Tag Archives: Colorado

Colorado Bound

12 Tuesday May 2015

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God is a better writer than me. The best fiction plot my imagination has come up with pales in comparison to his. Some of the twists and turns in my personal story are helping me to realize that change is the only constant in life.

Fortunately God gives us tenacity and courage with which to meet each and every challenge of our journey. He also helps his heroes and heroines develop persistence and humility as they stumble repeatedly while striving to reach their goals and dreams along the way.

Unexpected plot twists are what led my amazing husband and I up to, and through the California years of our marriage. Hopefully a lot of personal growth is what we have found on the other side. No better place to put all this in perspective than sitting (almost literally) on a mountaintop.

These past six months we have been living in paradise. Other than a roaring ocean in a tropical location, no where could be more inspiring than Central Oregon. I will miss the amazing drive from our mountain house to, well, anywhere. I have to admit I have enjoyed the time to think, while passing pastures speckled with alpacas, majestic bulls, and lately… half a dozen calves among the free-range cattle.

Daylight hours find the wide variety of domestic animals grazing lazily against a backdrop of snow-covered peaks that jut up into an endless blue sky. The smell of sagebrush and juniper entices an always open window in my jeep. Hawks, eagles, and Canadian geese occasionally soar overhead, and take my breath away with the sheer size of their wing span.

Why did God put six months of paradise midstream in our plot?

I have no idea, but that doesn’t make me any less grateful. It has been a revered time of reflection. In fact, leaving the mountain house for any reason has not been a priority for this reclusive writer.

Except to buy groceries, hike in nearby Smith Rock State Park, visit brew pubs and experience local cuisine, I’ve rarely ventured from our cozy mountain house other than to get the mail, which granted, is a 10-minute walk past a meadow of horses and a mountain stream.

The cat and I have spent many a lazy day by the fireplace. She napped while I wrote, or just stared at the glorious mountain range and rugged evergreens outside our window wall. I did manage to convince the continuing Ed program through the local college that they needed a novel writing course, which I had a lot of fun teaching.

I also did some guest lecturing. That led to being a judge for the Writer’s Guild short story contest, which is a part of their Fall Festival here. I am coming back for the Awards Ceremony. I will also be a guest speaker for the Guild and host one of their writing workshops while here. If all goes well, I am hoping to add a book launch to the rest of the festivities.

We move to Ft. Collins, Colorado right after Memorial Day, where Dennis has taken a Director of Marketing position with Trans Aero Helicopters. It is a dream job he has been pursuing for some time, and a pleasing surprise twist in our plot-line. The down side is that we will miss our wonderful family, not to mention watching the moods of a mountain sky change dramatically by the hour.

Parting is such sweet sorrow!

I will miss the peaceful, quiet nights observing different phases of the moon and constellations that feel close enough to touch. Etched forever in my mind is a dazzling rainbow that formed on one of the few days it dared to rain. Jack’s beanstalk couldn’t have been more magical, shooting up from nowhere.

I think we are two quite evolved people (my husband and I) that will be taking on this next chapter in our lives. The mountain we live on has moved us in many ways. It has helped us put a whirlwind decade in California behind us, and allowed us to let go of all the ghosts that had landed us there to begin with.

I have not regretted a moment of our sometimes rocky path. If you take out one domino, then everything beyond that point is disconnected. Which domino would we pull? Altogether they have fallen into quite a nice pattern, despite a few rough patches. This last six months has been especially in sync for a pleasing rhythm to our lives, our marriage, and our resurfaced dreams for the future; dreams we’d all but given up on.

In the quiet nights filled with dashing stars, in the wind off the ridge every afternoon, in the varied songs of native birds amid the sage brush of the desert floor… the dominos have fallen one by one in a unhurried pace this past half a year. You can almost see them heading to that curve, where the direction and momentum will change once again.

We are ready for it.

We both still have a lot to accomplish and the timeline of our plot relentlessly reminds us to make haste. So, we will wind down our mountain one last time and ride out of Oregon… Colorado bound. Hopefully the resolution to our story will be retirement in about 10 years, right back here in paradise!

