The Juniper Finale

I talked earlier about having the junipers removed and replaced with sod. I also mentioned that the project was not complete. Here is the rest of the story.

They ran out of sod when they were out originally to do my yard project. The owner of the landscaping company promised me they'd be out the following week--the first week in June--to lay down the rest of the sod. Perfect.

Except not so perfect because the first week in June went by. No sod. The second week passed. No sod. And then we reach week three and there is still no sod. And now the bare patch of dirt is loaded with ugly weeds. I contact the landscaping company, Um, hey, I need this project finished.

I was promised they'd be out the following week. The fourth week of June.

Monday passes. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. And then it's Friday and I'm like, damn it. Now I have to contact them again and the only info I have has me talking to an admin, so it's not like I can be irritated with her. It's not her fault. She doesn't do the scheduling, she just answers emails and the phone.

Then, around 3 p.m., I see a truck come up the street. I'm sitting in my home office, swivel my chair, and lean forward. Yes, it is my landscaping company.

They showed up on June 26th, four weeks after the original sod was laid down on Memorial Day.

The good news is that my yard is finally complete. The bad news is that I have to water this new section of grass double the time the sprinkler system is scheduled to run for another month. Water down here? Priced at ridiculous levels. I pay TRIPLE down here for one month than I paid for three months in Minnesota.

At least it's done. Next year, the grass will have to fend for itself.

Test Decoration

I talked about using a 2026 monthly planner with notes pages as my 2027 writing planner because this was sitting unused, and all it took to make the calendar work was switching the Sunday start to a Monday start. Since I prefer Monday start anyway, I decided this would be easy.

While I love my 2026 writing planner and I use it every day, I don't use it to the extent I planned on. Instead of brilliant marketing strategies and carefully thought out goals and reflections on goal progress, I mostly just use it to keep track of how much writing I did that day.

Since I'm hardly using it the way I'd hoped, it made sense to repurpose an unused planner I already owned.

The caveat, though, was could I create my own daily boxes on the blank notes pages without hating it? I decided to spend some time creating the January 2027 spreads to see what I thought.

First up, the monthly title page. This was not strictly necessary, but I'm happier with decorated planners.

I didn't need to decorate the monthly calendar for January because I had already done it in January of 2026 with stickers I got from a seller online. Same with the dashboard page. Since those were just rote stickers set down in set locations, I didn't take any pictures of those pages to share.

First page of the month encompasses a partial week with three days.

 

Those blue blobs are supposed to be clouds. Clearly, I'm not an artist. I was trying to follow the Hubman and Chubgirl video tutorial on YouTube and her navy blue clouds looked great. Mine? Sigh.

But I got my three days set up. The square check boxes each represent 250 words and there are eight of them, so if I write 2000 words in the day, I can mark all the boxes. The colorful boxes at the bottom of the daily boxes are to record the total words written that day.

 

Here is the rest of the month, decorated with all boxes ready to go for writing in January 2027. Clearly, not an artist which is so frustrating. I also overdid some of the stickers, but I was trying to use up sheets so I could throw them away, so I over stickered.

I was a little sloppy lining the boxes, too. It's especially noticeable on the boxes where I used a blue marker instead of gray.

I had one page left over at the end of January, so I made it a notes page. Not sure how much use I'll get out of that because I didn't use them at all in 2026 after the first month or two, but there's space if I need it. I also have notes pages at the very back of the planner if I need it.

I'm hoping I get better at the artistic aspects as the year progresses. Can't get much worse, I guess.

Last Chance for Early Bird Pricing!

Interested in picking up Wicked Temptation? This is the final day to grab it at the special early bird price! Tomorrow, July 15th, the price increases. Save money and enjoy an exciting action-adventure, second-chance romance!

The blurb: 

He’s always been a protector. She’s strong enough to fight on her own. This time, survival depends on each other.

Special Forces Sgt. Cal “Baggs” Baggnell walked away from Iona Desmond. Carving out his own heart hurt—but watching the woman he loves charge headfirst into danger hurt even more.

Iona loves Cal with her whole being, but she couldn’t change the core of who she is to fit his protective nature. He knew exactly who she was when they met—the need for adventure is in her DNA.

Now, their paths collide in Puerto Jardin, where Iona has talked her way into Cal’s op. And he’s been assigned to work with her.

Their bait: the Lost Treasure of Trujillo. Their target: arms dealer Jorge Torres. Their problem: Torres isn’t the only predator closing in.

With ruthless drug lords, rival treasure hunters, and a powerful Russian mob lieutenant obsessed with finding the billion-dollar fortune, Cal and Iona must put their past aside. The deeper they dig, the deadlier the game becomes.

As betrayals mount and enemies tighten their grip, survival depends on one thing: Trust. If they fail, they won’t just lose their second chance—they’ll lose everything.

 

Wicked Temptation is a stand-alone romance with a HEA. There are references to events that happened in earlier books, but it's not necessary to read them to enjoy this story.

Indulge in a protective Special Forces hero and a heroine who works undercover for the Paladin League as a photojournalist. This story features a second-chance romance, identical twins, and a kick-butt heroine.

Scathingly Brilliant Idea or Busy Work?

I'm toying with a new thought for organizing my writing.

If you've been following this blog for a while, you know that I print out monthly calendars and mark which day each chapter takes place on as I write. This keeps my timeline intact and accurate. It also saves me some huge headaches.

Huge!

I recently wrote a side project where I thought I had the timeline lodged in my head only to discover when I went to mark up the calendar that I royally messed up. It took quite a bit of work to fix it.

I'd like to think I learned my lesson, but I'm sure this will be temporary because I've learned this lesson multiple times before. :-)

But to get to my scathingly brilliant idea, I started to think what if I printed out my calendars on sticker paper and put them into a hardbound notebook? I have a bunch of B5 sized notebooks and this way I wouldn't have lose copy paper pages with calendars on them floating around my office, waiting for me to misplace them. Much harder to lose an entire bound book.

Although, with my ADHD, anything can get lost. Still, I think it would be easier to keep track of an entire book, especially if I put it on the shelf above my desk.

This would only be for completed books. Like I'd have the first eight books of the Paladin League series in there, but not book nine. Book nine, Wicked Attraction, would still be recorded on a paper calendar and only added to the book once it was finished and I knew things weren't going to move around.

I've already worked out that I need to print the calendar PDF at 80% to fit it in the B5 notebook.

I'm tempted to do this, but then I started wondering if this is really something I should spend time on or not. I currently have all the Paladin League calendars in a binder and they're secure. I also know where the binder is.

Who am I kidding? I'll probably end up doing this. If it works? Scathingly brilliant idea. If it doesn't work? I wasted time. Gah! 

Juniper Update

I thought I'd do a quick update on the juniper project.

The new sprinkler head was installed in a timely manner. The other sprinkler heads were adjusted and the entire patch of new sod is being watered. Yea!

The place where it's bare dirt because they ran out of sod? It's still bare dirt and we are three weeks, going on four weeks, past when the original sod was installed. That means the bare dirt is no longer bare, but covered in weeds.

My one week delay in sod being laid? Ha!

I had stuff going on that prevented me from keeping on top of it, but I finally contacted them during week three without sod and they promised to come out in week four. I will update as to whether or not they actually show up.

On the plus side? I love the new sod! I love having those damn junipers gone, gone, gone! So much nicer looking than that damn mess I was dealing with previously.

The new gardenia bushes I had installed to replace some dead and dying bushes are also looking really good. This yard update was worth the cost.