🌿The Yard, the Weeds, & the Words✍️

Spring always pulls me outside — usually early morning and late evening in an attempt to avoid becoming “lobster‑fied” 😆 The yard wakes up fast in Florida — new shoots pushing through the soil, the trees stretching out again, the garden shifting from quiet to alive. I love this part of the year. I love checking on what came back, what needs a little coaxing, what’s thriving, and what’s trying to take over like it pays my mortgage.

But loving the yard doesn’t mean I’m out there doing the heavy lifting. Nope. That’s what three teenage boys are for.

They’ll gather branches, haul bags, drag debris, rearrange blocks, and tackle the muscle‑work with the kind of enthusiasm only chore money can inspire. And because their mother makes a mean key lime pie and all sorts of yummy goodies, I have a wide variety of other currency to bribe them with. Meanwhile, I get to do the parts I actually enjoy — the pruning, the checking, the planning, the tending 😊 The hands‑in‑the‑soil work that feels grounding instead of exhausting.

Y’all, I think I’m going to try one of those vertical pallet‑wall herb gardens this year… just have to pick up a pallet for it 🪴 You know the kind I’m talking about, right? The ones with the pots hanging along the wooden slats and the cute hand‑painted labels… 🤩

And while I was out there this week, moving from plant to plant, watching the boys turn yard cleanup into a competitive sport, I realized something: the yard wasn’t the only thing waking up and asking for attention. My creative world had its own overgrowth — ideas sprouting everywhere, plot threads stretching in new directions, scenes that needed pruning, and a brain that felt like it needed the same kind of clearing I was giving the garden.

The parallels were impossible to ignore.

The yard grows wild when you’re not looking. So do stories 😵‍💫 especially when you’re the kind of author who always has multiple WIPs growing at once. And so does life.

There’s something meditative about tending a space you love. Pulling a weed feels like untangling a stubborn plot knot. Snipping back a branch feels like tightening a scene. Clearing out old growth makes room for new ideas to breathe. And watching the boys haul away another pile of debris reminded me that not everything has to be done alone — in the yard or in life.

By the time we finished, the yard looked refreshed, and I felt the same way. Clearer. Steadier. Re‑rooted.

So I tackled my desk 📑😬 and the millions of sticky notes that have piled up everywhere 😒 Okay, maybe not millions — but definitely a hundred or so. Same energy. Same reset. Same sense of clearing space so something new can grow.

And with that grounded momentum, I’m stepping back into Book 3 — ready to shape, prune, and grow the story the way I just shaped, pruned, and grew the yard.

What’s growing in your world this spring — in your yard, your life, or your creativity? I’d love to hear. And if you’re journeying through the Warriors of Anaa series, now’s a beautiful moment to revisit Books 1 and 2 as Book 3 continues to take root.

Much Love,

Happy Lwife

P. S. >>> Haha! I just realized how many emojis I used in this post... perhaps I should create these on my phone more often, huh? 😆