When the pandemic struck, we didn’t have any masks in our house. I was on FB when a local dry cleaner posted they were sewing masks for a donation. I got in my car and drove immediately over there. I grabbed 2, stuck a $20 in the jar, and left.

I took the flower one for myself, naturally. I wore this really basic mask until we were able to get better fitted ones. After we did, I left this mask hooked on the shift gear in my car (everyone did this right?) Soon, it became somewhat obscured with other masks being layered on top of it. And still, it was there besides me for 14 months.

About a month ago I decided to take a pivot after my other consulting work sort of stopped with the pandemic. Friends and family often consulted me regarding garden design and ideas. I always helped as talking to people about flowers is apparently the sweet spot for my ability to people at all in life. So I started low key offering garden designing.

Once I realized that maybe I was going to have more interest than I knew, I put up a website at GardenByNumber.com to sort of explain things before they contacted me.

The requests kept coming.

One day I was getting ready to visit a new garden client and realized that I was down to the last mask on the shift gear. The OG flower mask that saved the day over a year ago when the future seemed so uncertain.

I grabbed it happily and thew it on the hood of my car until I gathered my things for the next appointment. Once I was gathered, I went to grab it off the hood and then saw it. I looked closer and could not believe what I was seeing.

Sometimes a pandemic hits and it’s terrible and awful and uncertain but it also hands you flowers to let you know things will be ok.