Category: Nature (Page 14 of 20)

A Beautiful Life Is Born

September 19, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I believe I tempted fate with my last post because The Boy decided to make his appearance right in the middle of the hurricane! He was 17 days early (still full term, but his nursery wasn’t quite ready for him!) and mommy and baby are happy and healthy. (And, no, if The Boy had turned out to be The Girl, we would not have named her Irene!)

What I learned during the whole labor and delivery process (don’t worry, no gory details) is that it’s great to have a plan, but expect that plan to be thrown out the window (and whisked away by hurricane-force winds). My doctor was on vacation (of course) and so the on-call doctor (who I had never met) was there for the delivery. She was perfectly competent and an experienced doctor, but let me just say that I wasn’t used to her brand of bedside manner. It wasn’t that she was necessarily rude or mean or uncaring, she was just a bit odd.

Case in point, the doc and her husband has purchased property a few blocks from us. We noticed this piece of land because what had been a tiny old, dilapidated house surrounded by overgrown plants was very quickly transformed into a huge, gorgeous house with a manicured lawn and nice cars in the driveway. It came as no surprise that a doctor had bought it. When we first learned she was the on-call doctor, my husband recognized the name from the property transaction in the local newspaper.

During the early part of my labor (when I was still coherent and interested in engaging in small talk), the doc mentioned that she was in the hurricane evacuation zone, but that her husband was going to stay in the house with the dog. I was like, “Oh, yeah. You live not that far from us.” Then I went on to compliment her on her nice new home.

Big mistake! I realized it was kind of weird that I knew where she lived and quickly explained that we had noticed how quickly the house had been built and saw the property transfer in the paper. The doc was like, “It bothers me that anyone can see how much I was taken for a property by the water.” The she went on a bit of rant about how a suspicious car was driving up and down her street recently and she didn’t understand why she couldn’t find out who it belonged to by looking up the license plate but it’s posted in the paper how much properties go for.

It seemed like a weird time to vent about such a trivial thing (given that I was in labor 2 1/2 weeks early in the middle of a hurricane) and I wasn’t really in the mood to debate what goes into public records and why. Yet she kind of has a point. I don’t necessarily care that property transactions are listed in the local paper, but I do think that certain things should be kept private. Hence why I’m not posting The Boy’s name or a picture of him on my blog. There’s no way for me to control who sees it and I’m not interested in blindly pasting my precious baby’s information for any old pervert to see it.

But it I know you and you’d like to see a picture of him (and haven’t already), I’d be more than pleased to brag about my perfect little guy. Just let me know!

Exploring the Uncontrollable and Unexplainable

August 26, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I know, I know: Everyone’s talking about Hurricane Irene! Well, I do what I want to do, which often isn’t what everyone else is doing, but what I want to do today is talk about Hurricane Irene, so I won’t let the fact that everyone else is doing it stop me.

I’ve got to admit, earlier in the week I was a little freaked out. I don’t normally get all worked up about things like the weather. Where a hurricane goes is out of my “circle of influence” and while I can take steps to prepare for one, there’s absolutely nothing I can do to stop it from coming. But I’m 9 months pregnant, so I’m trying to give myself a little slack for being more worried than usual about something like the weather.

Really, I shouldn’t be that concerned because The Boy has proven to be resilient through record-setting snowfall, a tsunami, and an earthquake. He’s probably in the womb saying, “Bring it on, Mother Nature!”

Thinking about my lack of control over the weather, got me thinking about my YA fantasy Elixir Bound because certain higher beings in that story can control the weather. They use it to communicate with each other and to send messages to regular-old humans too.

Then that got me thinking about how an author can take something that is uncontrollable in the real world and manipulate and control it in a story. There’s terrible things in life that we have no control over, like war, rape, abuse, your 16-year-old sister suddenly dying when some unknown thing attacks her lungs. And for all intents and purposes, none of these things make any sense.

So as a writer, I can take a world that is often confusing and scary and try to make sense of it. There is something very empowering about that. That doesn’t mean I will succeed at making anything in this real world make sense through my fictional world, but at least it might open up a dialogue (even if that conversation is only taking place in my own head). And maybe someday others will connect to that thing I was trying to make sense of and will realize they’re not alone in their feelings.

Because there’s lots of other wonderful things in the world that can’t be explained either, like love and souls. As a writer, I explore these crazy, scary, wonderful things in my stories. First I explore these things for myself. And hopefully, others will read what I’ve written and explore those things for themselves.

