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kelseynhildebrand

My Master Plan

Does anybody else here have a hard time with planning projects? I struggle sometimes with perfection, and I can have a hard time moving forward, leaving me feeling doomed to fail from the start. I have so many little ideas that I have yet to commit to creating.


(I've wanted a mudroom bench in my kitchen for so long- I've had the wood for YEARS friends. Years. Nothin'. Too afraid to start it.)


Here's some failing landscape scenarios I envisioned:

  1. All my plants die and I'm embarrassed.

  2. I can't get the grass out and my yard so it forever looks like this awful mix of bermudagrass and weedy lookin ugly plants.

  3. I accidentally plant something that is an aggressive spreader and before long my entire yard is like... mint or something.

  4. I start and realize I'm not strong enough or smart enough to do the thing and now my yard looks really dumb and doesn't bring me joy at all, instead it is a constant reminder of all that I cannot do.

  5. My husband becomes so annoyed at my constant stressing over the front yard or of the wild plants I've put outside so he leaves me to live alone and cook for myself.

  6. Plants take a real long time to grow. It could take years to see this thing realized. What if the end result is actually awful? What if I can't stay driven the whole time, stop halfway, and it all goes to shit?!


This list is partially in jest but honestly? There's truth nuggets in each one, and this is life with anxiety. There was no real reason for me to feel this way, and I'm working on it, partially through the writing and sharing of this blog. These feelings can truly be paralyzing and they can prevent really talented people from doing incredible things. So... how did I tell these little anxieties to take a hike?


To answer, I have to back up in time a little bit. During the COVID-19 shutdown, my husband and I began driving out to different state parks/recreation areas weekly. We did this to spend time together outdoors and generally stave off the anxiety of, ya know... a global pandemic. The wildflowers we would see in the prairies, on the roadsides, and in the underbrush brought me an immense amount of joy and peace. So, so much more joy than my lawn has ever brought me. My desire to bring that joy closer to home mounted with each trip, and one day it simply outweighed my anxieties. It is important to note that it did not cancel them out, they were still present. But I wanted to live among the flowers more than I cared if I failed. What finally won me over was the reminder that it's not just for me, it's for my buggy buddies, right?! They don't care that I'm afraid to fail, they just need stuff to eat, man. I owe it to them to try.


The easy way out would be to have someone who is stronger, more knowledgeable, and more experienced do this for me. I really considered this. POOF! Responsibility shared. Anxieties banished. However:

  1. I could not afford to hire any of these stronger and more knowledgeable people. I'm a professional circus performer, remember?

  2. There aren't too many of them around. This is kind of a unique project.

  3. I knew in my heart that I didn't WANT to. This isn't somebody else's big dream, it's mine! I wanted to personally select and place these plants because truly nobody was going to care more about this than I was.


Alright, that's all valid. Now that we've established that I must plunge forward and ignore my fear of failure, the first thing I needed to do is see it with my eyeballs. Nebulous dreaming can only get me so far. I know that digital stuff exists, but man nothing feels better than a pencil and paper in my hands.


I know it's not a masterpiece, but with this drawing, some of my anxieties were banished. How powerful pen and paper can be. Next, I typed up a spreadsheet with all the plants that I knew my friend Sarah had in stock in her native plant nursery. None of the information I wanted was all in one place and easily comparable, so I decided to compile it myself. I loved learning about all the little plant babies that I would one day call my own!


Finally, I re-drew my yard on graph paper, much larger and with slightly better measurements. I then went in and added in EVERY SINGLE PLANT I wanted and how much space it should need. Between plant research, nursery research/plant availability, measuring and doodling, falling in love with new bebes I needed to make space for last-minute, and showing it all to my husband for feedback (I wanted him to like his own front yard... crazy right?), it took a lot of time and energy to create this master plan. Through this process, I began to SEE it all in my head. I became Extra Excited, tipping that scale even further away from anxiety and more towards dangerous, "I can do this" territory.



What I envisioned is tiered plants on the left side, slowly ramping up to taller/bushier plants closest to my home. On the right side of my path I wanted circles with taller plants in the middle and shorter plants surrounding them and wheeling out, mingling with one another. I set a deadline to do the bulk of the planting in Fall of 2023.


Now, I had a plan. With it in place, we can add one more possible way to fail to this list: 7. Not adhering to the plan or meeting my deadline. Yikes.

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