I’m going to Austin again. This is getting to be habit forming.

I am a member of the Garden Writers Association. A while back, I was asked to be a member of a panel discussion on garden blogs at the annual symposium, which is being held this year on September 28th through October 1st in Oklahoma City.

Much to my grown offspring’s astonishment, the GWA doesn’t pay the expenses of their panelists. You get a small honorarium and a big hint that they hope you’ll donate it back. And my household budget doesn’t usually include a line item for travel. So I am getting paid for a few writing assignments and I get a little income from the ads at Cold Climate Gardening, and, exercising extreme restraint, I didn’t buy any plants this spring. Talk about dedication!

This is going to be quite an adventure for me. I’m excited and anxious, nervous and thrilled, prepared to have a blast and scared to death I’m going to make some kind of expensive mistake, so in the next couple of days I plan to be asking you, dear reader, for advice. In the meantime, I’m trying to think of this as a gardening vacation that just happens to have the first public speaking I’ve done since, um, speech class in high school thrown in for good measure. Yikes!