Blogging Fun with Food Not Bought Blog and Heirloom Gardener

I am so excited to say I am blogging for Heirloom Gardener.  I started a blog called Food Not Bought.  Food Not Bought, is a blog that will cross over from the Ivan back and forth across the garden.  It will cover topics of the kitchen and how to build a pantry full of food not bought.  It will highlight this journey as well as focus on growing a productive suburban garden that really does add Food Not Bought to your table.

I hope you will join me on this Journey.  The first blogs are up and posted here.   http://www.heirloomgardener.com/blogs/food-not-bought

While, I have blogged over the years, I never really know if people liked my style, or appreciated my writing. It was a big deal to have someone one else, a magazine I respect, read and choose my work to post on their website. Now Heirloom Gardener has decided to take it a step farther and include some of my posts in the spring print edition.

Let me tell you a little story about a girl who was told she had no style and could not write.  I was always exceedingly bright but could not, for the life of me, excel in English.  I was diagnosed with Learning Disabilities by the 5th grade and spent many years being frustrated by limitations in reading and writing. When I grew up, we had no computers or spellcheck, we had type writers and finally graduated up to the first Macintosh computer by the time I was in University. The school programs for learning disabilities were extremely limited and did not encourage academic pursuits beyond getting by.

When I was in my final grade of high school I worked hard to get the minimum of a 65 in Honors English you needed to get into University.   I had an English teacher that had stated he did not like having students with LD in his class, and did not feel they should take honors English or preparing for University level educations.  This resulted in a personality conflict and a difficult situation for me.

As I failed assignment after assignment in English my fear of not getting into University increased.  I was lucky to have parents that fought for me.  They met with the principles and the result was that my work was to be double graded by others in the English department.  Quickly my grade returned into the range of a B.  This was not too shabby, but not at the top of the class.   English was admittedly not my strong suite.

It came to the final.  There was some sort of rule that only a person's teacher could grade their final.  Not sure what that was about but some how this teacher managed to make this happen.  He gave me a Zero on my Final.   I wrote 18 pages on that final.  The only way to get a Zero would have been to not show up.

So he managed to get my English grade down to a 64.  My parents flew into action again and there was a massive appeal and meetings.  Eventually my grade was raised to a 65 and the school administrators sent me on my way University bound.   While this was a victory, there was always that eco in my head of his voice.  Telling me I had no style and could not succeed.

Well now I would like to say thank you to Heirloom Gardeners and to the readers of my many blogs.  Thank you for getting my style and for enjoying my writing.  See you all again in blog land.