by Kat | Jun 1, 2026 | General, In This Moment
Brings a new month…
June is the time for being in the world in new ways, for throwing off the cold and dark spots of life. — Joan D. Chittister
As I tuck May away, I am mourning a bit because it was such an amazing month. But Joan Chittister’s idea on June is so enticing and as I checked this morning… yes, my life definitely has some dark spots… and thinking about the the idea of “being in the world in new ways”… Yes, I believe I am ready to step into June.
I have some new books to ease into the month with! A new poetry book: A Nature Poem for Every Summer Evening that begins today. And so I will shake up my day again… and that change is giving me something to look forward to… a bit of quiet as the day winds down… settling in with a poem. Which I am hopeful will mean some quiet porch time after the day’s busyness is over enjoying the delight that is an early summer evening.
And later this month I will begin Angela Harding’s Summer’s Hum. Her artwork coupled with her words is a delightful pause in a busy day. I will also continue with James Crews Breathing Room, which seems like the perfect analogy for what summer should be… a season of creating breathing room!
The month of May… in stitches.
Of course, stitching continues… five months are done and I am excited to begin June later today.
I love the contrast of the impromptu daily stitching versus this more precise stitching… and when you add in a bead or two, well… it is just the best thing!
And, I am thirteen days and five stripes in to an Alabama Chanin Variegated Stripe scarf. I am working on it as I participate in their 100 Days of Sewing. I am certain that I will have this done well before the 100 Day mark arrives but that is okay. I am having fun contemplating my next stripe! I am quite certain there is nothing that compares to the joy of sewing down a bead or two!
What about you? Are you also a little sad to turn the page on May? What are your plans for June?
I will be back on Wednesday! Happy Monday everyone!
by Kat | May 18, 2026 | General, In This Moment
Brings the NO’s!
Yes, I realize I live under a rock and am unaware of so many things going on around me… so many things. And I honestly wish it was so many more things… sigh. (News… I am looking at you here!)
Anyways, two things crossed my radar recently and to say I was shocked was an understatement. So yes, I guess I am still capable of being stunned by “advances” that should not ever be “a thing.”
First… did you all know about IG for TV? I have ZERO desire to watch IG on my television… ever. This brings doom scrolling to a new level of pain. Who on earth thought THAT would be a good idea! Just NO! (Yes, we have a Google TV, sigh, and it is inundated with ads to install it!)
Second… Dunkin’ Dirty Soda… say what? Pepsi™ mixed with “creamy coffee milk (that is not brewed coffee but rather coffee extract) and velvety cold foam.” What the hell? Umm, absolutely no… never… ever!!
On a brighter note… I’d like to say a resounding YES to Adrian Bell. I just finished A Countryman’s Spring Notebook and gosh… I want more! So much more! I know he has other notebooks and I am on a mission to find them!!
I will be back on Wednesday! I hope your day has some things you are saying yes to!
by Kat | May 11, 2026 | General, In This Moment
Is for letting go and moving on…
You will find that it is necessary to let things go; simply for the reason that they are heavy. So let them go, let go of them. I tie no weights to my ankles. — C. JoyBell C.
For a good bit of last month, I spent time reminding myself about all I learned in my Year of Release. It was a good thing to revisit… and I thought I’d share a bit of Ankle Weight Free Kat.
Way back in January, I began the 100 Day stitching project and somewhere around day 45 I hit a wall and rather than giving myself grace to move on. I began adding Guilt Reminder’s to my weekly calendar. Those guilt reminders to catch up X number of pages did not spur creativity to catch up… rather they were an ugly reminder of how easy it is to bully oneself. And yet, I continued to write a reminder in my planner until mid-April… in the midst of revisiting all I learned with Release.
Forrest… Trees… my name is Kat.
I need to tweak the cover page and make an “end page” but I plan on finishing this abridged book this week. But I feel very good about moving ahead and wish I would have given myself the grace to do that from the beginning. Lesson learned… hopefully!
I also, very briefly, contemplated stepping back from my daily stitching. I did not take it with me when we headed to Erie last week… and I missed it. But the break was a good thing… it reinvigorated me in many ways – even for stitching! I have caught up the end of April days while doing the current May days and that worked out really nicely!
The other things that I have stepped away from are Goodreads and Audible. Now, I was never a regular Audible subscriber… but I was really good at dipping in and out (especially if there was a “come back” deal!) But Goodreads was like a religion for me… so stepping away from Goodreads was a bit of a challenge. I started in January… half-heartedly. I did not set a “reading goal” again this year and I was surprised how frequently the app reminded me that I did not do that. It was so irritating that it actually helped me leave faster than I intended. And last week, I removed all traces of Goodreads from this space. I am happy to say… this was a very good thing!
But!! That does not mean I am without any sort of way to track the books I have read… I do! I write notes about the books I am reading in a journal and I also keep track in TheStoryGraph. I mentioned TheStoryGraph here before, but I wanted to update you all on things I have discovered in using it regularly! Of course, there is an app for the phone (both iPhone and Android) and there is an app for my Mac mini as well (yay for having a desktop version!) One of the things I really like is how I can look back at the books I read for the month. There is a monthly review that is dynamic and would suit many needs. It can be simple (like just page covers) to more data intensive… and it is so simple to use. It also does book reviews better, imo, than Goodreads did. It has a better rating system and it offers you options with quick review categories that you can check. The only draw back is that it is a bit trickier to link to link to your review, so if you are leaving reviews with Netgalley, for instance, it is a few more clicks to get to the link.
