Next year I'm going to follow the recommendations for seed spacing. It's become very crowded in the garden!

Here is the layout of my gardens (replanting the lawn that died during the drought has clearly not been a priority). At the bottom left of the photo are watermelon plants (they are not doing so great); at the bottom right is a corner of the pumpkin patch; the vegetable garden is ahead and the butterfly garden is across the path from that, right next to the house. This photo was taken last weekend and already the vegetable garden is MUCH LARGER!


Here's Sasha kitty checking to see if the catnip seeds planted in the pot grew, something grew but I don't think it is the catnip :( Also pictured are romaine and red leaf lettuce, green onions, lemon cucumbers (caged on the left), tomato stalks with basil and parsley.

This photo was taken at the end of May before the cucumbers went through their growth spurt. The path is covered with vines right now and the tomatoes are 6 feet tall. When designing the garden I had visions of gracefully and leisurely walking down the path, picking ripe vegetables; it's more like playing Twister right now as I avoid stepping on plants!

The plants from last year in the butterfly garden are getting really big but the seeds I planted have been very disappointing. I don't know why they did so poorly. It's hard to see what's going on in this photo so I guess it's included here more for me. The first blooms on the purple butterfly bush are there, but are lost in a dark spot; I added two pinwheels and I like the shining movements they provide - makes the garden feel less lonely.


This butterfly chime is new.


Here's a photo of the stone added to the garden this year. Chokes me up still.


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It's not been awesome in my headspace lately. I swear I'm not purposefully making things hard for myself or doing things to slow down my progress in therapy. Therapist 2 suggested I pretend like I feel like being alive to see if that intention will turn into reality. Ok, but I'd still prefer if therapy would just lead to ACTUALLY feeling better.

I head West in a few days and I'm nervous to see my family because I don't want them to know how poorly I've been doing. The name of the game will be to keep them doing the talking!!! I am eager to see the desert and maybe I can arrange a trip to the Pacific Ocean but overall getting excited enough for the trip to actually make progress in preparing to go has not happened - I arrive in Phoenix on Thursday and will end up in Anaheim during the weekend where I'll stay until Wednesday.

I used to love to travel.