I wasn't posting last year, but my resolutions were to: 1. Spend more time in the garden, not just to work out there, but enjoying it (COMPLETE) 2. Design a pretty spot to help hide the utility trailer that we have (COMPLETE) 3. Redo the front fence so the utility trailer isn't sitting on the driveway and in the pretty spot (INCOMPLETE) 4. Fill out back bed with plant materials (COMPLETE) 5. Create a veggie garden (COMPLETE) 6. Gate off around the back of the shed so the dog doesn't run at the garden at full tilt from behind (INCOMPLETE) Overally, my garden got a lot of use last year. I had tea parties with girlfriends, birthday parties for my hubbie and stargazing parties with friends. I was able to build a veggie garden and with the remaining soil (I way over estimated) was able to build a mimicking flower bed (with no plants yet) on the other side of the patio. I bought over 100 plants to fill in my garden over the year (we have a local grower that sells any plant, all plants for $5 in a 1-gallon pot so I didn't manage to break the bank too badly either). My husband got into the veggie gardening and has told me that it's off limits to me now...LOL For this year, I want to finish all the things I didn't get done from last year as well as filling in the new patio bed and rearranging my front deck and putting new gardens around it (whether or not I fill them this year is yet to be determined). I have some expansion plans in mind for the back, but again, I'd like to have them dug over in the fall ready to be filled for the next year....excited to see all that 2011 has to offer.

Pam, your zoo garden is such a lovely idea. how about Lamb's Ears (stachys)? And, sort-of an animal name, i have a "Rudolph" spurge in a sunny spot in my kids garden, which gets red tips that look like red noses in the winter. And for shadier spots, Bear's Breeches (Acanthus) and Tiarella "Tiger Stripe". Please post some pictures when Evan's zoo garden flowers! Your veggie bed sounds wonderful too. I have several veggies just planted in sunny spots around the garden, but without really preparing the soil well first, I am not sure they'll do that well. Maybe a veggie plot will be on my list of projects next year. This year, we want to finish our ivy removal project, we have just a couple of areas left. We also need to finish laying a patio. I'm excited about the finished products of both, but not the work involved! I'm most excited about my seed starting efforts so far -- most of these have been Wintersown. I have a lot of seedlings now and will try my best not to kill them at the planting out stage (which i did last year). I think my biggest goal for the year is to get my kids (aged 5 and 3) out into the garden more often. We planted peas, carrots and arugula a few weekends ago and they are very excited that all have sprouted!

Linda if you still can't get it right I can tell you how to post a photo to the Paper Arts Forum Gallery from the jpeg in your computer. It has to be 61K or less I think so first of all you'd have to resize it to that. then you could post a link to the gallery on this forum since we don't have a gallery here I think it would be ok since it is "paper" haha

gayle0000, I just read your post and find your questions very thoughtful. I think that the construction industry by it's very nature demands planning a clear path to completion and then executing it. My husband is a builder and I can see in his personal projects (he's an amateur astronomer who creates his own telescopes) that he's methodical and straightforward even if he takes plenty of time. I'm different, though. I have MANY things going at once. Gardening projects that span a year or more, quilting, mail art, and photography. Ideas from one discipline cross lines, and find expression in another area of interest. Occasionally a project gets shelved, sometimes for years, until a solution reveals itself. It's not boredom (though there's a certain tedium to hand stitching) or fear of failure (though I've had my share). If I wanted to get from A to B and finish, I'd paint by numbers. It's more a sense of creative unease. The fact that any particular work is incomplete doesn't aggravate me as much as the problem of how exactly I want to have it turn out. For me, finding the answer is often an unconscious process. I have to leave it alone for a while. There IS a difference between re-modeling a bathroom (though that takes skill and vision as well) and working on a piece of art. Sometimes I just have to let it settle and use the down time on that particular piece to work on something else. For me, creativity does not (always) follow a straight line by a certain date (though a deadline has often given a needed jolt). As for the clutter involved with working the way I do, well, I can't stand chaos but will put up with some mild disorder to reach an end. If a quilt is stalled for some reason (after 40 years, I've come to favor improvisational quilts over my earlier named patterned ones), I keep it out where I can think about it but put away everything else having to do with actually making the quilt. Ditto with mail art or photography; I display the work and live with it but put away the tools. Sometimes it takes a good period of seeing/ignoring a piece while I engage in other projects before it's resolved. This, however, does not alway make for a serene dining room table. Occasionally, I've put something completely away and truly buried it, say in a box in the closet. Often when I come across it much later, the answer is clear; sort of like when you get stuck on a crossword puzzle but the next morning the solution is obvious. Am I comforted by having unfinished projects? Not really. I like evidence that I'm productive and I like the sense of possibility, but I have given away, made something else out of or tossed work that I finally decided was irredeemable. There's no real time limit but if I sense failure, I can accept it when it happens. But only after a decent struggle. JMV PS. I am, however, a first class procrastinator at paying bills!