, written in the 60s, are the ones I adore…wonder why?).
@Debbie: Oh, good question…I am currently using a Nikon D40x, an SLR. Prices can REALLY vary, so check around, and maybe you don’t care about the “X” (more megapixels) and the D40 is supposed to be good. The real thing is the lenses, so it’s critical to tell the dealer what you want to accomplish in what kinds of conditions so you get the right one.
Congratulations on your accomplishments which have blessed us all. I do so enjoy your gardening perspective, blog(s), photos and frog boys. Wishing you continued success.
Congratulations on all your success!! Keep up the good work:-)
Oh Margaret…
Thank you for being so creative and disciplined enough to share your life with us. I say disciplined because it’s hard to stay dedicated to a blog. Mine is always just starting and the gaps between posts seem to grow. Anyway, we love that you love being here. Thanks for inspiring us and for the cyber-garden so many of us urban folk need.
What’s up with the boys btw? Are they still inert? Miss them.
Margaret,
Thank you so much for your fabulous blog. I’m glad to have been with you during this beginning process. I look forward to every single new post and I’ve learned a lot. This is my online plant bible because I know I can find almost answer I desire. I look at the pictures of your yard and say to myself “I can have a yard like that when I grow up”. Happy Holidays!
Maya
Frogboy Update (thanks for asking, Mars): On the occasional warmish days lately, the bullfrogs (the biggest species I have) will pop up half-drunk at the surface, bobbing like buoys and looking dazed, and wearing their dull brown outfits, not showy green garb. During cold spells, I don’t see them at all; they stay submerged.
Congratulations on your successful transition to life with the Frogbogs, Margaret – loved that Mandala and the way you’re filling in the quadrants.
Annie at the Transplantable Rose
Congratulations Margaret!
Thanks so very much for all the inspiration and information. You brighten up the dull daysand encourage garden dreaming, one of my favourite types! I love rebels and escapees! Again- an inspiration and revelation. I hope your blog continues to be a joy to you as it is to your many readers.
I hope the winter is kind to you
take care
L
Margaret, congratulations…I look forward to your comments, insights, photos and frog boys everyday. The latest photo is one of the best. I’m so glad to have found out about your blog, I even learned to e-mail so I could join in (I’m in your remedial group).
Dear Margaret,
I enjoy your blog so very much, especially its sense of camaraderie!
Congratulations!
Mitch
Well done, Margaret!
Congratulations, and keep it up…yours is a delightful lily pad on the pond of blogs…
:)
I watched “Martha” today and was so excited to see a blog about gardens and frogs! What a way to start out the new year. You are very courageous to leave her show and start up a blogging web site.
It looks like you are doing a fantastic job although this is my first time to come to this web site. Congratulations and l look forward in the new year 2009 to read all your wonderful blogging and see all your wonderful photography. Thanks for a good start to a new year.
Welcome, Ann, and thanks for starting the New Year with me and the boys. You call it “courageous,” and some have said “crazy” about my new dropout life, but I like to use another word: “creativity.” I just craved the chance to express myself personally, to re-develop my individual creativity, after so many great years working on the Martha brand. And so here I am: garden blogging, running a network of blogs about sisters and sisterhood with The Sister Project, and writing a book as well. Fingers crossed! Onward!