Personal Essays

Good Morning, Goodbye, Hello, and Hope

/ Katie / 2 Comments

Good morning, New Year’s Eve.

And goodbye, 2024.

What, exactly, should I say about 2024? Perhaps that it was a year of change and challenge, immense joy and incredible fear, deep and new and all-encompassing love, disappointments and expectations and successes and surprises and sleepless nights.

I hope that 2025 is kind to me, and to all of us.

I hope that in the new year, things get better and not worse. I hope my family stays safe and happy and healthy. I hope that love and comfort and peace find the people who need them most, and that all people remember that we have more in common than we think, and more to gain through compassion than through hate.

I hope that this new year brings joy and music and fun and good stories. I hope that the beach becomes home.

I hope that Lucy grows and learns and knows every day how loved and wanted and perfect she is.

I hope that I make good mistakes – the kind that lead to lessons and laughs and not too many consequences – and that I learn, too, and that I create, and that I discover more about myself and who I am as a mom, and as a writer, and as a human. I hope that I can bring those things together in harmony.

I hope.

I hope.

I hope.

That’s what I have. That’s what we all have, always. Hope is undying and eternal and as powerful as we allow it to be.

I choose power. I choose hope.

So, goodbye 2024, and thank you. For everything.

And hello 2025. Let’s work together to make something good.

A Big First

/ Katie / 6 Comments

It’s a big deal, meeting your very first celebrity.

Lucy kept her cool. (She is the coolest.)

But in all seriousness, these first memories…I just had no idea how special they would feel. It’s like looking at life through all new eyes. I know that sounds trite, and I suppose I’m sort of late to the party. But here I am. I couldn’t have known, couldn’t have totally undserstood, before. I can only be in the moment I’m in.

And that’s one of life’s great discoveries, isn’t it? And one of its most beautiful and hardest lessons.

We only have right now.

And y’all, this is such an amazing now.

The Long (Break) and the Short (Story) Of It

/ Katie / 4 Comments

Here’s the short of it: It’s been over a year. I am so ready to get back to writing. And I mean, real writing. Like, creating. You know, the magic – putting words together and making something that didn’t exist before it came together on a blank page.

Here’s the long:

Having a 1-year-old, and the year and change in between her birth and now, is busy, crazy, different every day, and exhausting. It’s also amazing, inspiring, fun, and its own kind of magic. Lucy is my whole life, and finding ways to bring her needs into harmony with my own has been a challenge that I meet in novel, interesting ways every day. Some days, I succeed, and we’re both satisfied. Some days, I…don’t succeed quite as well…and she is happy and her needs are met and I have not even brushed my teeth. Time for writing? Nah. I barely have time to eat. “Well, you’ll make time for what matters.” Dude, have you had a baby? SHE matters. More than anything else. But I matter, too. And I do want to make time.

So, where does that leave me? What does it mean?

It means that, for the next month, I’m going to sit down at least once a week and jot down ideas, and good lines of dialogue, and when I can, a few paragraphs of beginnings and endings. And come January, I’m going to start posting short stories again.

I don’t know if I’ll do a theme like I have in past years, or if I’ll try something different. Back in October of 2023, I posted the start of something fun, and maybe I’ll revisit that. I would like to know how it ends.  

I don’t know exactly what my writing will look like in the new year, but I’m going to do it, and there will be stories. I hope you’ll read them!

But for now, Lucy’s waking up from her nap.

Happy Thanksgiving!

/ Katie / Leave a comment

…to everyone celebrating today!  Lucy, for one, is very excited to help.

I’ll be back in December with some fun posts, but for now, we’re spending time with family and trying to get ready for Christmas. (Will we decorate this year? In our new house? Where we are still not totally unpacked? We shall see…) This is going to be a busy holiday season, I can already tell, and while I’m a bit intimidated, I am also so excited to start new traditions in our new home with our beautiful baby girl – who is now officially a toddler, which is amazing all on its own.

So, happy eating and many thanks for all the good things, y’all. See you next week!

One Year

/ Katie / 6 Comments

This avocado supermodel is one year old today.

I’ve been wrestling with what to say about that. A poem? An essay about motherhood and all the wonderful things about Lucy? A list of that enumerates and explains this experience so far?

Nothing feels quite right.

Probably because nothing quite captures how I feel.

I’ve never loved this big. I’ve never worked this hard. I’ve never felt this tired. I’ve never been this happy.

One year of absolute, complete and all-encompassing joy with my beautiful, strong, smart, spunky, funny, fearless girl.

