Karyn Johnson

A Memory from the Emerald Isle

March 17, 2023

It’s St. Patrick’s Day, which stirred up a particular memory from Dublin, Ireland — a brief moment, an interaction with a complete stranger — that stuck with me all these years.

In the summer of 1999, I was among a group of Ohio State English majors studying British and Irish literature at Bath Spa University College in Bath, England. Near the end of the program, we took a weekend trip to Dublin. We stayed at Avalon House, a cheap hostel, where I shared a room with 10 other women and used a unisex bathroom that multiple people could occupy at any given time. In other words, no privacy to speak of.

Avalon House had a cafe, and it’s here where I met this stranger. I wrote about our interaction in the journal I had with me. Here’s an excerpt, unedited (though it was tempting to edit it as I typed).

Saturday, August 7, 1999

I didn’t get much sleep last night since our hostel faces a busy street and is right across from a pub. It was noisy outside all night. But I woke up bright & early this morning, ready to face another day.

I took a shower (I’m still trying to adjust to unisex toilets & showers) and I went downstairs for breakfast: yogurt, a muffin, and juice. I ate alone, watching life go by outside the window. As I left the cafe to go someplace quiet and read, an old Irish man stopped me to chat. He said something profound, something about how you have to live your life making the most of everyday. He was really nice to talk to.

You know, I’m amazed I didn’t write down the one specific thing I remember him saying. He asked me how I was doing that morning and I said, “I’m doing well.” And he said, “Of course you are, you woke up in Ireland!”

I was more used to writing on a computer keyboard than handwriting lengthy and descriptive journal entries. I wonder how much more detailed I would have been if I had typed out my experiences instead. Many of those details are now lost to time, sadly.

I just hope I get to wake up in Ireland again someday. It is so lovely — the people, the culture, and the landscape — and I didn’t get to see much of it.
The Game’s Not Over

March 9, 2023
My writing and editing business, Words in Bloom, will be a year old at the end of this month. I registered the name with the state of Ohio on March 30, 2022.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I’d make it to the first anniversary.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come close to going back to corporate — even as recently as last week. I was a candidate for what was essentially my dream job and the only kind of role I’d consider going back to corporate for. Spoiler alert: I didn’t make it.

Owning and operating a business is hard. It’s overwhelming at times. I was exhausted and didn’t feel I had anything left in me to give to this venture. I’m constantly bombarded with advice about what to do and what not to do and what I should read and what podcasts I should listen to and, and, and…

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio on Pexels.com

Not to mention, all the freelance writers I’m seeing on LinkedIn and elsewhere who apparently make $10K+ per month. And a lot of that income likely comes from classes, coaching, books, etc. that they are selling in addition to their writing. (Do I do any of those things? No, no, I do not. See: exhaustion and overwhelm.)

But everything started turning around for me this month.
- I got a regular, part-time freelance gig as a copywriter and editor with an educational consultancy. I started this week. So far, I love the people and I love the work. I have had a lot of experience in education (as an educator, tutor, writer, test evaluator, etc.), so this gig is actually a great fit for me.
- Jackie and Mimi, the wonderful ladies at Modern Gen X Women, asked me in January if I would contribute to their new digital magazine. (Mimi was my business coach — I worked with her last summer/fall.) I agreed, and the first issue came out yesterday. My article appears on pages 40-41, and it’s about how I went back to grad school in midlife and what the experience was like. I attended the virtual launch party last night, which was ’80s themed.
- I got an email from a lovely person at Subkit last week, asking me if I would like to be interviewed for their Entrepreneur series. The aforementioned Mimi recommended me. I agreed, and my interview went live this morning. (I need to look into Subkit as a resource to continue growing my business.)
I am anticipating a good amount of work coming from another client in the near future.

So, things are starting to look up, which has given me a much-needed boost of energy to keep on going. Maybe I will eventually get around to the classes, and the coaching, and the books. We shall see. (Maybe I’ll start with a monthly newsletter?)
Hello, March

March 1, 2023

I’m not sorry to see February in the rearview mirror. March is here, and it’s coming in like a lamb. It’s supposed to be 70 degrees today.

February went out like a lion. A couple of days ago, we were sheltered in the basement due to two tornado warnings that overlapped in our area. I am hoping to get out in the yard today to assess the damage. There was a confirmed tornado in our county, though it wasn’t close to us. But we had high winds and sideways rain, and I have no doubt that we have branches to clean up at the very least.

