Gardening & Life

Hello! I hope you’re all doing well and keeping safe. I woke up this morning to sunshine and warm air. Here in the Northeast, Spring has arrived! You know what that means… Time to bring these babies outside.

 

In the past, I’d been too busy with work, family, and writing to pre-plan a garden. I was the one scrambling late in the season, running to the garden center to pick up infant crops to plant out back.

This year, well, you know what happened. We’ve been sheltered in place, doing the best we can while staying safely at home for the past 8 weeks. Suddenly, I have time to think, and to consider my garden. So, with the bug from last year’s successful harvest of my first seeded sunflower (pic right), I dedicated a sunny space in the living room, bought some soil, pots, and seeds, and started my very first indoor “victory” garden.

The most beautiful thing I’d ever grown (other than my boys)

Every morning, I checked on my pots, marveled at the sprouted greens through the soil, and enjoyed watching their growth. Watering them daily and adjusting their position throughout the day to get the most sunlight became routine, calming, predictable. I found my rhythm.

But, as plants and flowers tend to do, they’ve outgrown their small pots and they’re ready for the great outdoors. I need to let them go, allow them to plant roots outside where they belong, and do what they do best: provide beauty, food, and thrive.

As in life, the rhythms we find change. We settle into a comfortable routine only to face the next phase of our lives.

Parenting is like planting, but waaaay more terrifying. We raise these children, and before we’re ready, they leave, searching for their place in the world. We’re left to face our days without them. We adjust.

In Seasons Out of Time, which comes out next Friday, Heather Harrison just dropped her only child at college hundreds of miles away, and she too faces the next phase of her life. No longer a wife, or a full-time mom, she must re-define who she is and how she’ll fill the long, empty days ahead.

And so begins her journey of self-discovery in the most unconventional way.

This gorgeous cover was designed by my talented designer and friend, Suzanne Fyhrie Parrott of First Steps Publishing

Have you pre-ordered your ebook? If you do, it will arrive on your kindle Friday, May 22^nd  in time for the holiday weekend. The paperback version will be available to order that day too. Here’s the link: Amazon

I’m excited, nervous, and hopeful that you’ll love the story as much as I do.

Until then, I wish you health, peace, and sunshine.

Love, Kim

 

 

The Big 5-0

Well, I’m here. I turned 50 this week.

It’s only a number, I know. But let’s face it. It’s a pretty big number.  Yesterday, I was twenty years old with my life in front of me. This age didn’t even factor into my thoughts.  And yet, now I can say…

I’ve lived half a century. Five decades. I’ve had friends for over 40 years. I’m a child of the 70’s and 80’s, when music was good, Mick Jagger was in his prime, Dudley Moore was Arthur, Rocky movies weren’t considered cheesy and we quoted lines from Sixteen Candles. (I should mention here that Molly Ringwald and Anthony Michael Hall are both turning 50 this year.) We ran around outside until sundown without anyone worrying about us. Fortnight meant two weeks. Atari, Space Invaders and Pac-Man were the video games we played and no one tried to kill virtual people.

Now I go to “reunions.” Songs I listened to in my youth and still do today, are considered classics. They’re re-making movies I watched in the theaters (yes, including Arthur). We no longer have David Cassidy, Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett; icons of the day. I went to concerts with my friends and we  didn’t take selfies to prove we were there.

For these reasons, I embrace my age. I treasure my memories, the times I shared with the family and friends I grew up with and love and still see. I truly believe my generation enjoyed the last, great decades .

There’s a saying that with age comes wisdom. I can’t say. I’m still learning, still trying to figure out my path, which is always changing (Did I mention I work at an accounting firm?). Hopefully, I’ll always keep learning and changing.

Until you put a mirror in front of me, I still feel like the twenty-year-old optimistic girl with her life in front of her. I just might move a tad slower.

I wonder what the next decade will bring. I hope to God it doesn’t pass by as quickly as the previous ones. Maybe that’s what I’ve learned – that life is not to be taken for granted, that I should make the most of the time given to me.

ice cream, of course

 

Something to think about.

I’m going to go now. It’s nearing five o’clock. Time to eat.