One year with my Lucy.

I’ve often said that perfection doesn’t exist in this universe. As it turns out, I was wrong. Because this –

This is perfection.

The Big News

/ Katie / 14 Comments

Here’s something I never thought I’d say:

I live at the beach.

It’s not like I didn’t know this was a possibility. Graham grew up here, and we’ve talked for years about potentially moving and living closer to family. Other places always just called a little louder.

How things have changed.

Let me back up.

I teased a big announcement a few weeks ago, and mentioned a few posts ago – back in August, maybe? – that lots of things were happening in our little corner of the world. So, now you know. The big news? We’ve moved! The lots of things? Making plans…to move.

We are officially residents of Virginia Beach.

I miss our village and our farmhouse fiercely. All the time. But now we’re closer to Graham’s parents, and Lucy will get to know them. That feels so important. (My parents helped us move, and plan to visit monthly. The beach and the grandbaby are good incentives to travel. 😊) Graham is so excited for Lucy to grow up at the ocean, and I’m interested in what life looks like in a beach town when it’s not summer.

We’ve set up shop in a lovely (20-year-old…what an adjustment!) house in a very nice neighborhood right on the water. The views are great.

We’ve got room now for a large, cozy couch, which Lucy and her BFF Merlin have put to good use already.

And Graham’s parents are just so elated to see Lucy as often as possible.

And y’all, Lucy has figured out how to climb the stairs at their house.

Her first birthday is next week, and she’s just growing so fast! It’s beautiful to watch.

Things are bittersweet around here, though. There’s so much to be happy about and grateful for. But every new beginning also means a goodbye, and this one hurts. I’m thankful for our time in an old home in the country, for the people we met there and the community that welcomed us and loved us and lifted us up whenever we needed it.

But you know what? You take yourself with you wherever you go, and all of that love is still part of me. It’s still part of us and the life we’ll build from here on out.

And I hope you’ll stay with me, too! I imagine there will be plenty to write about, being that I’m now a country mountain critter making a home in a busy beach city.  

So cheers to the start of a new adventure, y’all! May it be good.

Loudoun’s (Possibly) Most Haunted House in 2024

/ Katie / 11 Comments

Another year, another visit to Loudoun County’s (maybe) most haunted house! And this one might be my last, for reasons that I’ll talk about in an upcoming post. (Are you curious? I hope so!)

Anyway…

Here she is, in all her crumbling glory, as of October 2024:

And here’s last year’s post, for comparison: https://myvirginiadiary.com/2023/10/30/this-years-visit-to-the-maybe-most-haunted-house-in-loudoun/

They say nothing lasts forever, and this house certainly won’t. In the years that I’ve been visiting, I’ve watched the old girl deteriorate a little more each season.  

And who knows if the house’s story will outlast it. I hope I’ve done my part, at least, to capture some of the mystery. It will never be anyone’s home again, but perhaps it can be someone’s memory. Even if it’s only mine.

P.S. As I do every year, I’ll add this disclaimer:  This house is on private property, and there are no trespassing signs posted, so please don’t go poking around where you’re not welcome. It’s easy enough to take a picture from the road.

I’m (Not) Back (Yet)!

/ Katie / 14 Comments

But I will be soon!

This is just a quick post to say: Hi! I’m still here. I miss all of you something fierce! Things are happening around here in my little corner of Virginia, and I’m planning to be back in October with a weekly post. I’ve got a lot to share, let me tell you.

In the meantime, how are you? How are things? How is life?

All good here, if a bit crazy. Lucy’s good.

Pets are good.

Graham and I are tired. But good.

I can’t wait to get back to creating soon. I hope you’ll be here when I do.

Stay tuned and happy writing, y’all!

Mayhem and the Mandolin

/ Katie / 8 Comments

Y’all, my heart is so happy.

My parents came to visit last week. Graham’s work has been insane, and some nights he’s been up until 3:00 a.m. or later. We were struggling. We were both tired, our house was a mess. The cat’s feeling neglected. I don’t even want to talk about laundry.

We needed help. And we got it, and more.

My family has always done music. I’ve posted about it a lot, and I’m just so elated that Lucy seems to love music, too. My dad brought out his mandolin, and she was just fascinated.

Absolutely entranced. And she wanted to try it for herself.

She cried when he put it away. She’s never done that before, with any toy. (We got it back out and gave it back to her, of course.)

These little moments, they just keep coming. Lucy is an easy baby, but life around her has been generally chaotic. These sweet new memories make all that chaos seem like nothing at all.