Sunday, June 24, 2012

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

Yes, I am the dog in this story. Since April I’ve discovered two new hobbies/obsessions: gardening and golf.

In April I hired a fabulous landscaping company (Timberline Landscaping) to dig up my entire backyard and put in a brick patio and some landscaping. I spaced them out so I had room to plant my own things. Randomly, I chose red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, broccoli and egg plant.

I can’t tell you how thrilling it is each morning to check my plants for new leaves, flowers and vegetables. My iPhone is filled with pictures of my garden. Everything is growing bigger and faster than I ever imagined.

Watering is like a religion especially since we are in a drought. The best advice my landscaping company gave me was to water at the roots rather than use a sprinkler and to water every two to three days. It’s important to let the ground dry out so the roots have to grow stronger as they look for water.

I’m looking forward to eating my first pepper and broccoli in the next week or so!

And my second new hobsession (made that up) is golf. A friend invited me to participate in a five week clinic with three other girls who have been golfing for years. The golf pro was great. She was able to provide simple tips and corrections for all of us even though we were all at different levels. Immediately I saw improvement with my drives. They don’t go far but they generally go straight.

She was adamant about the need to practice, over and over. I took her advice and try to get to the driving range one or two times a week to drive, chip and putt. I love it! It’s fun having something to practice to improve. It’s great exercise. The courses are gorgeous and get you out in nature. And it’s something I can do into retirement.

It’s funny how the universe works. I was recently invited to play in a golf tournament with a vendor…the first time this has ever happened in my career! And we really did talk a lot of business in between shots. What a great time!

So now you know why I haven’t blogged since March. So what are your new hobsessions?