When we arrived back in Tucson, after being gone the entire summer, our roses had taken a turn for the worst. An irrigation system quit working and we didn't have anyone watching them. These roses were SO important to my husband as his Sister gave them to him the year before she passed away.

He was devastated, I could see it in his eyes. He looked at them and then at me, "honey, is there something you can do for them?". Now, I don't have the greenest thumb in the world, but I have read quite a bit on their care. Now it was time to put that knowledge to work!

I cut them back as much as I thought I should. I watered them carefully never letting them dry out. I fed them a good diet of special Rose food. I added bone meal to help feed and strengthen their roots. Then we waited....and waited....and waited.

About 2 weeks later I was out turning over the soil to make sure it was loose enough to accept and hold the water.....and I thought I saw something, just a little shoot of green! There were 10 roses in all and 5 of them had new shoots coming off the brown dried out stems! 5 of them crawled back from their dormant stage and were now growing.

The weeks turned into months and today those roses are beautiful, the brightest, strongest and most vibrant I ever remember them being.......and you know what? We're all like those roses.....

We thrived when we took care of ourselves, but when we quit doing so we all withered...we grew frail...and we gave up. Then we found SparkPeople. Let's just consider SP as our "fertilizer". We educated ourselves by reading, every day, some of the wonderful articles we found here. We "pruned" ourselves back by cutting our calories, fats and carbs. We added exercise, (our bone meal) to help strengthen ourselves and we carefully drank our water (at least 8 glasses a day) and we waited.

Some of us only had to wait a week or so to start to see a change, some of us had to wait longer. But while we waited our Teammates, the new friends we made and all the wonderful SparkPeople Team stood by us. They turned over that soil to make sure we "accepted" what had been so lovingly given..... and they believed in us.

I wanted to thank you all for all your care. Because of SparkPeople, because of my Teammates and my new friends I have started to "bloom" and so have so many others.....

The roses today......and we can all be just like them.....