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The idea for Better Life Booklets came to me while planning the landscaping at our new home last year. We had built our little dream home in a sleepy rural town a good distance from our jobs in hopes of finding a better, more tranquil life.

I spent months making plans for a Serenity Patio -- a lush garden where I could escape with privacy and peace. I dreamed of sitting on a beautifully carved English bench sipping herbal tea and writing about meaningful things. I would leave my teaching job and spend my time in this breathtaking retreat surrounded by the beautiful foliage as I wrote.

Reality hit when I realized that my future dream patio had ended up adjacent to the neighbor's dog kennel. And sadly, I couldn’t afford any of the lush vegetation I had envisioned and had to settle for a generously donated hodge-podge of excess flowers from the gardens of friends and neighbors.

My dream of the beautifully carved bench turned into a white plastic chair from the local discount store. And not now, or ever, will I be able to leave my teaching job since I’ve discovered what my mortgage payments will be.

The dream of writing is all that remains of my fantasy, but that’s okay. I am writing about things important to me and hopefully to you.

Maybe someday I’ll have the patio with the bench and the trees and the tea. But for now, writing is enough.

-- Sherry Richardson