Not enough time

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I’ve started thinking of time in relative terms. As an author with a full-time career, I’m intentional about my #writing #time. While it’s wonderful when I have entire days on a weekend to write, I’m often grabbing a few hours in the evening or an hour at lunch to bang out a few paragraphs. It’s easy to feel defeated when you think a novel is over eighty thousand words and I’m picking at it an hour here or there. Like other monumental tasks, it’s imperative to take it one word, one sentence, one paragraph at a time. In doing so, the book will be completed.

The longest I can sit and write productively on a novel is about five or six hours. What could you accomplish in six hours? Let’s look at a typical evening. If you’re home from work by six in the evening, you have dinner, settle into your evening by seven, and you go to bed at eleven. Assuming you don’t have chores like house cleaning or laundry, you have four free hours. You could drive from Kentucky to Georgia in four hours. Other things that could be done in four hours include painting a small room, running a couple of marathons, or assembling furniture for the living room.

Let’s look at time from the other side, what if you only have an hour, what could you accomplish? A workout, fold and put away laundry, pick up the house, or make a home-cooked dinner are among a few things that could be accomplished in an hour. Writing this post will take me about an hour but will hopefully have you thinking for many hours.

The next time you think you don’t have enough time to complete something on your list, think about that hour, or two, or four, whatever you have free, and add a little perspective. What can I complete or move toward completion in the time that I have?

All the best,

KK

Let’s connect. If you haven’t already, please choose to follow KK’s Candor. To stay in touch with my writing adventures you can find me on social media.

Why the year begins in January

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The image outside my window is not one of the new beginnings #January brings. Definitely not the vision of renewal or a fresh start. My garden is hibernating. It’s cold and I’d like to join those in nature that hunker down until Spring.

Centuries ago, March 25th was the beginning of our #calendar year. That makes sense. The beginning of spring. The rebirth of flowers, blossoms on trees…the renewing feeling of a warm sun. What happened?

Thank you Roman king Numa Pompilius. According to tradition, during his reign (c. 715–673 BCE) Numa revised the Roman republican calendar so that January replaced March as the first month in honor of Janus, the Roman god of all beginnings. There is evidence that January 1 was not made the official start of the Roman year until 153 BC. (source: Britannica) And then came Julius Caesar…

There are two reasons for asking this question. First are the things I mentioned above. From our part of the world, January doesn’t scream “NEW BEGINNINGS.” The other thought is to pose the question, how accurate is our holistic tracking of time and dates? This article demonstrates that tracking years shifted by three months, a quarter of a year just got shifted at the whim of some Roman king. Not to mention how many leap years we missed before those began to be tracked.

Why do we accept our calendar as accurate?

Things that make you go hummm.

KK.

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To stay in touch with my writing adventures you can find me on social media.

Curtains for Maggie! Available on Amazon.

Clipped Wings

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My wings have been clipped, but not cut off.

A few days before Christmas the doctor ordered an MRI on my left ankle. For months I had experienced swelling and a limited range of motion. Long story, short, the scan results showed a small tear in a ligament. To help it heal, I’ll wear a soft-cast for six weeks. Six weeks to hopefully avoid surgery. Wearing the soft-cast is clunky and at times uncomfortable. My car is a manual, so I have to shift gears to not driving, or limited driving my husband’s car. Oh, and the boot is taller than any of my shoes. I’m not good at being less than one hundred percent healthy. I get a little fussy.  We’ve had a major snow (about 10”), making going outside challenging. My wings have been clipped.

Recently, I have had several conversations about suffrage. What is the purpose of suffering? Be it a six-week inconvenience of hobbling around, and thumping up and down steps, to the suffering of those who are plagued with much longer-lasting pain and inconvenience. On either side of suffering, what is its purpose? Lessons to last a lifetime.

I’m a week into this challenge. So far, I’ve learned that if I stand up straighter, my gate isn’t as gimpy. Interesting idea, standing up straighter when the burden is pulling you down. A straighter posture helps me feel more control over my challenge. I am stronger overall than my ankle feels now. Do we let one burden steal the strength of so many other blessings? Is this an opportunity for me to decide how I will react to a challenge instead of letting the challenge itself control my attitude?

Is this an opportunity to slow down? I’ve just had two restful holiday weeks off work. Why did the ligament in my leg fail now? Truth is, it failed months ago, and I chose to ignore it. Perhaps this suffrage gives me the opportunity to not rush into the new year. How guilty we are at looking forward so much that we don’t see what today holds. We rush time. We wish our way to what’s next to the point where we can’t pay attention to this day, this hour, or this minute.

