I like your testimony. I am also in VA (Charlottesville), For me, I left my 13-year career in EMS and went back to school full-time, working as a waterer at Lowe's. I unpacked a delivery of tiny trees we received overnight and pulled out a juniper procumbens, semi-cascade, and fell in love with it. I then found Josh Hoosen (Australia) on YT and began to learn about juniper bonsai. When I hit my 1-year mark in bonsai, my wife also told me 20 trees was a safe round number to manage... now it's 32 after 1 year and 1 month. My inspiration today is Bjorn, Ryan Neil, and Jelle.
Sounds like we are on a similar track!
I weakly justify my gross negligence toward our agreement with many being project trees whose fate is undecided and may be impermanent fixtures. She laughs and shakes her head and says “sure”.