My morning routine includes at least an hour at the gym, sweating off the pounds and pumping iron. I follow that with a long, hot shower and then enjoy the cool walk back to my office where I spend 20 minutes photographing my garden and then another 20 or so walking my dog.

One of the things I love about the garden is that I have to look carefully to find all the new treasures it has each day - new blooms, fruit forming, creatures living, dying and moving among the plant bases. I have cantaloupe blooms now, and tiny strawberries too. The flowers I planted along one ledge are up and while there aren’t any blooms yet, they’re growing!

The amount of growth that happens in a 24-hour period, from one day to the next, is just amazing. It’s not just the garden though. I was sitting at a table talking to someone yesterday and I crossed my arms and went to rub my upper arms and felt muscles! MUSCLES! After weeks and months of weight lifting I actually have muscles I can feel and see.

I’ve never been able to be patient over the long haul. I want it all NOW. Having a garden, lifting weights, watching my ants in the ant farm last winter - all involve tiny, almost imperceptible steps. It happens! I look back at the photos of bare dirt I had a couple of months ago and at the jungle that is there now and I’m stunned. But it happened a small piece at a time, barely half an inch to an inch a day - and now my tomato plants are four-feet tall and my garden is bursting at the seams with tomatoes, beans, radishes, lettuce, onions, squash, carrots and strawberries!

How much could I do if I worked on my books an hour a day, or on a website, or in the gym, or whatever I have to do that seems overwhelming now? Who knows? But I’m finding out - it’s a lot. How about you? Do you have 30 minutes, or 15, or 10 to spend on pursuing something YOU want?