Beginnings

I live in Hickory now, which years ago was so much smaller, and now is riddled with traffic. Hickory was the place I stopped travelling. I had been a travel nurse for 11 years, and that ended when I accepted full time work in Hickory. I was looking forward to buying a house, having a garden, using closelines instead of dryers--but life intervened in the way of a on-the-job injury that reduced my mobility to a very limited level, So plans to buy a house were put on hold. I have stayed here--not for desire so much as convenience. I try to work out as much as I am able at the YMCA--which is less than 5 minutes from where I live. The library and science center is across the street from me. This is very convenient. I cannot walk to them, but the drive is brief enough to spare discomfort.

The first activity I started when my life changed: I started subscribing to several positive quotes of the day. And I still start the day with positive thoughts (and vitamins).---For example: "We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned so as to live the life that is waiting for us."--Joseph Campbell I sincerely believe what you put into your mind at the beginning of the day has a lasting effect on the coloring of the rest of your day.

I am an optimist. The glass is always half-full. And that is a really good attitude to have regardless of the circumstances. And counting blessings. That is important. They are there whether we can see them or not.

I wandered, by accident, into a writers group in 1998. This was not your usual writer's group. This was the intelligentsia---publishers, authors, university professors--all incredibly smart and gifted and witty. I had been out of academics for so long, and was very new to the computer, but I was determined and tenacious. I asked incredibly dumb questions, that they tried to ignore. With true hillbilly cussedness, I refused to be embarrassed and kept asking--until I got answers. Realizing how far behind I was in academics led to the first bulging notebook of book lists. Of course, it was impossible to complete, and that was its intended purpose. Anything that is easily completable becomes boring.. And I continue to have huge reading list--in notebook form.

Currently I am involved with a 2010 book challenge dreamed up by one of the members of the same writers

group. This gist is this--read 10 book in 10 different genres for 2010. If is OK to put a link to that blog

here, I will, but not before clearing with John, whom I met on Ryze when it was first born.

I will stop my blathering for now--and yes, I write. I also make jewelry. There is not too much I am not

involved in if it a creative function.

Kate Thorn