Marital Counseling

For 3 decades I've had the honor of being hired to design residential gardens.  Included is the privilege of being asked into my clients homes.
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Aside from noticing the transition across the years, "Do you want iced tea?", to, "Do you want mosquito repellent?", to, "Do you want a bottled water?", I've noticed how people live their lives, their relationships, children, responses to life not in what they say but how they pattern their home.
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Then there are the babies.  Many of those babies are out of college & their mom/dad have hired me as a gift to design their first home.  How can this be?  I'm already wondering 'when' will I design a garden for my 'first grandchild'?
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Of course there are the divorces.  One particular divorce I kept both ex-spouses, when each remarried, I designed those pair of homes.



During one Garden Design, over a decade ago, 'mom' & I were talking the garden while her children and their friends were playing a theatrical dress-up, swords & crowns included, performing across the backyard with whirls through the kitchen where we were talking.  The family dogs were part of the theater too.  One of the funnest, enriching homes I've been in.
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Last weekend this particular 'mom' called me back.  Time to enclose a front porch, change some windows into doors, turn a patch of Earth into a stone terrace, and lastly, remodel the kitchen.  We'll be doing it all in layers.
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Life is still percolating richly in their home.  In their early 20's both children still live at home.  This time it's mom whirling and performing.  She's mere years away from retiring, a French teacher at the local school, and just finished licensing for being a yoga instructor.
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Here's the deal with their happy home.  All are thriving, and mom/dad are going to a marital therapist learning how to get their children to move out.  I get it.  Both sides.  Their home is a love fest.
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This theatrical will end well, interesting, but well.  


Pics, above, Garden & Gun.
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Even happy stories may include therapy.
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Garden & Be Well,   XOT
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Recognize Bunny Mellon in the pics, above?  Cannot get enough of that woman.  Looking forward to visiting Oak Spring library, have already ordered several books from there.  Road trip in my future to Oak Spring.  Anticipation.  Life is good.