From February 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jewel McKenzie is living proof that the excitement is in the journey and not in the destination. She began our interview by telling me that her life was \u201cnot an exciting\u201d one. Ninety minutes later I concluded that excitement is in the eye of the beholder, because I found her story fascinating. Jewel has \u201cnever been afraid to step away from\u201d a challenge or an adventure, and her life is a testimony to that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jewel grew up on the East Coast, dividing time between her home in Connecticut and her grandparents\u2019 home in Maine. As a child she was more interested in food than flowers, and she dreamed of working in the food industry when she grew up. An opportunity presented itself in 8th grade when she was accepted into a vocational school\u2019s food trades program. Unfortunately, before she was able to begin, the school announced that they were no longer accepting girls into the program and encouraged her to switch to their fashion or beauty programs. Since her grandmother had taught her to sew, Jewel took fashion design for the next four years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead of pursuing a college degree after high school, Jewel traveled to California where she worked for a couple of years before returning to the East Coast. She has explored many career paths during the course of her life, including office management, bookkeeping, and a position with a company that made business computers back in the pre-Apple days. Although she doesn\u2019t have a formal degree, Jewel has always been in a learning mode. \u201cI am never satisfied with just doing a job. I want to see the whole picture.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eventually, Jewel married and had a son, and when her husband decided on a career change that would take them to Florida, Jewel was ready for a change. However, the experience proved frustrating for her son, and when she and her husband parted ways, Jewel and her son returned to the comfortable familiarity of New England. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she turned 62, Jewel realized she could take early retirement. She sold her house, jotted down a \u201cbucket list\u201d and headed toward the Pacific Northwest where her son was living. She took the \u201cscenic route\u201d through the Deep South and the Southwest, stopping to see the Smithsonian, visiting friends in the Carolinas, and exploring New Orleans and Austin. December 31, 2015 found her on I-5 looking at Mt. Hood and the white-capped Columbia River. It was an incredible first visit to Oregon, but it wasn\u2019t her last. After 3 years (and several trips up and down the east coast) she decided that Oregon felt \u201cjust right\u201d, so she settled here in order to be closer to her son and daughter-in-law. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was her daughter-in-law, Rachel Suits, who encouraged her to join the CGMGA and, like many people in our chapter, Jewel was more interested in the social aspect than the gardening aspect of the group. At first she was a bit intimidated by the term \u201cMaster\u201d Gardener, believing that an MG was someone who had \u201cmastered\u201d the art of gardening. Since then, she has learned that you don\u2019t have to know all the answers\u2013you just have to know how to find them. A curious person by nature, she continues to be amazed by all the gardening information that is out there, \u201cfree for the taking.\u201d Her advice to new Master Gardeners? \u201cPut your fears at ease. Everyone is learning. And everyone has failures.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When she\u2019s not writing articles for our chapter or volunteering at the Fish Food Bank, Jewel enjoys traveling, music, and being in the kitchen. She loves to cook, bake, and entertain, but probably her greatest joy is when she can \u201cmake someone\u2019s day.\u201d Jewel certainly made my day by sharing her interesting life story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By Anne Gehrig<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From February 2022 Jewel McKenzie is living proof that the excitement is in the journey and not in the destination. She began our interview by telling me that her life was \u201cnot an exciting\u201d one. Ninety minutes later I concluded that excitement is in the eye of the beholder, because I found her story fascinating. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-spotlights"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":907,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions\/907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/centralgorgemga.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}