One Year of Mind and Garden

Today, though I can scarce believe it, marks the first-year anniversary of this blog. 

From my first post, an introduction and explanation, to the most recent post Tuesday evening, 227 posts along, my blog is still evolving and changing. It has filled my need to occasionally free-associate and ramble and sometimes rant outside of my normal daily grind, and it has allowed me to explore, a little bit, the new social media outlets and think about applying them to my day job.  It has given me a chance to learn more about gardening and especially about roses, through research and from others.  And it has opened some doors to inward reflection.  I now know more about the passions that exist in my life and have an ever-so-slightly better appreciation of the important things in life from writing about them.

I appreciate, most of all, you readers and regular visitors to Garden Musings.  I've gained friends that I've never met in person and I've learned from each of you through your own observations and comments about my entries.  I've explored new plants and new thoughts because of this blog.  I've learned that sometimes the better part of  being a blogger is simply thinking about what went right or wrong in that most recent garden effort.  On the other side of this electronic divide, I hope you're enjoying a glimpse of Flint Hills gardening and that you can continue to tolerate the lens of humor and irreverent bemusement that I view the world through.  Please feel free to drop me a private line about anything you see that will help me to improve, either my gardening or my writing.  I also hope you realize that Mrs. ProfessorRoush, who is gracefully continuing to evolve into my garden muse, is not so much an onerous gardening cross that I have to bear as she is a loving and supportive companion who at least tolerates my eccentricities and the time I spend away in our garden.

As for the future, I'm content to let it develop as it will.  One thing that life (and gardening in Kansas) surely teaches us over time is that we all need to take it a little less seriously and be able to roll with the seasonal and sometimes tornadic punches.  Somewhat-daily blogging has slowed down my efforts on a second gardening book, but I hope it continues to better my writing and helps me find a unique voice.  Certainly, my grammar is slowly improving and the ideas are stacking up.  

And, anyway, blogging is but a garden of the mind, sometimes budding to bloom, sometimes wilting in the harsh light, but always expressing life in every thought and paragraph.