And for audio listening outside of my library, I have moved to a Libro.fm subscription. It is roughly the same price as Audible but I can select a local bookstore to support with a portion of my subscription fee. So each month, City Books gets a portion of that fee. It makes me feel good about spending money on audiobooks! I have been using the app about 3 months now and I don’t notice any significant differences between any other audiobook player. I can make a list of “favorites” I can adjust the playback speed (I like 1.3x) I can save passages all like I could on Audible. It just feels better not to be adding more dollars to a billionaire’s pocket and Libro.fm is an employee owned company.
I will be back on Wednesday!
by Kat | May 4, 2026 | General, In This Moment
Hello gentle readers.
I think I am back… at least for the time being. The time away was not empty time but Thinking About All the Things time. All the things… including blogging. And though many things have moved off my life list… somehow blogging made the cut (although, it is very near the bottom of the list.)
I feel I am very much at a crossroads in my life with two forks laying in front of me. Change is never easy and the indecision of which path to choose is weighing heavily on my shoulders as I contemplate them. And so… rather than forge ahead… I have put myself into a bit of a holding pattern for the time being as I contemplate the future.
Worry for my son and his wife has kicked back into high gear again as well. Grief is a miserable bastard and as we near Mother’s Day it seems even more so. I would be ever so grateful if you all could keep them in your thoughts this week.
And now I need to get my Monday moving… I will be back on Wednesday with some finished objects and a new project!
by Kat | Apr 13, 2026 | General, In My Backyard, In This Moment
It was an amazing weekend for landings!
There was a successful splashdown for the Artemis II… and yes, I watched the entire thing until I saw all four astronauts exit the capsule. The images of the final parachute deployment was stunning… those three billowy parachutes slowly the capsule and gently placing them into the ocean. It is a very good thing to be back in space in this unique way… back to the moon where it all began. And then on Saturday, I wholeheartedly committed to get on the Joy Train!
NASA’s Orion spacecraft with Artemis II crewmembers NASA astronauts Reid Wiseman, commander; Victor Glover, pilot; Christina Koch, mission specialist; and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist aboard is seen as it lands in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California, Friday, April 10, 2026. NASA’s Artemis II mission took Wiseman, Glover, Koch, and Hansen on a 10-day journey around the Moon and back to Earth. Following a splashdown at , NASA, U.S. Navy, and U.S. Air Force teams are working to bring the crewmembers and Orion spacecraft aboard USS John P. Murtha. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
AND!!!
The Pileated has landed!!
Friday morning, I got the massive suet feeder up and on Saturday morning while I was in the kitchen puttering… I heard that distinctive call and looked up and there was the Pileated Woodpecker back on the telephone pole and within seconds it was soaring in to land on the suet!! I was so awestruck, I did not even think of trying to snap a photo! I have remained vigilant to watching for them… and was rewarded with multiple visits! A brave female is the visitor thus far… she has no red patches on her cheeks.
I have named her Christina… of course! Huzzah to brave females everywhere!
Dear friends, I love birdwatching so much and my absolute favorite of all the birds are the Picidae (woodpecker,) and especially those in the Dryocopus (Pileated Woodpecker) family. To say I am elated is an understatement… and couple this with the splashdown… well, it was A Weekend for the ages!!
Oh… and my seat on the Joy Train is quite comfortable! Happy Monday everyone!
Header photo by Chris F
by Kat | Feb 13, 2026 | General, In This Moment
And we: spectators always, everywhere,
turned toward it all and never looking out!
Everything overfills us. We put it in order. It falls apart.
We order it again and fall apart ourselves.
— Rainer Maria Rilke, A portion of the Eighth Elegy from the Duino Elegies, translation by Mark S. Burrows
This has absolutely been my world since last November… overwhelmed by everything, trying to make sense of the senseless, and everything, everywhere falling apart. And let me tell you… being immersed into profound grief when the entire world is a shite show… well, there were some moments that I wanted to crawl in a hole and pull the dirt over me and just be done with it all.
From the end of November through all of December and most of January, I barely could keep track of what day of the week it was. And most days I did not keep track at all. I was thankful for the technology that reminded me when to get out of bed, when to take medications, and when to “begin winding down” from the day.
But, somewhere in January I began to notice different things. The sky in the morning was the first thing I really noticed…. it was not really black anymore but a beautiful indigo gradient. I don’t think I ever remember noticing this phenomenon before, although I am certain it has done this for millennia. And each day, despite the unbelievable cold, I was so eager to get outside to see those early morning skies.
Something had an order and it did not require any work from myself at all. I could just be there to experience it.
And then something even more miraculous happened as February inched in… I had what I classify as a “normal” conversation with my son. We talked about everything and nothing and then more nothing. And I felt a huge worry begin to melt… I guess I did not realize that my worry for him was as overwhelming as it was, and I knew it was overwhelming… but wow… once that change happened, I realized how much of a burden that was.
And I am happy to report that I am mostly back to keeping track of the days. The world is still a shit show. Lots of things still don’t make sense. I have filled the hole in and moved past it. But I am less concerned with putting things in order that I cannot control… and as for being a spectator? Well, the shit show continues… but so do those glorious indigo skies and I am betting next week I will have some snowdrops popping up in my yard!
Header photo by HASAN ZAHRA
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