Random Thoughts: Quasars, Artists, Storytelling, Soccer

July 2, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I’ve had lots of disparate thoughts going through my brain lately and it seems this post is a reflection of that.

First off, astrologists recently found a giant quasar that appears to be not only the brightest object ever found, but also the most distant and earliest quasar ever detected. Quasars are of particular interest to me because they are found the center of young galaxies and surround black holes (you all should know by now how much black holes fascinate me). Who doesn’t want to learn more about a super-bright object that is massively powerful and full of energy?

On an artistic discoveries, check out this cartoon called “Born Like an Artist.” I wonder what the anthropomorphic personification of my artistic soul looks like? I’m not sure it would be an animal. I think it might be something more abstract…maybe some kind of squiggle or a bouncy, round face.

And to combine two of my intellectual loves, here’s a periodic table of storytelling. A couple of “elements” that caught my eye are Jhg, 1wa, Mpb, and Gtb.

Over at Diversity in YA Fiction, the authors are challenging readers to diversity their reading choices. Publicly post an essay about your diverse reading experience and you have a chance at winning “a giant collections of fabulous MG and YA books.”

Finally, a third love of mine (soccer) is being showcased on a worldwide stage this summer. The FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 earlier this week. I was pleased to see that the women’s games are getting just as much TV coverage as the men did last summer.

Where have your thoughts been taking you lately?

Putting Good In and Getting Good Out

June 13, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

The hubby and I tried kale for the first time today. It was scary not only because I was trying something new (I’ve never been an adventurous foodie) but also because I also had to clean and cook it myself. Turns out, kale is actually pretty good. I think we may even eat it again.

A bunch of it came in our first farm share basket of the year. We signed up for the farm share in part to support our local farm, in part to have access to fresh veggies every Friday without having to go to the grocery store, and in part to try new healthy things.

I love this time of year for all the fresh produce that is available…I’m talking hyper-local produce, like the kind you can pick yourself and enjoy right in the field (I’m looking forward to the fresh strawberries I’ll be picking this weekend at another local farm).

I even have my own veggie garden, which is not nearly as big as my father’s, but it works for the hubby and I. This year I’m growing peas (I picked the first ones today and added them to the salad we had with dinner), bell peppers, broccoli, tomatoes, and probably green beans.

It’s not that I’m a super healthy, granola-eating, tree-hugging person. I do care about the environment and try to make an effort to be green, but I really like the way fresh food tastes. And I’ve been trying to subscribe to the idea that when you put good things in (whether that be into your body or mind), good things come out (and yes, I see the obvious poop reference here, but that’s not what I’m talking about).

So I’m working on putting good thoughts into my writing, and hopefully getting good writing out of it. And putting good food into my body, and hopefully getting good energy out of it. And putting good green vibes out to the earth, and hopefully making the world a little better place in which to live. Okay, now I am starting to sound a little granolaey.

What do you put in and hope to get out of it?

LHC’s Primordial Matter

May 31, 2011 / Katie L. Carroll

I have good news (unfortunately not related to my attempts at being a published novelist…all in due time, my precious)! The Large Hadron Collider is back from hiatus and has created primordial matter. Seriously, this is very exciting news!

Just a little over a month ago, the LHC set a record when it started smashing tiny particles together at 10 million collisions per second. Well, it has now smashed its own smashing record and is now running at 100 million collisions per second (muuhaaahaaa…that’s evil scientist laugh…duh!).

This super smashing power is what has led to the creation of primordial matter, a super dense form of matter called a quark-gluon plasma. In fact, the only thing believed to be denser than this primordial matter is a black hole (and we sure don’t want the LHC to create that). Scientists also believe that this substance is what the universe was made of right after the big bang.

As for the elusive (and still theoretical) Higgs boson (a.k.a. the god Particle), which is thought to be the most fundamental of all particles and the clue to the mysteries of the universe, that hasn’t been discovered yet. If it does exist, it may be discovered as early as some time this summer. If it doesn’t exist, it will take until the end of 2012 to confirm that.

Hopefully, we will know all this before the world ends on December 21, 2012. That is unless it ends on October 21, 2011. Then I hope we find the Higgs boson before then. It would be such a shame for the world to end before we discover the secrets of the universe (and before I get a book deal!).