Well, hey there, and thank you so much for joining me today. Today is going to be an unplanned episode

quite different than what you're used to listening to if you're a regular listener here.

If you're a brand new listener, a first-time listener, this is quite a bit different. Normally,

what I have here on the Beginners Garden podcast is lots of how-to tips with some of my story and my

personal gardening experience interwoven throughout the how-toes that will help you in your garden.

But today is going to be a little bit different because, and I'm recording this about a week

before this goes live, but this last week has thrown me for a loop with quite a few

personal things going on in my own life to the point where I just, I either had the choice of

skip this week, which I didn't want to do, or bring you what's actually going on in my life.

And also some, like, how's that affecting my garden what i want to do

today then is to share with you a little bit about what's been going on in my life in the last week or two

and then also in my garden as well because it's a real life glimpse of what do you do especially in your

garden when life demands your full attention and sometimes

just demands so much of you emotionally that there's not a whole lot of you left for the garden

and especially if the garden is being a little bit frustrating as it is right now.

But just to catch you up a little bit, my dad just had open heart

surgery just a few days ago as the time of this recording. He's still in the hospital when I'm

recording this. He will hopefully be out by the time you hear this. But he had a mild heart

attack on Thursday night and then discovered he had to have open heart surgery,

which was quite a shock. Obviously, anytime something like this happens, he is 79 years old.

For those of you who have heard my story, my mom passed away nine years ago. And so, and I'm an

only child. So it's just me and my dad. And my dad did remarry

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