KATHRYN R. BIEL: AUTHOR

Ok, family and friends and super-cool people who read this blog (because reading this automatically makes  you super-cool), I have very exciting news. Great, big exciting news. I hope you will all want to share in it, and share it with your friends.  And tell them to share it with their friends.  You obviously come here to read my rants, musings, stories, and, well, blather.  It seems that some of you even come here repeatedly, and with little in the way of financial reimbursement or blackmail from me.  So, if you are here because you like my writing, I'm going to ask a big favor... Please buy my book. Yep, I said it.  But, it sounds so cool, that I want to say it again, this time with feeling.  MY BOOK! I wrote it about two years ago.  I finished it over the summer, and immediately did some internet searching, and found out how to go about sending it to literary agents.  And then I waited.  I got rejected.  I waited some more.  I sent it out to other agents.  And then I wa

With yesterday being Memorial Day, I did a lot of reflecting over the weekend. (NOTE:  I know that Memorial Day is really to honor our fallen soldiers, not to talk about my own stuff.  While the blog is about my own stuff, please know that I do hold our military, past and present, in the highest regard and appreciate the sacrifices made for our country.  After all, freedom isn't free.) I had time to reflect, since I was cleaning out my children's dressers and closets.  Mother Nature appears to be a little, shall we say, indecisive with the weather, but I'm having it no more.  Also, my children are growing freakishly tall.  Now, for those of you who don't know me, I'm short.  My husband is not the tallest, either.  Although we have tall family members, I think we always thought the kids would be short, so it still surprises me that they are growing like weeds. On Friday, I had to make Jake take off his jeans last minute because he looked like he was expecting a

A few weeks ago, I thought I had made it big time in the blog world because I wrote a guest post.  I was wrong...I really made it now.  I got my first Internet Troll! In case you were wondering, here's what Wikipedia has to say about internet trolls: In  Internet slang , a  troll  ( pron.:   / ˈ t r oʊ l / ,  / ˈ t r ɒ l / ) is someone who posts inflammatory, [1]   extraneous , or  off-topic  messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an  emotional  response [2]  or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. [3]  The noun  troll  may also refer to the provocative message itself, as in: "That was an excellent troll you posted." While the word  troll  and its associated verb  trolling  are associated with Internet discourse, media attention in recent years has made such labels  subjective , with trolling describing intentionally provocative actions and  harassment  outside of an

I was just combing through my Facebook page, and found my 'Notes' section.  Most are relatively humorous  questionnaires, but I found this one that I had written on December 31, 2009.  It is hard to believe that it was almost 3 1/2 years ago.  I thought I'd post it here, because it seems like it was my first real blog...Enjoy! When I was a child, I figured out how old I would be when it turned the year 2000. I would have just turned 24 years old. I would be married and have kids and I would never have fun anymore.  When the new millenium arrived, I indeed had just turned 24. I had just finished PT school with my Master's Degree. Unfortunately, there were no PT jobs to be found. I was living with my parents, working for my mother in her office and shuttling my grandmother to doctor's apppointments, as she had just been in a car accident and diagnosed with cancer. I was studying for my boards as well. There was no man in sight, let alone a husband. Although I was

Every Wednesday morning, as I drive to work, I listen on the radio to the man who changed my life.  As a pediatric physical therapist, it is hard to see that I owe my life to a 74 year-old sports contributor on National Public Radio, but I do. When I was in 6th grade (circa 1987-88), my grandmother received an envelope from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, asking for a donation.  Included in the request was a book called, Alex: The Life of a Child , written by Frank Deford.  I was sick, and over at my grandparents, so I started reading the book.  It was about a little girl, Alex, who had and died from Cystic Fibrosis.  Alex was born in 1971, which is when my oldest brother was born.  I was immediately fascinated by the disease, as it seemed to effect a little girl like me, with a love of dresses and brown hair in pigtails.  Other than cancer, which no one would talk about, it was the first time I realized that kids could get sick, and not live normal, healthy, long lives.  I did sever

Last Wednesday, and again this Wednesday, I was inspired.  Today, I vowed to write about it.  However, something else came up that I wanted to share.  I will write about inspiration, but perhaps later. The story started almost exactly a year ago.  Ok, the prologue started last April, when our family cat, Harper, died.  I reassured the kids that we would get kittens.  Harper, while she loved us, did not tolerate other animals.  This time around, I wanted to get a pair of cats so they could keep each other company, and tolerate other animals better. When the right time came, we went to a nearby horse farm.  There are always lots of cats around there (we buy hay there), so we figured there were kittens.  And there were.  Sophia said immediately and unreservedly that she wanted a yellow cat.  Jake wanted a gray cat.  Low and behold, the litter of four kittens consisted of three grays and one yellow.  Two weeks later, we went to pick up our new family members.  The owner remembered that

After weeks and weeks of significant and successful (depending on how you look at it) procrastination, I am finally biting the bullet and attempting to tackle some spring cleaning.  You can tell how well it's going, since I am writing at the moment instead of cleaning.  In my defense, I was cleaning alongside Jake, who was pressed into service since he decided he wanted to spend the day at home rather than at his grandparents'.  See if he ever does that again.  Anyway, he was working on his task, and my vacuuming was bothering him, so I came upstairs to throw in a load of laundry. I am trusting that Mother Nature is now on an even keel, and I'm washing the winter coats, along with a collection of miscellaneous sweatshirts that have piled up downstairs.  So, if we get snow tomorrow, I may  have to accept some responsibility. Our house is a little funky (not the smell, although it could use some airing out).  We have a small room-type space when we walk in out of the gara