The Lantern Shines
Every Friday at 3:00 p.m. CT, I'll be tending the lantern, making sure the oil is abundant and the flame is steady for anyone who would like to stop by.
Hello, Friends!
What Fills your cup?
Have you ever felt like you were treading water?
Working hard, staying busy, doing everything you know you're supposed to do, yet somehow never feeling like you were moving forward?
I think that's why those old clichés, like treading water and I might be drowning, stick around. We've all been there at one time or another. We just don't always share it when it happens.
Last week, I realized that's how I'd been living.
I'd spent an entire day working on a project I was excited about. I poured hours into it, convinced I was building something that would move my business forward. By the end of the day, it hadn't turned out the way I'd hoped.
Discouragement settled in.
I sat in that familiar place we call wallowing for a little while before doing something I've learned is usually wiser than remaining in the mire. I talked it through with my husband.
By the end of our conversation, I realized the problem wasn't the project.
It was me.
Or more accurately, my cup.
I thought it was full.
It wasn't.
I'd spent so much time pouring myself into the business side of writing that I hadn't left enough room to refill myself.
If I want to create stories that bring hope, beauty, and light into the lives of others, then I have to make sure there's still something left to pour.
That realization changed the direction of the entire week.
Instead of watching numbers, checking ads, and worrying about what wasn't working, I gave myself permission to step away for a few days. Not from writing, but from striving.
I needed to create.
But even more than that...
I needed to live.
So that's exactly what I did.
Ralph and I escaped to New Orleans for a night. We wandered through the French Quarter, ducking into art galleries, corner bookstores, and cafés whenever the Louisiana heat became too much. We listened to a violinist in Jackson Square, admired the grand homes of the Garden District, and finished the evening with a ghost tour that reminded me every city carries stories waiting to be told.
The next morning, I carried my espresso into the garden with my journal. Instead of sitting at my desk, I sat among cucumber vines, yellow blossoms, and pepper plants reaching nearly to my chest.
As I observed my little garden, something unexpected happened.
The words came easily.
Not because I forced them.
Because I'd finally made space for them.
Maybe that's what filling our cup really looks like.
Not waiting until we're completely empty before we rest.
Not believing that productivity alone will sustain us.
But intentionally making room for beauty, conversation, gardens, travel, music, the people we love, and those quiet moments when we simply notice the world around us.
I'm beginning to think those moments aren't a distraction from creativity.
They are where creativity thrives.
A Little Bookish Moment
One of the unexpected gifts that came out of this week happened during a guided visualization.
I found myself standing outside a little blue cottage overlooking the sea. It felt peaceful. Familiar.
Then it hit me.
I'd already written that place.
In Everything That Led Me Back to You, my character Adeline discovers a blue cottage overlooking the Mediterranean.
Somehow, long before I knew it was a place I longed for myself, I'd already imagined it onto the page.
Sometimes I wonder if our stories know us better than we know ourselves.
A Line I'm Keeping
"I'm no real gardener. Just the observer. The grateful storyteller waiting for life to unfold."
Sometimes the words arrive before I know why they matter. This line found me while I simply watched cucumber vines send out their tendrils, wrapping themselves around whatever would hold them.
Until next week, may your cup be filled with the little things that matter most.
May you notice beauty where you least expect it.
And may you find reasons to celebrate, both the extraordinary moments that bring the world together and the small, ordinary ones that remind us joy has been growing nearby all along.
With love and gratitude,