Speaking of cleaning up…

I’ve been in a spring cleaning sort of mood lately. It started when I ordered a CHOMP wall mop in early February. I got on a wall cleaning kick — though I’m not done yet. I love this mop, though! It makes cleaning the walls and baseboards so quick and easy.

Last week, I cleaned the refrigerator. It’s so nice to open the fridge now and not see messy shelves and drawers.

I just need to keep going and deep clean the areas that are usually overlooked. I admit that I’m not the best at housekeeping. I can’t stand cleaning, but I also can’t stand dust and dirt. Though given where we live, I’ve had to make peace with dirt and mud being tracked into the house a lot — especially this time of year. (My kingdom for a mud room!)

We also took care of the pine tree that fell into our yard in January during a wind storm. Well, it was part of a pine tree, anyway. A rather sizeable part of the tree that snapped off. The tree belongs to our neighbors and we had actually never talked to them until Sunday. That’s the day I went out with loppers and a pocket saw to start clearing away some of that mess. (Needed a chainsaw, too, but the hubs would rather deal with that himself.)

The neighbor saw me and came over to apologize for his tree and offer to clean up the mess. I went back to the house to let L know, and the two of us, along with our neighbor and his wife, worked together to clean it up. We got to talking, and now I’m glad to know them. He graduated from the same high school I did.

So, we now know our neighbors on either side of us. And we’re all relatively close in age, which is cool. I love living here for the most part. (I could do without the dead wildlife in our yard, but that’s just something I have to get used to. Sometimes, it’s like Marty Stouffer’s Wild America all up in here.)

In other news, my professional life has taken a rather dramatic turn for the better this week. I will share more details about that soon. I am starting this month feeling hopeful for the first time in a long time. After nearly a year of struggling to establish and grow my business, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief.

I have a lot to look forward to this month, and spring is so close! I already have daffodils in bloom.

Have a great March, everyone!
Busy, busy, busy

February 18, 2023

Despite the slower pace of living in the country, life has been pretty fast-paced lately. I meant to update this much sooner, but I’ve been so busy.

Winter seed sowing in gallon jugs is underway. It’s been 2 weeks since I sowed the first of the seeds — salad greens — and those are the only seeds that have sprouted so far. All except for the Swiss chard. Gardening is really about experimenting anyway, so if this particular experiment doesn’t work out, I still have plenty of seeds.

I have 13 jugs on the porch right now. I will be planting tomato seeds soon.

It’s mostly felt like spring with the occasional cold day. Perhaps the groundhog was wrong. Though I suspect we’ll pay for all these warm days in the spring.

You may have heard about the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, two weeks ago. It made the national news, though if you live outside of the U.S., you may not know about it. My husband, who works for the state government, had to deploy up there shortly after it happened. He sent me this chilling photo as he was sheltering in place at an elementary school during the controlled release of chemicals a few days after the accident.

He’s home now, but he wasn’t given any protective gear while he was there — no mask or anything. Time will tell how devastating this will be on the community, but it’s already taken a huge toll, and I really feel for the people and animals who live in the area.

In other news, we’ve had a deer carcass in our yard that’s been dragged around by coyotes, I am assuming. (Honestly, what else could it be? Bears aren’t that common in Ohio — not in this part of the state, anyway.) Until now, it’s just been dragged through the wooded parts of our yard, but now it looks like it exploded. Fur and body parts everywhere, including the open part of our yard where I walk Blitz almost daily. I asked L to get the SD card out of our trail cam. He set it up so it was aimed at the carcass, hoping we might capture something exciting. Stay tuned.

Work-wise, I finally got my first travel booking. So exciting! A Trafalgar tour for 2 to Great Britain this summer!

As for the writing and editing biz, I am working on a huge copyediting project at the moment and have some other irons in the fire. Things are starting to pick up. Next month, Words in Bloom will celebrate its first anniversary.

I have jury duty coming up on Thursday. I have never had jury duty before. I need to call a day ahead to find out if I still need to report to the courthouse.
6 More Weeks

February 3, 2023

According to the Buckeye Chuck and Punxsutawney Phil, we have 6 more weeks of winter. If we’re talking about the actual season of winter, of course that’s true. If we’re talking about winter weather, I don’t rely on a groundhog for that information. It’s cold today, and that’s all that matters to me right now.

