...this is not a post about a garden shed...

I thought this was going to be a post about sheds.

I have had a garden shed on my mind all week. I met with Connie at Hartwood Roses on Monday to hang out and to ask for shed advice and her inspiration for her greenhouse. She encouraged me to know what I wanted the shed to be and what I planned to keep in it. She also encouraged me to focus on the outside because we would spend more time looking at it than actually being in it. 

She's right. We have a front and a back porch that serve different purposes. I love to bundle up and sit in the rocking chair on our front porch in the winter. In the summer, the screened in back porch protecting us from the mosquitos is everything. I needed a place to store the seasonal yard art—our snowman and the pumpkin people that are made out of old propane tanks. They gather in the garage but I have wanted them to have their own place in a shed. Plus, a shed could store my excess pots and tools. What goes in a shed seemed easy enough. I also scoured through online searches for an inspiration of the right look. That also came relatively easily. The goal was to find a structure that was aesthetically attractive, that would hide a portion of our neighbor’s house that a fence is not high enough to do, and to store propane tank friends and pots.

On Wednesday, I headed out to shed companies to look at the prefabricated versions that were sold on their lots. No matter how many cute flower baskets I added to these sheds, they just did not appeal to me. I contacted our general contractor who has done amazing work on our house. I knew they would be more expensive than one of those sheds sold on lots but they were much more than I expected. Fortunately, the contractor was willing to work with my budget and deconstruct parts to make it meet my aesthetic without breaking the bank, which is important because that money is not in the bank. It’s sitting in the house in the form of 121 savings bonds.

Visitors will have to pass Brewster to arrive at the garden shed

In the U.S., the series EE Bond is an interest-bearing government savings bond that's guaranteed to at least double in value, over the typical 20-year initial term. They were marketed to teachers as a way to save long term to prepare for retirement. As a school teacher with a Masters of Arts in Education, I worked four jobs just to make ends meet so that I could pay my bills and my student loan. I purchased these bonds because I am an ant who has more often than not lived on fear. I grew up in a working-class home where my father always worked 60 hours a week to afford our family vacations. I have great memories of our old camper van breaking down in campgrounds. I’m not being sarcastic when I write that; my father could fix the van. So, it broke down; and, dad, who had hands of engineering magic, got it to run again. We saved; we put away; we bought used; we recycled to save money, not because it was trendy or good for the environment. My father’s expression, “Use it up; wear it out; make do” rings through my head.

The red brick will lead to the future garden shed.

Of course, when I started purchasing the EE bonds, the economy wasn’t great and the term period is now closer to 30 years. Some of my bonds from 2003 have earned less interest than those from 2006 because of a fluctuating interest rate that is super low. To make a long, complicated story short, if I wait until 2036 when I’m eligible to retire and my student loans are paid off, my savings bonds will be worth their full value plus a few dollars of interest. I don’t want to wait sixteen more years for approximately $3000 so I’m cashing them in now so that I can purchase my dream garden shed, which is completely impractical to the past-Me-girl who could have used that money but saved it for future-Me, or Me of 2020. Would she be okay with this? Could she comprehend that she would end up alright?

This week, I have been doing a great deal of soul-searching about spending the money. I am comforting myself through tears remembering those days I could not afford a Starbucks coffee without it breaking my budget. I remember a coworker doing the math when she bought a beer and noting the percentage of her annual salary. I have been remembering the luxury of buying fresh fruits and vegetables when twenty years ago I could not afford to shop the perimeter of the grocery store.  I eat the honey crisp apples now. They’re $2-3 apples depending on their size!

121 savings bonds

Today, just as I called our credit union to find out that they do not cash in savings bonds, I learned that the local bank will only accept ten bonds at a time. Tomorrow one branch promised me that they would cash in thirty. After that, I will spend the day going to as many banks as I can to cash in the money. Then, I will figure out a future day that I can do this same routine. It postpones the down payment and the shed construction but it does feel like a hurdle that I probably need to take. I have carried these with me through a dozen moves. Getting rid of them has been much harder than I thought- both emotionally and physically.

...cemetery tours, the American Sycamore, and a giant candy cane...

I never wanted to be a teacher when I was young. I was not even convinced until I started graduate school. Growing up, I had friends whose parents were teachers and they always had homework. I did not think I wanted a life with homework.

From as far back as I can remember, I wanted to be a tour guide. I had dreams of moving to big cities and carrying an umbrella through a crowd so that the patrons could follow me. It just was not a job that the career services folks ever mentioned but I did not give up so easily. When I was 17, I was hired at a local theme park to give tours of the wild life preserve. I drove a monorail while talking about the animals. It was a twenty-minute ride and I spoke the entire time. That was thirty years ago but I can still remember some of my spiel. In undergrad, I volunteered at the Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia and gave tours around the property. While I still very much love that museum, I did not love the job because it required me to be inside. I preferred giving tours where I could be outdoors more than indoors.

In 2014, I started training to give historic tours in Richmond. What I really wanted to do was give tours of historic Hollywood Cemetery; so, I did. Even better, instead of working for a tour company, I worked out a plan with their Friends organization and for several years now I have been offering tours where all the proceeds go to the historic preservation of the cemetery. 

2019 was a pretty great year for tours. I started giving evening/night tours of the cemetery, which turned out to be one of my favorite tours to give because Virginia summers are so brutal. While I pride myself on a good shade tour during the day, even the shade can be a bit too much for guests. 

Hollywood is a 135-acre garden cemetery full of life. During the evening tours, we saw bats, fox, and deer. With the night tours and one organization booking me as a guide, I raised $850. This morning, I wrote a check for the Christmas Eve's Eve tours, which came to $700. On December 23^rd, I offered our third annual Christmas tour. This year, I scheduled three tours beginning at 9am. On that morning tour, I was startled by a deer who was startled by me. For a moment, I nearly mistook the deer as a Christmas display.

Hollywood was designed with the living in mind and it was intended to be a place for those in Richmond to escape the hustle and bustle of city life. While many come to visit the cemetery for the historic figures buried here, many visit the trees that were left untouched by landscape designer John Notman in 1847.  

Along with the evening tours, I love the Christmas Eve's Eve tour because it helps folks escape the Christmas frenzy; and, I love seeing the holly trees, which is where Hollywood's name derives. Without question, my favorite this time of year is the American Sycamore tree. It has exfoliating white bark that peels and curls from the trunk in patches. In winter, this tree is stunning and my picture does not do it justice.

Being able to help raise money for the cemetery is such a privilege and one that I take quite seriously even though on the Christmas tours I carry a giant candy cane. These tours are also what I feel most proud of doing in 2019. Beyond the academic accomplishments through my workplace and various publications, somehow conducting research on a place that one loves doesn’t feel like homework. I love to learn and I try to share that love on my tours.