Buying homes from passionate gardeners has become quite a trend for us. I, too, love to dig in the soil, but my talents and dedication always fall short from the previous owners'.  Like good stories, beautiful yards take time. In that sense, revision and pruning have a lot in common. It takes courage to pick up the pen and pruners, again. 
 For the last couple of months I've been painfully aware of the scraggly state of the two hollies's bordering our entrance. Fear to begin had caused me to procrastinate. This afternoon the temperatures warmed into the pleasant fifties and there wasn't a rain cloud in site. It was just the right time to pick up the pruners and shape the hollies. I made my way to our backyard shed and dug out the clippers. As I carried them through the house and opened the front door, I felt a bit nostalgic. The last time I used them was to prune the roses in my former yard. I'd felt fearless then, readying the shrubs for the new owners. 
Now I focused on the hollies. Someone had kept them beautiful once, but today it was up to me. The hardest part was making that first clip. 
Isn't revision that way too? We procrastinate until the task at hand seems so daunting we don't know how we can ever begin, again. Then we realize all we need to do to begin is pick up the pen and take that first clip.