6 Years In The Making. The big Move. ... Pack, Stack & Don't Look Back.

Old House to the New House.... 6 years later. 

They say that home is where the heart is, but sometimes the heart needs a little help moving the boxes.

For a long time, I carried the weight of leaving a house I loved so much. It was a place filled with echoes of the past, and saying goodbye felt like closing a book I wasn’t quite ready to put down. But life, much like the seasons on our new homestead, requires us to clear the ground before we can plant something new.

Pack, Stack, and Don't Look Back

This journey of moving to our old farmhouse on this beautiful land inspired my newest children's book: "Pack Stack and Don't Look Back."  It's taken me 6 years to get this one finished. Written in my favorite rhyming style, this story is a very personal one. I wanted to weave together the real-life moments of my grandchildren both the originals and the new younger generation. But more than that, I wanted to share a lesson it has taken me so long to accept, It’s okay to keep the memories, but sometimes we have to rearrange and we mustn't look back with sadness because that will keep us frozen in a spot that we can't be a part of anymore. When it’s time to rearrange, to grow, and to look forward, we must accept that for what it is. And as I’ve learned on this new property, moving forward can be a wonderful, very good thing. If we choose to let it be. 

A Milestone in My Hands

This week, the story took a giant leap toward becoming a reality. I received the physical sample copy of the book! Holding it in my hands was an emotional moment. I finally got to see all of my grandchildren included in the pages—a way for us to officially "pack up" that old chapter and begin the stories of our lives as they are now with everyone included. Looking at the illustrations and feeling the weight of the book, I can finally see that I am on the right track to getting this officially published as one of my Grammy Tales  series.

Using AI As My Paint Brush. 

In the world of digital storytelling, I treat AI not as a shortcut, but as my paintbrush - a tool I have come to learn requires as much patience and precision as any physical medium. Imagine trying to describe to someone exactly the picture you see in your mind and guiding their paintbrush with every stroke using nothing but your vocabulary. You can not use your hands to show movement or descriptions, you can only use words. You can download photos you have taken, but again... those are only for a reference to get started.  Achieving the whimsical magical realism of my vision has meant spending countless hours, weeks, and even months obsessively writing, testing, and refining prompts. It’s an arduous process of trial and error where I refuse to simply accept whatever "quick" image the AI wants to drum up. Maintaining consistency across an entire book is a mountain of a task; telling the machine that we are creating my vision, not its own, is a job that would break the easily frustrated or the tender-hearted. It can easily take a full week of all-day effort just to get one tiny portion of an image perfected and locked in, ensuring every detail serves the gentle narrative I am determined to share with the world. I am not interested in a picture or image someone else has already created.... I want to create my own using a paintbrush that can only be held and guided by linguistic means.  Now, the world I have held inside of my mind my entire life is finally beginning to take a physical form that matches my words. 

The Next Chapter.

Seeing this sample of my story has given me the confidence to keep pushing forward. Just like the bare land we started with here, this book is a foundation for everything that comes next.

Thank you for being part of my "cyber family" and walking this path with me. I can’t wait to share the final version of this story with you and your own families soon.

Remember, "It's always the little things" 

WILD DAISY HOMESTEAD.