Hi there! Pamela Hearon, one of the newbies on the Super Authors’ roster here. My debut SuperRomance Out of the Depths will be an August release, so you know I’m a writer. But I have another passion, and since we’re going to get to know each other well, I might as well let you in now on my dirty little pastime. It all started twenty years ago when my husband and I decided to put in a swimming pool. Now, a large section of our back yard is flat, but DH wasn’t willing to give up the nice flat area to a pool. Instead, he insisted the pool could be built on the back part that slopes down to a creek. (Yeah, I know. But have you ever tried to tell a man anything?) The area was a jungle of trees and undergrowth, so first we had to have it cleared. Then the pool company came and shot the slope. The pool builder shook his head and pointed to the flat area. “That’s where the pool needs to go,” he said. “But I want it here,” DH said. (repeat this dialogue three times.) Pool man walked off, got in his truck, and left, never to return. So, I had this nice, cleared section that would require sowing grass followed by a lifetime of mowing. Instead, I came up with the idea to put in a garden. No one in my family ever raised flowers. I had a great-grandmother who had a vegetable garden complete with bugs and snakes and pole beans that towered over my head as a child. I was terrified of that place. But the idea of a lovely flower garden caught my fancy. DH wasn’t keen on the idea, but that’s another post. And so it began. I laid out plans for beds and designed them using black garden hose. I dug trenches and fought with rolls of black edging. I tilled the soil using the same tiller Adam had in the Garden of Eden (that’s also another post). I bought seeds and plants. Fertilized. Watered. Learned the use of Round-Up. Years passed. We added a bench. An arbor. A gazebo. Lights and statues. Concrete paths. And now, these years later, the perennial flowers have become more to me than plants. They are friends who come to visit every spring and stay for months. I start watching for them in March, and my heart thrills to see who returns and frets at who was lost over the winter. It’s a lot of work and consumes a great deal of time, but I never begrudge that time because my garden is where I’m happiest. While I’m working that soil with my hands, my mind is plotting stories, fixing scenes, developing characters. And when the work is done, the laptop goes with me to the gazebo and the ideas get written down. Who could have known this hobby would get a grip on my heart like nothing else I’ve ever known (except writing, of course)? I look at this plot of land, and I feel wonder and awe at God’s handiwork. It brings me serenity, yet at the same time, sparks a continual passion. So do you have a dirty little secret? A passion that has a grip on you? C’mon, you can share. We’re among friends here.