 

get-attachment.aspxKathryn’s next novel, Journey, will be released September, 2015 by Winter Goose Publishing

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Personal blog and website: http://kathrynmattingly.com Edgy Words Unleashed

Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B00EILN6YE

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/kathrynmattinglyauthor

WGP page: http://wintergoosepublishing.com/authors/kathryn-mattingly/

 

Once Upon a Time

22 Wednesday Jan 2014

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Once upon a time I moved to California for a new job, and truthfully, a new life.  It wasn’t that I didn’t like Portland, Oregon. It’s actually a gorgeous city full of great restaurants and bars with the most ambiance I have ever known restaurants and bars to have. And then there’s the waterfront setting – as beautiful as it gets.

But I needed a change.

Although Dennis is the love of my life and the narcissist in me believes God created him solely to be my soul mate, we were experiencing rough waters like all marriages will at one time or another. Of course, soul mates are destined to reunite, and so we ended up once again blissfully cohabiting.

I must admit the short separation brought some much needed appreciation for one another back to the marriage. Ever since then it has been a decade filled with new places and faces, opportunities and challenges. All in all I’d say it’s been anything but boring.

I have made some lifetime friends here and reached some personal achievement milestones, with finding a publishing home and becoming a novelist. Reflection about California Dreamin’ is bittersweet to say the least, but it has certainly been worth the ride. Whether smooth sailing or rough waters, we have weathered it all.

And now our ship is setting sail for new seas.

We are Colorado bound in just a few short weeks, and couldn’t be happier about the news which has been incessantly prayed about, discussed, wished, and wanted. Dennis has accepted a Director of Marketing position with Trans Aero Ltd. in the Fort Collins/Loveland area.

We plan to live in Fort Collins where I will teach at the University of Phoenix. I am thrilled beyond words (odd for a writer, I know). Ironically, when first married we planned to live in this exact location, but of course, fate has a way of playing its own hand and for us that was a side trip to Eugene, Oregon where Dennis got a job after graduating college. I transferred to the University of Oregon and we stayed to raise our family there, moving to Portland after they left home.

So, here we are full circle, poised to begin the adventure we had originally planned for ourselves. Writers dream of new plot twists. Nothing sparks creativity like discovering all there is to know about a new city, making memories in a new home, developing new friendships, getting involved with a new community and communing with new wonders of nature.

Ever since the New Year everything seems to have magically changed, not unlike a Disney film. Our careers of passion and preference are looking up for both of us.  My publicist is off and running with a marketing plan for my books, while my husband is once again in his happy zone of marketing helicopter service to federal, state and private companies. I can only hope that every month of this New Year will be as significant in a good way.

Well played, January 2014, well played!

Thank you to those friends out there who have stuck with us through thick and thin, and have been rooting for us to dig our way out of the sunken economy we fell into. Of course I plan to visit this area a couple times a year to meet with my publisher, and to hold book signings in this community where I have built a presence, albeit a small and humble one.

Email and FB will keep us connected with those we care about between visits, and I truly hope everyone who has said they will come see us – will. The Rocky Mountains, afterall, will be in our backyard. That should thrill you with new terrain to hike and ways to be inspired while we catch up on our lives and reminisce about old times.

It is going to be a whirlwind next few months to be sure, what with moving, Dennis beginning a new job, me teaching that first creative writing course at the University of Phoenix in Fort Collins, and my short story collection Fractured Hearts being launched. How exciting is all of that?

I am grateful beyond words for the opportunities now forming for our future. God is indeed good, and although we have been greatly blessed even prior to these new developments, knowing our persistence and faith in God has gotten us through some difficult times of late makes us confident that we can meet any new challenges looming before us in Colorado.

Among our first challenges, without a doubt, will be experiencing less than 70 degree weather on a near daily basis in the dead of winter (something we have begun to take for granted and that will now end abruptly), trying to find a church that will energize and inspire us as much as Bayside in Granite Bay has done, and missing every one of you that we count among our dearest friends.

Mainly, this writer is hoping they have some inviting coffee houses in Fort Collins. Everything else can be worked out, with latte in hand.