It’s a good day to stay indoors, make a batch of yogurt, and sow some seeds in anticipation of spring. I have 10 jugs to use for outdoor sowing. I want to try sowing lettuce, spinach, mustard, and chard to see if I can get some early baby greens for salad. And I will sow some native flowers as well. I will try tomatoes from seed next as I get more empty gallon jugs. (We go through a lot of distilled water, so I can accumulate them pretty quickly.)

Until spring actually arrives, I am enjoying the blooms on my amaryllis and paperwhites — post-holiday clearance purchases on a day I needed cheering up.

As far as work as been going lately — I have two travel articles completed that are in various stages of editing. Hopefully those will be published soon. I just joined the editorial team at ScribeConcepts as a freelance consultant. And I have a couple other projects in the pipeline.

I’m also very excited to be part of a new webzine launching next month for Gen X women. More on that later.

Also, I think I’m getting close to making my first booking as a travel advisor. (Fingers crossed!) I had no idea when I started this travel advisor journey that it would take so long to get my first booking.

Hoping February will be good to me, and I hope the same for all of you.
A Kid in a Candy Store

January 25, 2023

I attended a seed swap over the weekend and may have gone a tad overboard.

Included in this stash: ground cherry seeds. I have never tasted them, but they intrigue me and I want to grow them. I think, based on descriptions of their flavor, that I’d like them.

Of course, I followed up the seed swap by stopping at a nearby nursery and buying even more seeds. It’s a sickness, though not in a bad way.

I’m planning to sow my seeds outdoors in milk jugs this year. Never tried that before, but I have plenty of seeds if it doesn’t work out.

In other news, we have a mess to clean up after our recent wind storm.

Our neighbors have a row of conifers along the fence line with our property. The top of one of these trees snapped off, crashed through the fence (which is rusty chicken wire anyway, so no biggie) and fell into our yard. No damage done to our yard or anything — just the need for clean up.

At the moment, it’s way too soggy and messy out there to deal with it. If it’s not raining, it’s snowing. Our yard has been flooded/muddy for well over a week now. We need to wait until it’s cold enough for the ground to freeze.
2023 Garden Planning is Underway!

January 16, 2023

“Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been, I have great faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders.”
Henry David Thoreau

You know you’re a gardener when you get excited to receive seed catalogs and place orders for seeds. I ordered seeds yesterday and they’ve already been shipped!!
I’m so sorry, little fox

January 14, 2023

After recent heavy rain and flooding, I took Blitz out for a walk in the yard this morning while everything was still frozen. As we crossed the bridge over our creek, I saw it.

A dead fox in our yard.

I was not prepared for that. Since we moved here, I’ve seen my share of dead things: mice and moles killed by the neighbor’s barn cat. A dead snake. Dead birds. Bones. Piles of feathers left after a hawk attack. Even dismembered rabbit parts. Last month, I had to remove a dead rabbit from our driveway. Its blood stained the gravel for days afterward.

But a fox… It shook me.

My husband dealt with it. He laid it to rest somewhere in our woods where I won’t see it on my walks back there. He told me it looks like it was shot in the stomach, and that upsets me even more. The thought that someone shot it and it suffered and died in our yard. I can’t bear it.

I’m so sorry, little fox. I’m sorry for human cruelty. I’m sorry you died in pain.

I Found a Dead Fox — Mary Oliver

I found a dead fox

beside the gravel road,

curled inside the big

iron wheel

of an old tractor

that has been standing,

for years,

in the vines at the edge

of the road.

I don’t know

what happened to it –

when it came there

or why it lay down

for good, settling

its narrow chin

on the rusted rim

of the iron wheel

to look out

over the fields,

and that way died –

but I know

this: its posture –

of looking,

to the last possible moment,

back into the world –

made me want

to sing something

joyous and tender

about foxes.

But what happened is this –

when I began,

when I crawled in

through the honeysuckle

and lay down

curling my long spine

inside that cold wheel,

and touched the dead fox,

and looked out

into the wide fields,

the fox

vanished.

There was only myself

and the world,

and it was I

who was leaving.

And what could I sing

then?

Oh, beautiful world!

I just lay there

and looked at it.

And then it grew dark.

That day was done with.