I’ve been given six weeks to slowly begin 2025. My caution is to not waste the slowness. Clunking around in this boot is tiresome. I’ll embrace resting more. But I won’t become lazy. May we all embrace Winter slowness to savor time and embrace what each season offers. Spring with it’s renewal of life, Summer full of sunshine, and colorful Fall.

Would love your thoughts.

KK

Let’s connect. If you haven’t already, please choose to follow KK’s Candor. To stay in touch with my writing adventures you can find me on social media.

I made the switch

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January 1, 2023 was the last time I drank a full-bodied, all the calories, and wonderful bubble-laced goodness of Coca-Cola. For years my doctor had told me that one Coke a day equated to five pounds added a year. That is assuming you’re not out working off the sugar in some sweaty workout session, which I was not. I made the switch to Diet Coke.

I had hit the point that many women my age hit, when metabolism retires, and weight moves in. I was tired of looking in the mirror to have no waistline reflected. Long-term hypertension was knocking on the door. I was too young not to feel sassy and good about my looks. By the way, my feelings about my body were not coming from societal messages, or from my beloved husband. Any time I groused about my weight, he would tap at my heart and remind me that he loved me from the heart.

So, I drew a line in the sand, signed up for Weight Watchers, and began the journey to better health through shedding some weight. In no way have I been militant about it. We’ve eaten well on vacations and enjoyed treats along the way. I’m not sweating to the oldies, although that should be my next step to escalate the results I’m seeing.

I began with one decision, two if you include the #WW membership. Every day, every choice I make on what to eat is now made with two things in mind, my health/weight goal, and how many points I have to spend.

Back to the Diet Coke switch. Now that it’s been over a year since I had a Coke, there are times when even Diet Coke tastes sweet. When that happens, I ask my husband to taste it. With a cringed face he hands it back to me, “Yep, that’s diet.” Funny how your taste can change. In college, my breakfast pretty much every day was a Dr. Pepper and Snickers bar on my way to barely getting to class on time. The thought of it today brings the feeling of a brick in my stomach.

I have hit one of my first weight goals (Yay me!). But my overall health isn’t what I want it to be, so there is continued work to be done. There are new choices around this change that I need to make. Going into eating and cookie season, those choices may be difficult. Goals worth achieving are worth sacrificing for.

When have you had to draw a line in the sand and say, “It’s time for a change.” Is there some way I can support or encourage you in that decision? Let me know.

All the best,

KK

Let’s connect. If you haven’t already, please choose to follow KK’s Candor. To stay in touch with my writing adventures you can find me on social media.

This crazy world

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In the early 1900’s, my grandparents were married. He worked for the railroad. Our country was coming out of World War 1 (#WW1) about the time they got married. Living in rural Eastern Kentucky, they had 12 living children and 3 stillborn babies during the Depression. They had no idea what the world was going to hand them. So, Papaw went to work every day and Mamaw planted a garden, kept chickens, and raised the children. On Sundays, they went to church. They worked hard, controlled the controllables and they recognized that there was something bigger than them watching over and providing.

In the 1950’s, my parents were married. Dad had come back from World War 2 (#WW2), finished college, and got a job. He and mom got married. Their generation dealt with civil unrest, the war in #Vietnam (and the protests that ensued), and one of the first big controversies in Washington, Watergate. News was on television every night, and in the newspapers each day. There weren’t influencers or a web of opinions spewed at them all day. They had no idea what the world was going to deliver. But they had children, and they worked hard. They controlled the controllables.

When 911 happened, my generation was shaken. Not since Pearl Harbor had we seen such a direct enemy attack. We were raised to believe they couldn’t breach our border. The US joined the war in Iraq. It began a new way of thinking about the world around us. If I had thought too much about it, I would have been scared. But I refused to live in fear. I went to work to continue to build a life. I  controlled the controllable, and I put my faith in someone bigger.

Every generation has experienced what they felt was a crazy world with so many unpredictable things. It’s our choice how we choose to react and move forward. We work to be productive and provide for our families, control what we can, and leave the rest to faith. In doing so, we can have joy each day while living in this crazy world, and peace in our hearts for what’s beyond.

Your thoughts?

