“The short version: we have just moved in. We have never owned a home before. We have very little money. What we had has been spent. The house has a garden. Something must be done with it….So I am here to show how a non-gardener from Brooklyn turned her household hellholes into drought-resistant, lush, verdant oases for the enjoyment and leisure of her child, her husband, her friends…

Failing that, I at least hope to show how a human herbicide (my husband’s words — thanks, honey) can become something, well, less fatal to the plants around her.  Wanna watch?”

What you see above is my original “about.” The one I wrote when I started this blog, thinking it would be about gardening. Or at least about “I-suck-at-gardening.” But what happened, along the way, is that I discovered that, not only do I suck at gardening, but I sort of suck at blogging about it, too. Or, at the very least, that I suck at blogging only about that. It’s an interesting sideline, but I have found that what is more interesting, to me at least, are the vagaries of being a first-time-homeowner, stay-at-home mom in a newly-purchased fixer-upper — one that has not only outdoor spaces but indoor ones — rooms, floors, appliances, and walls — that are in completely, hopelessly deplorable condition. And what it’s like to deal with all of that on a single income.

So I began writing about that, too. And “Thumbstumbler” became a blog about all of the things I don’t know how to do, (and sometimes don’t even like to), but must. About growing a garden, cleaning a house, making a home, when none of those things come naturally or intuitively to me. It’s also about being a mom to a toddler, which does come pretty naturally to me, but which I am still pretty goofy at.

Largely, it’s about me, and the “all thumbs” way I do and see things.

There are many, many blogs about skilled gardeners, adept housekeepers, brilliant cooks, exemplary moms. Someone needs to represent the domestically challenged.

So I do.

These are my stories.