Let The Sunshine In

One of the projects we have to do at our fixer-upper house is landscaping. There was an abundance of incorrect landscaping and an abundance of "what is that?" landscaping. We tore out the old, dead, leggy, overgrown shrubs and replaced them with new plants. Some areas we cleared out all together. Still, there was the issue of the trees. We have huge pine trees in the front of the house that shade our house and hide it from view. Alas, the cost of removing the trees was HUGE so we decided to put it off until we could save enough pennies, well, dollars. Still, even with the yard work that we've done, it made a huge improvement with the curb appeal. So, lacking the stack of dollars necessary to make the BIGGEST impact, we turned our attention for this year back to the interior renovations.

Nature, however, had a different plan. One of the five trees decided to start leaning toward the house. Understandable with all the rain we've had this year and pines being shallow rooted things to begin with. Then, to make its intentions clear, the tree leaned more and decided to show its root ball. Needless to say, we hired a company to remove the tree. Actually, we had to remove two trees - we had to remove one to get to the leaning one. Yes, of course we asked the HOA for permission to remove it since it does effect the exterior of the house. The trees were removed on Saturday and approval to have the trees removed came on Monday. I'm so glad.

It is amazing the amount of light that now comes into the house. Our master bedroom, which was always dark, is now bright and cheery. I don't have to turn on a light to put laundry away in the middle of the day. The front of our house is visible from the street and our new shrubs get not just morning light, but morning and early afternoon light as well. The down side is not I can see that I need to sweep and dust in the front rooms.

My point is, is that just the removal of one (or two) obstacles can shed light on things that were previously hidden. That's what I'm doing with my revisions. I realized that part of the gaping holes in my novel were obstacles that I had placed on myself. I'm removing those and moving forward with revisions, and yes, the prequels to the series I envision.