All the best,

Karen

Let’s connect. If you haven’t already, please choose to follow KK’s Candor. To stay in touch with my writing adventures you can find me on social media.

Blameless Culture

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This week I heard the term “blameless culture.” Not knowing what the term meant, I Googled it. This is the first definition that came up.

Within a blameless culture, leaders blame processes, not people. They focus on understanding why something happened, not who is responsible. By striving to identify the root cause of an issue, they create systems that prevent it from happening again. This process of depersonalising mistakes can make a real difference.

Based on this definition (and not the context I heard the term), I can agree with it, for the most part. Finding the root cause of something happening (work not being delivered) can provide “lessons learned” to improve a process. However, outside of a purely automated situation, part of the root cause analysis of a process needs to be the people involved.

Having been a people leader, it was my job to ensure my team had what they needed to do their job well–equipment, time, and access to resources. A block in these things prohibits a strong team member from delivering on their work objective. If I fail to provide, they fail to deliver. I would take the blame, not push it off. If a team member has everything they need to deliver, and they don’t, that’s on them. Not me. Not the process.

Terms like #blamelessculture are a cautionary tale. We live in an imperfect world with fallible people. When things go wrong, it’s easy to point a finger of blame to circumstances or other people. There comes a time to own our part in the failure. If the process doesn’t work, whoever owns it, is responsible. Find yourself in an impossible situation where the process is preventing your success? Find the things you can own, you can control, and adjust. Own your part of the solution and don’t just blame the process. We can’t just sit back, throw up our hands, and blame the process.

Think about computers. If the functions of a computer aren’t set up correctly, the computer won’t produce what the user needs. In the early days of computing, we used the term, “garbage in, garbage out.” The code, formulas, and information had to be correct for the result to be correct.

Maybe the process is broken. Blaming a process isn’t going to make it better. Find the owner, or take ownership and make it better for the next time.

Just a thought,

KK

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Buying blue jeans

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There are more options when buying blue #jeans than when buying a car. After eleven months of Weight Watchers, it was time for me to treat myself to a smaller size pair of blue jeans. It’s been several years since I purchased jeans. Trends have changed and the options have grown.

I’ll start with the waist. I found super high-rise, high-rise, high-rise mom jeans (there’s a selling point, NOT), mid-rise, low-rise, and super low-rise. I don’t like high-rise jeans. They come up to my belly button when I’m standing and scooch higher when I sit. That helped me eliminate three options. And I’m not young enough or skinny enough for low-rise. There’s two more options eliminated. That left me with mid-rise, just below my belly button. Great, one decision was made.

Now we need to consider the cut. The options were regular, boyfriend, skinny, super-skinny, curvy (another great marketing tool, tell the woman she’s curvy as if she didn’t know), and loose cut. I tend to be regular to skinny, but I like my jeans longer.

Before we head off to the fitting room, there is one more decision to make the bottom of the leg cut. There is boot cut, flare, straight leg, skinny, super #skinny, and welcome back from the 70’s, bell bottoms. I’m typically a straight-leg person, but if the rest of the options work, I could go skinny.

So, off I went to the fitting room with mid-rise jeans of different designers in regular cut, straight and skinny legs. Did I mention that every designer has their own interpretation of all of these options? That’s right, I took seven pairs of jeans to the fitting room and came out with one that worked. I’d like credit for the workout I got putting on and taking off seven pairs of jeans. The real win came when I found out they were half off. Half off! I bought two of the exact same pair. I tried to find other shades of blue or colors, but that sent my head reeling into another dimension of options – dark blue, stone-washed, holes, no holes. It’s a thing.

By the way, I’m from the generation that wore jeans until they got holes in them. We didn’t buy jeans with ready-made holes. The holes in our jeans told a story of the places we’d gone and the things we’d done in our jeans.

There you have it. In two outings shopping, a total of four hours of my life in the last few days was spent on safari in multiple retail stores, hunting, gathering, and trying on blue jeans.

What’s your favorite style, cut, and designer of blue jeans?

All the best,

KK.

Is your book club planning for 2024? Consider Curtains for Maggie! Available on Amazon.

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What are you reading to your children?

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Reading to children is much more than the words on the page. Although they are important as well. Those words and stories are fostering imagination, and filling our children with messages they will play back for their entire life. I remember Go Dog Go being the first book I could read to myself. Spoiler alert, it ends with a dog party. How fun!

