A Day in the Life of a Writer: Are you having a hard time figuring out what to write? Write about your own life. Go into observer mode and find the amusing in the ordinary. This is a life-scene from yesterday, Tuesday, April 16th. Dave and I were working on a landscaping project while my Dad is staying with us for a few days.

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Marnie’s husband tilled a giant number 9 in their front yard. Eventually, he had visions of a labyrinth that filled the entire half-acre front yard. For now it was a number 9. In numerology, the number nine represents completion of one phase of life before moving onto the next. It represents the wisdom of everything that has gone before. Marnie was in a 9 personal year. She liked the idea of the 9.

Today, Dave rounded out the edges of the circular part of the 9. Over the course of a couple weeks, Marnie made a pile of stones next to the 9, carrying them in the back of the SUV from the garden to a spot by the circle. Dave, her dad, her son Elijah, and his friend Brandon had helped load and unload one Saturday.

On this Tuesday afternoon, Marnie worked to place the rocks around the outer edges of the circular part of the 9. Neither she nor Dave were sure whether they could actually make a small labyrinth inside the circle by June when women would be coming for their Creative Expression Retreat. Worst case scenario, it would be a flower bed.

Marnie lined about two-thirds of the circle with rock and then dug holes for various flowers and plants just inside the circle. Next, she used a watering can to pour water inside the holes, then sat down on a little stool to set plants. They’d bought various flowers and plants at the local high school’s Future Farmer’s of America Greenhouse sale last Friday.

She set a begonia, a green coleus, and a red coleus. Then as she set a sunpatien, Dave came in and began watering the remaining holes she’d dug and the soil around them with the water hose.

“Are you going to have enough plants?” her father asked.

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Marnie answered.

When she moved her stool to the next hole, her stool sank deep into the soil. With each subsequent hole, more and more mud caked to her tennis shoes.

“I should have worn one of your old pair of shoes,” she told Dave. Why was she wearing her only good pair of Nikes out in the garden? No use in changing them now, they would have to be washed.

After setting a couple more plants and grumbling about her shoes, Dave suggested, “Here’s an idea, and don’t take it the wrong way, but how about putting your stool outside the circle?”

“Then I wouldn’t be in the mud,” Marnie realized and added, “That would just be too logical.” With a slight chuckle, she moved her stool and plants to the outside of the circle.

“Are you going to have enough plants?” Marnie’s dad asked from his observation point just outside the circle.

“Maybe. Not sure,” she replied.

“Do you want to plant some, Jack?” Dave asked Marnie’s dad.

“Nah, I’ll just watch,” Jack replied.

“He’s supervising,” Marnie noted with a smile. “He’s good at that.”

Marnie continued to set flowers while Dave planted wild flowers from seed and placed a Dahlia and other plants inside the center of the circle.

As Marnie held a begonia in place with her left hand and covered it with sticky clay soil with her right, her father asked again, “Are you going to have enough plants?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered, looked down at the remaining plants and then toward the stretch of rocks yet to go. “Probably not.”

Marnie ran out of plants at about the same place she’d stopped placing rocks. The remaining third needed to be tilled more.

“Should we finish it?” she asked Dave.

Dave was about to go back to working in the garden, but decided he’d re-till the area around the rest of the circle so Marnie could finish placing rocks.

Marnie moved rocks and the yellow rope they used to mark the circle out of Dave’s way so he could till the remaining section of the circle.

Once Dave finished tilling, Marnie placed the remaining rocks around the circle. Just as she was about to place the last rock, Dave called out, “Stop. Wait. We have to take a picture as you place the last rock.”

Marnie found a nice big rock for the last spot and set it in place while Dave snapped a picture.

At about that time, little Sammie and Olivia came trotting over barefoot from next door, curious to see what Uncle Dave and Aunt Marnie were up to. They voiced their approval, and Dave announced, “Now we have to sing.”

Dave put his phone in video mode and began filming himself with the circle behind him as he sang a Cookie Monster song about Circles from Sesame Street.

The kids laughed and then scurried on home when they were called back by one of their parents.

Upon concluding his Cookie Monster song in his Cookie Monster voice, Dave waved Marnie and Jack over, “We need one more picture with all of us. Jack, get over here.”

The three gathered near the entrance to the circle, and Marnie held up her phone in selfie mode. Struggling to get the three of them and the circle in the photo, she took three awkward shots and let that be good enough.

Later that evening Dave remarked, “It’s amazing how different the front yard feels with the rocks around the circle. It completely changes the energy of the yard.” He was right. It did feel different. It marked the beginning of something beautiful.

Now it’s your turn… find the amusing in the ordinary moments of your life and try writing them like a scene from a book.