Category: Anecdote (Page 23 of 31)

Welcome to the New Observation Desk

June 27, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Hello and welcome to the new Observation Desk blog here at my new site www.katielcarroll.com. The tea water is on (the black dragon pearls are standing by) and the scones are in the oven (blueberry jam not optional…it’s just too delicious).

This is my real, live desk. It’s way too messy to be functional. I actually use the other desk in the home office (which technically is my hubby’s desk…thanks, hubby!).

Things may look a bit different around here, but all the old posts and all your great comments have scuttled on over to the new desk. There’s some bonus stuff too, like my author bio and books page. Look for more content coming soon, including information about my school visit program. Of course you can always use the handy-dandy contact page to send me an e-mail.

I’d love to know what you think of the new site (but really I only want compliments and you can stuff the bad thoughts!). Stay tuned for some posts on the great crops I’ve been enjoying and I think it’s time we had a science update already! What have you all been up to lately?

Signs of Spring

March 31, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Here in New England you never can use temperatures to decide what time of year it is. With a warmer than average winter (bad for allergies and getting rid of bugs, but a nice break after last year’s crazy winter), it seems like spring has been around for months.

I know better than to let an 80-degree day in March fake me out with a premature promise of summer. An April snowstorm is always a possibility. Just today it was rainy and damp and cold outside. There’s other ways to tell spring is here, though.

For one the birds are back. I spied a crow taunting a squirrel. The crow clutched what appeared to be a long reed of dried grass in its mouth. The squirrel got real close to the reed, only to have the crow fly out of reach. Then the crow landed back on the grass and let the squirrel approach. With a squawk, the crow hopped away again. This went on for some time, much to my amusement (those pesky squirrels are always stealing my unripe tomatoes, taking one bite, and leaving the rest for me to find) and much to the squirrel’s dismay. I’ve also has a particular blue jay that seems to have made a nest in the forsythia bushes on the edge of the yard. And the distinct who-who-who lament of the mourning dove is back.

On Thursday, the hubby, the bro, The Boy, and I had our first ice-cream-for-dinner event at the Sundae House. The giant sign on their building reads, “It Must Be Spring, We’re Open!” Signs never lie, so you know that it really must be spring!

On Friday as I was leaving work I drove toward what from afar looked like a couple of misplaced lawn chairs blocking the driveway. Turns out, it was a tom turkey strutting its stuff and peacocking (let me just point out what a fun word “peacocking” is) as it tried to court an indifferent lady turkey.

Lastly and most definitively I know it’s spring because the little pea seeds are sprouting in their trays. My mom and dad both stopped by the house and saw the too-tall-for-trays pea plants on my kitchen counter and (independently of each other) said, “You’ve got to get those in the ground!”

What signs of spring have you seen lately?

A Loud Conversation

January 8, 2012 / Katie L. Carroll

Cough Cough

Yes, dear cough, I know you’re still there. Along with the chest congestion, the runny nose, and the ear infection (yeah, ear infection, because apparently I’m five years old and like to stick crayons in there).

Cough Cough Cough

I have a new tactic for dealing with you, though. After–oh let’s round up and say three weeks–I’m just going to ignore you. I’m not going to let you stop me from getting my work and writing done, from taking care of my chores (Have those Christmas ornaments really been sitting on the coffee table for a week now?), from going on that walk (because it’s January in New England and it’s in the 50’s).

Cough Hack Cough

Did you hear something? I know I didn’t (although I know all those people in the office heard you last week).

Hack Hack Hack

You see, I know something you don’t. Eventually all colds will pass…and you know what, I’ll still be here when you’re long gone. So from now on, you don’t bother me. That’s it, end of story. You no longer exist. Now, please, please, please go away for real!

I’m Not Stressing

November 17, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I will never apologize to you, dear readers, for going long stretches of time without writing on my blog. It’s not that I don’t appreciate you…I cherish each and every one of you (really, it’s not that hard to send out a little love to five or so people!).

It’s just that when I started this blog I did it for fun. I wanted to have a place to exercise my personal literary voice and my opinions and thoughts. I said to myself, “I’m not going to stress about this whole blog thing. If I feel like posting, I will, but if I don’t feel like it or don’t have the time, so be it; I won’t stress about it.”

So when I see day after day that I haven’t posted anything since October 29th (and it was a short post about the weather of all things…with a picture that filled most of the space), I keep telling myself, “Don’t worry about it.” I’ve got plenty of good excuses as to why I haven’t posted (I just had a baby a couple of months ago!).

Still, I hate seeing that same posting every time I click on my blog page to read all those other blogs that are listed on my sidebar. It makes me feel like such a slacker. It reminds me off all those journals I started as a kid and teenager and fell short on. I would write furiously in them for a few days in a row, then a week would go by, maybe a month, maybe even years before I would write again. And still, to this day, there are more blank pages than full ones in each one of those books.

And then it spirals into a reminder of all the things I haven’t done in life, of all my shortcomings and failures. The dirty laundry in the hamper, the maternity clothes that haven’t been packed away, that manuscript that needs to be revised, that e-mail I haven’t responded to. It’s enough to drive any sane person (and I’m not claiming to be entirely sane!) mad.

Now, though, I can breathe easy for another few days because there’s a shiny, new post on my blog.

Making Connections

October 4, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

When I was a freshman in high school, my older sisters’ best friend was the captain of my soccer team. She was kind enough to drive me to school, let me hang out with her in between school and practice, and drive me home from practice.

One day before practice we were driving around with some of our teammates and decided that we wanted to “make an entrance” as we drove down the small road that led to the field. We flipped through the radio, hoping to find either a rap song with a solid beat or a hard-hitting rock song to blast. The radio failed us.

So we went the complete opposite of what we had planned and blasted the lamest song we could find: Celine Dion’s It’s All Coming Back to Me Now. Let me tell you, we rocked that song like it’s never been rocked before! And we made a hell of an entrance! Even though I couldn’t stand that song before we rocked it out, I now listen to it fondly all these years later.

Then there was the time my sisters (all three of them) and I were at a wedding and Lady Marmalade (the Pink, Aguilera, Mya, and Lil’ Kim version) came on. The four of us danced and lip-synced to that song like we were shooting a music video for it. I had thought that song was pretty good, but now I love it and always listen to it with a bittersweet mixture of pure joy and pure sadness (since one of my sisters died not too long after that occasion).

The point of all this reminiscing (contrary to what it may seem, I try to have a point to all my posts…even when the point is somewhat pointless). I consider myself something of a free-thinker. I’m often stubborn (a trait it seems The Boy has inherited) and don’t like to think I’m easily swayed by others opinions. Not that I’m totally inflexible. On the rare occasion someone backs up their point with solid reasoning and proves me wrong, I’ll totally give them props for it.

Yet, when it comes to sharing moments with people and music (as is often the case) or a movie served as a catalyst to that moment, my opinions are easily changed. That song that I hated, but my hubby loved became a cherished song for both of us when we listened to it in the car together during a vacation. That TV show that always used to make me roll my eyes because it was just so dumb became one I faithfully watched with my dad and brother because we just had so much fun mocking it. And you know what, I truly ended up liking it by the time the series was over.

There’s the flip side of this too. Did you ever really like something and you mentioned it to someone and they were like, “Oh, I hated that. It was so stupid”? And then the magic of that thing was gone for you too.

I think what it comes down to is connections (and isn’t that what so many things come down to?). If you can make a connection over something, that thing becomes more special, but if that thing is a source of a disconnect, then it loses its charm. I guess I’m not as badass stubborn as I thought I was after all!