Reading to a child also builds a connection with you, their parent, or a trusted adult. Do you remember being little and thinking the grown-ups around you were always in a hurry or stressed out? Maybe not. Hopefully not. But when they took time to sit with you and go on an imaginary journey, you connected with them on an entirely different level. One that wasn’t about chores, or school work, you went to another world together and had an adventure. Oh, and for parents who aren’t great at reading aloud. That’s OK! Our kids need to know that we aren’t perfect all the time. Reading to a child gives the adult practice time to improve their own ability to read.

The books we read to our children carry a message. It’s our job to be sure the message is uplifting. Even in silly stories, the message may just be it’s time to giggle. The world has plenty to not giggle or be silly about. Let’s encourage silliness and giggling as long as we can with our kids. Let’s fill them so full of fun, positive, enriching stories, that when they are older and the world gets dark, they remember to follow the yellow brick road, and find their way back home.

An author friend of mine, Nicole Lisa Schrader has published a new children’s book, Darwin Finds Freedom (from Elk Lake Publishing). Darwin’s grandfather tells him stories of other mice that are free, and to find them, he must follow the King of all Creatures. This means the little mouse has to take a step of faith to leave the familiar. Not unlike when your small child steps into a classroom for the first time; perhaps a little scared. But with every encounter with the other animals, Darwin is encouraged to keep moving forward toward finding his community. This story is all about being brave. I encourage you to check it out.

What was the first book you remember reading? Do you still enjoy reading? I’d love to hear from you. Maybe you can add a book to my ever-growing reading list, or give me ideas for books to buy for the children in my life.

All the best,

KK

#reading #books #novel

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Looking for something for yourself to read? Check out my latest book, Curtains for Maggie, also published by Elk Lake Publishing.

Friends in the garden

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We built our home to be a place for friends to gather. What a blessing it is to have them over for grilling and swimming. Laughter and conversations fill the air. This week, we’ve had other friends gathering in the garden. They don’t care so much for the grill or the pool. And I didn’t invite them with a text message. These friends were invited with the intentional planting of colorful bushes and flowers in hanging baskets. It’s amazing how close they let us get. Must know that we’re friendlies. Let me introduce you to Sunny, the yellow bird, Zippy, the Hummingbird (look to the right of the feeder), Flippy, the butterfly, and Buzz, the bee. Every visit is a blessing and reminds me how amazing our Creator is.

All the best,

KK

#gardening

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I’m on vacation

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We haven’t taken a family #vacation in over four years. Between our son’s summer DCI activities and the #pandemic, there really hasn’t been much opportunity. This year we planned a vacation. We took our son and his fiance and headed out west to the Grand Canyon (north and south rim). It was the first time for each of us to experience the grandeur of the canyon and two other canyons nearby, Bryce and Glen. Before leaving, I had my pre-vacation checklist to complete. It’s never been easy for me to stop working for a week. Normally it takes me the first few days to down-shift into vacation mode – to not wonder what’s happening back at the office. The ridiculous part of this is that it’s not like I’m a high-ranking leader at a Fortune fifty company. In truth, I’m about six levels below that. But I carry the curse of a strong work ethic and take ownership of my work. So to leave work for a week takes a little effort on my part.

This time it didn’t take me long to decompress and ignore emails from work. About halfway through the week, I realized that I needed this vacation. I needed a change of scenery, a new experience, and time with my family. We had a great time. There was no rushing, but we had specific activities planned most days. In the evenings after a good dinner, we played cards and enjoyed each other’s company. I haven’t seen the news in over a week. The world was doing what it was doing, and my family was making memories.

We had a couple of rental car challenges. Evidently Dollar car rental can take a reservation, they just can’t keep the reservation (Seinfeld reference intended). But we got it worked out and had a comfortable Honda SUV for traveling from one end of the Grand Canyon to the other.

I’m purposely not going to even attempt to describe what we saw. Here are a couple of pictures. Even as a writer, I am without words, and these photos don’t begin to give you a sense of the majesty our Creator put in these mountains. Please take time to make the #trip. It’s worth experiencing and our National Park Service has made it very accessible for pretty much anyone.

We wrapped up our adventure with a trip to Chase Field Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona to see the Diamondbacks and the Rays play. Great game. Something else I’ve never experienced is a baseball game played inside. With the extreme heat, the game was played with the stadium roof closed. The Rays won.

Back to work on Monday. I’m thankful for my time off. But I’m refreshed and ready to go.

How’s your summer going?

All the best,

KK