Ever since I had my “aha” moment and returned to gardening, I’ve realized that most of my worries and stress melt away after stepping outside and working with my hands.

Stressed out about a task that’s taking forever? Take it to the garden.

Characters not behaving in a story? Take it to the garden.

Randomly crying in the middle of the day? Take it to the garden.

I have quite a few garden spots going, but right now, this area on the side of the house is receiving most of my attention.

I’m handling it in stages, and weeks ago, it looked like this:

It’s just a patch of grass next to a ‘needs-some-work-too-‘ flowerbed.

Like…literally just there. Taking up space and making me (& Mr. G.) mow it for no reason and then having the audacity to grow back in a crazy-looking way no matter how hard we try to tame it. O_o

I decided that an extended flower bed with pavers would look far better here, and since I prefer planting in the fall, I decided to start with a clean slate and kill the grass.

Now, at first, I tried to dig it all up, but um…After my arms begged me to stop the madness, I went with Plan B:

Bit by bit, I covered it with black plastic (contractor bags) and kept them down with landscape pins (like these).

It took me a week and a half to finish (it’s been SOOO HOTTTT) and now it looks like this.

I’m letting the sun and the hot weather continue to work its “you will die grass” magic for a few more weeks, and then I’ll begin stage two.

In the meantime, I’m trying to figure out how I’m going to end this year with books + making sure to properly word my responses to readers who read and loved my latest release Forever Writing You, so…Yep! Time to take it to the garden. <3

F.L.Y.

Whit