And then the stars stepped forth

and held up their appointed

fires –

those hot, hard

watchmen of the night.
A Hankering for Pancakes

January 5, 2023

It’s Throwback Thursday, so I am going to share this little travel narrative I wrote in October 2005 after a day trip to the quaint village of Thorn in The Netherlands. And by pancakes, I mean pannenkoek — a Dutch pancake that is about the size of a dinner plate and just a bit thicker than a crepe. These can be sweet or savory.

The allure of 250 varieties of pannenkoeken is what prompted my husband to take me on a day trip to Thorn. This small Limburg town seems to have little going for it, except the restaurant that serves up these tasty treats. That in itself was reason enough to make the 45-minute drive from our home in Germany, but what we discovered there was a whole lot more than pancakes.

Thorn is known as “the white village,” due to the white-washed brick buildings in the center of town. Standing out is the abbey church, which was founded in the 10th century and served as the heart of the Benedictine convent, the reason for Thorn’s existence. Thorn eventually became a stift, a monastic community without strict rules of living. Young, unmarried daughters of the aristocracy lived in the village until it was time for them to wed.

Despite no longer being a convent, Thorn still has a strong religious tradition. As we approached the abbey church, we saw many adults and children in costume lining up at the church entrance. Since the VVV (tourist information office) was right around the corner from the church, I popped in to ask what was going on. I was told that the church was having a parade. The music started playing just as we joined the growing crowd, and the procession began to wind its way through the village.

Since the purpose of our visit was De Pannekoekenbakker, we waited until the parade had moved out of sight, and then walked across the street from the church cemetery to the restaurant. The restaurant was quaint, the pannenkoek was delicious, and the hot chocolate with whipped cream was heavenly. The rumors we had heard about this restaurant were true—the food was decadent.

Our stomachs full almost to bursting, we decided to explore the church. The gold on the ornate Baroque altar and organ pipes popped against the white interior. The sun pouring through the windows gave the whole sanctuary a glow. It was pretty, but relatively simple, just like the village.

After admiring the sanctuary, we descended the stairs to see the star attraction below the main choir. Along with the reliquaries sit two glass-topped coffins containing the remains of two of the church’s abbesses.

A short while later, meandering down the cobblestone streets, we find ourselves charmed by this serene village on the Meuse River. We came for pancakes, but left, filled with so much more.
Welcome, 2023

January 1, 2023
HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I’ve been wanting to write sooner than this, but life got in the way. A severe winter storm hit just a couple of days before Christmas, though thankfully it didn’t affect us too much. We never lost power and only had minimal tree damage. It was dangerously cold with strong winds for a couple of days, with wind chills around -30 degrees F. So many other places got it worse than us.

Christmas dawned bright and frigid, and the storm had passed. There was no wind. It was silent and peaceful. I was able to venture out to the barn to put the bird feeders back out, but the barn door was frozen shut.

It was a beautiful day here at our house with my parents, aunt, and uncle. We ate. We talked by the fireplace. We laughed. We watched football. We had a family Zoom to talk to far away loved ones.

Once Christmas was over, I had to prepare for a routine medical procedure (outpatient), which was this past Thursday. I’m glad to get a clean bill of health, but it took a few days for me to bounce back. In fact, this is the first day that I have actually felt like myself since last Tuesday.

I’m glad to leave 2022 behind. Overall, it wasn’t a bad year. I bought my first new car totally independent of my husband. I left the corporate world and launched two businesses. We celebrated our first anniversary of living in this house and learned a lot along the way.

The year had its lows, too, but that’s life. I persevered, and now I get to see a new year and look forward to all the lessons 2023 will teach me.

My main personal goals for this year:
- Hike more. (I’ve been a member of Hikerbabes for almost a year now and have yet to actually join the local chapter for a hike.)
- Read poetry every day.
- Start at least one lasagna garden.
- Get my weight under control. (Damn hormones… middle-age spread is real, y’all.)
- Do more crafting, especially repurposing materials I already have and using natural materials from our property.
- Record the bird species we have in our yard. One of my Christmas presents was The Sibley Birder’s Life List & Field Diary, which I will use to track the birds that visit our yard.
As always, I want to continue to find joy in the simple things in life, practice gratitude, and maintain my health.

I hope your 2023 is full of good things. Please leave a comment and share your hopes for this year.

recent posts

about