This is a post I never thought I would have to write. I'm usually a very private person. It's ironic that I have a blog because I'm so private. I can write about things around our home, but it isn't easy to post about our lives. I like to keep our daily life to myself, but we've been going through something that will change our lives...

My husband, James, has cancer.

It began as a large lump in his arm/chest that wouldn't disappear. After a biopsy, the tumor was confirmed to be melanoma-related.

I never thought cancer would be a part of our story.

We really only have a few details at this point.  

We initially thought the tumor could be something else, so the melanoma came out of nowhere. I'm so thankful a doctor quickly decided to perform a biopsy when my husband went for another test. It quickly ruled out the other directions we were going in.

My husband has an appointment with an oncologist this week, so we'll hopefully have more information then and treatment options.

I wanted to write about this because we're not the only ones going through a challenging diagnosis. It also helps me to see different perspectives, so I wanted to provide my own. This will change every area of our lives soon, so it felt inauthentic to not include it here. I could only go on for so long, acting like everything was great before it all came down.

I stay busy & upbeat, but it's so difficult. Keeping up with my blog has been a good distraction, so I plan on continuing that.

Right now, there are so many unknowns with my husband's treatment. We're hoping for the best but have had a lot of tough conversations over the past few weeks.

My parents have been gardening for as long as I can remember.  Growing up, I never paid much attention to their gardening.  It just wasn't on my radar growing up.

I started my own gardening journey 4 years ago.  Since then, I have been all about gardening!  I started noticing other gardens & everything that is put into them.  Everyone's garden is different & I love seeing the different ways people garden.

My parents' garden is a great example of this.  They do gardening quite differently than I do.  One of the ways we're different in gardening is our tomato supports, which is the subject of today's post.

For their tomato supports, my parents use a single stake method.

This is our second year constructing DIY tomato supports.

Last year we placed a single row of stakes down one side of our tomatoes.  We then wrapped wire around the tomatoes & attached it back to the stakes.

While this method worked, I felt it wasn't as supportive as it could be.  Our tomatoes got to great heights last year & needed a ton of support.

I still liked the staked support idea so we decided to expand on it this year.

Since we still had the staking supplies from last year, we used them again this year.