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By Ginny (MAD21)
I haven't been around the online world very much the last few weeks. I got involved in a project that I had originally scheduled to be just for one ten-hour day with about 20 people. It turned into six days over two and a half weeks, 320+ man-hours, and about 40-50 teens and adults.
I have an amazing mother-in-law (MIL). She is imperfect, just like the rest of us, but she has a heart of gold. She has spent most of her life serving her family and the people at our church. Aside from a few really great teens who have been able to help me out occasionally over the last seven years, she has been my only help as a parent. Pretty much any time I've needed a babysitter whether I had an appointment or just needed a few hours to regain my sanity, my MIL was, and is still, nearly always available to watch them for me. For those of you who can relate to my situation, you can understand my desire to do something to bless her.
Her yard is a haven to a ton of butterflies!My MIL has always been an avid gardener. So you can imagine what her yard has always looked like. Anywhere there could be a flowerbed, there was one, even now. The problem is that she is getting older (she's 88) and can't tend to them anymore. Over the last several years, they have all just become so overwhelmed with weeds and overgrown bushes, that there was very little "flower" in the bed. To say everything was overgrown is a gross understatement. If you live on the east coast you know that if you leave any piece of ground untended for more than a week or so, there is something growing. So you can imagine leaving it unattended for a few years!
More than two years ago I wanted to organize a day when I could get a group over to her house to get things cleaned up. But then she had some health issues and I spent more than a year driving her to all of her appointments and doing her shopping. But things have been much better for her for the last 6-8 months and she's driving (locally) again, so there has been more time to focus on other things. I decided late spring that we really, REALLY needed to get the yard worked on this year. But even I didn't realize how big that project would become. It took on a life of it's own.
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