Heyyyyyy! So, every summer I usually get super excited about being out of school and start thinking of all the different things I will be able to do with all that extra time and one of those things is planting a veggie/fruit garden. I absolutely LOVE gardening!! The only problem is I get so excited that I just rush into it at the last minute, miss the correct planting dates, get too many plants, and before I know it half way through the summer, I’ve already accidentally killed most of them because there’s just too much stuff going on. This same cycle of planting and forgetting has been going on since 2016 (I found a Pinterest board about what I wanted in my summer garden…. ha-ha). I decided this year to put that cycle to a stop once and for all . The first thing I’ve done to work towards this goal is the easiest thing EVER……starting “on time”, so just starting with enough time to plant the plants in the month you’re supposed to plant them in. Yesterday I went to Lowes, (I drove there by myself……EEEKKK), and I bought a couple packets of seeds. But unlike past years where I just got ones that looked cool, I thought of a couple recipes I like to make that have veggies in them and bought only the veggies I knew I would use. I got…..cucumbers (good for snacking and putting in salads), cauliflower (cauliflower may sound weird, but I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately and I love making fried rice with cauliflower rice just because it’s healthier than regular rice), spinach (good for wraps and salads) , carrots (I got rainbow carrots just because they looked cooler ), lettuce (obviously good for salads and also lettuce wraps), zucchini (good for a side and I also wanted to try making zucchini noodles or zoodles), radishes (I like putting them in a salad), and snap peas (one of my favorite snacks). I also got a mixed wildflower seeds pack just for fun and to make the garden area behind my house prettier . Anyways, basically I didn’t buy anything without a reason!! I super excited and it is so rewarding to harvest something after working hard on it for a couple months!! Some people may think…. why is a teenager eating so many veggies??……well, I have recently, in the past few months, been trying to eat healthier and incorporate more veggies into my diet because I really believe that a person’s diet severely impacts her health. Since I have several auto-immune diseases, (Parry Romberg, Eczema, and Pectus Carinatum) that stem from inflammation, I decided I need to be more conscious of my diet, because I truly believe it is a form of medicine that can help reduce inflammation in my body and lessen the effect of my conditions on me. I now only take vitamins because my Parry Romberg is currently inactive(yayayyyy!!). Now that all the medicines have done their part to take care of my body, I don’t want to further “inflame” myself by fueling my body with so much sugar and junk that it acts up again and develops more problems. I know that may not be true and that our bodies are built to survive unimaginable things, but I think after having to deal with so many different problems, I can help my body a little just by eating a healthier diet that will make me feel better and stronger. This doesn’t mean I am cutting out all sweets either, just yesterday I made the MOST AMAZING brownies and I probably at like 5 , but I’m just being more mindful of what I am eating every day! I I’m super excited to plant my plants today……I’ll keep putting updates on here too!! Thanks for reading……I think that this is my longest blog ever!!!