Playing in the Dirt

A little pink gaura, with the perfect backdrop - the basil leaves. Handheld with the G9 and 14-140mm lens - f5 @ 1/200 ISO200 at 14mm

Early on the squirrels ate the bean plants. So I bought a sonic repellent and it actually works!

It's a typical Sunday morning. I'm up early as always; the house is quiet, and Sheila's still asleep. As usual, I'm off track, but with a head overloaded on things I need to do this week before heading to ClickCon. Helping to keep my sanity is an outrageous appreciation for the role all of you play in my life; the anticipation of meeting many of you at the conference; and quite simply an overall appreciation for my life.

In the process of thinking about all of these things, there's a topic that seems to be screaming for me to write about. I'm curious about some of the things you do to escape from the stress of business. 

Here's a new one on my list: Sheila and I planted a vegetable garden. It might not seem like a big deal, but after years of watching her play in the dirt, I've caught the bug.

We planted zucchini, pickles, peppers, a few tomato plants, and basil. I've learned the hard way about fighting the bugs and lost the zucchini early on, discovered bugs on the tomato plants last night, but most of the other plants are doing well. And the basil is definitely king of the jungle!

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​The other night we decided to make a pesto sauce from scratch using our own basil. With Sheila's Celiac, we finally found a great gluten-free cheese pizza that's incredible when cooked on the grill. We came up with our own recipe using the premade three-cheese pizza as the base. We added our pesto sauce,  prosciutto, sliced fresh tomatoes, and a light layer of shredded mozzarella and provolone. It was perfect and is now in the Skip & Sheila - OMG Hall of Fame.

And that brings me right to my point - As I've gotten older, it's become harder to put the business on the back burner. It's hard not to check email one last time before bed; take time off, and especially to relax. There's always something popping into my head reminding me of an upcoming deadline or a project I'm hoping to do. But there's something soothing in working in the garden, trimming back a plant or even battling it out with bugs, squirrels, and rabbits.

That pizza the other night and the fact that we enjoyed it so much was my at-home version of scoring a 100 in print competition. The satisfaction at creating a great pizza, combined with time together in two of our hobbies, gardening, and cooking, was simply fun. It helped to clear my head and set the stage for so many different things I needed to work on the rest of the week.

So, I'm wishing all of you a terrific day filled with things that help take your mind off business. I'm hoping you can make it a stress-free day with people important to you; those eleven-second therapeutic hugs I write about every Sunday and time to appreciate everything in your life outside the business.

Oh, and as a joke two years ago I made the sign below for the side of the house where all of Sheila's gardening stuff is. I guess it's time to see if she'll let me add my name to the "company!" LOL

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