Month: January 2025

Hoping For a Change in the Program

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Last week, I saw my rheumatologist for my three-month check-in appointment. 

You’d think by now that I wouldn’t be surprised or disappointed by the way these appointments tend to go. 

But I am.

I’m still holding out hope that one day, at one appointment, a doctor will look me in the eyes and recognize my daily experience and my effort, as I navigate my life with a chronic illness causing chronic pain. 

This fantasy doctor will listen to me, really listen, when I explain that my days are challenging. That my family has noticed changes in me, and the truth is, my physical capabilities are not what they were, even just a couple of years ago. This doctor will acknowledge my tears as I explain how everyday tasks, like getting in and out of the car or going grocery shopping, are no longer things I can easily do.  

This fantasy doctor will look at me and say:

“That sounds really hard.”

“I realize it’s frustrating, not knowing how you’ll feel when you wake up each morning.”

“I know you’re trying to be the best version of yourself for your family.”

“Good for you for keeping up with your physical therapy exercises at home.”

“It’s fantastic that you continue to move your body and go on your daily walks.”

“I can see you’re trying to implement small changes. That’s great.”

But that’s not what happened at last week’s appointment. Instead I sat on the exam table where my doctor proceeded to move and bend my leg in ways it doesn’t usually move or bend. 

I left the office in more pain than I had when I arrived. 

I dealt with high levels of pain for the next two days. 

And in three months, I get to do it all over again.

The Kiss Countdown

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Has this ever happened to you? 

You find out about a new book. Maybe you saw it advertised in a magazine or included in an email from Bookshop.org. You do the thing we’re not “supposed” to do and make a judgment call based on the cover and/or title and/or author. You add the book to your ever-growing, want-to-read list on Goodreads. You’re on a a bookstore date with one of your closest friends, you see the book on the shelf, and decide to purchase it, because it seems wrong to go into an independent bookstore and not buy at least one book. But then the book sits on your shelf for a bit, because you have such high hopes for the book, you don’t want to be disappointed. You want the book to be everything you’re hoping for. 

Or is that just me?

That was the situation for me and The Kiss Countdown, a debut romance written by Etta Easton. 

The main reason I was so excited by this book? Because it features an astronaut. 

And friends, if you didn’t know, for most of my childhood (pretty much all the years between fourth grade and eleventh grade), I dreamed of becoming a United States astronaut. 

The Kiss Countdown was so enjoyable. So good, in fact, that after I finished reading it, I immediately went online to learn more about the author. And I was super excited to learn that Ms. Easton’s second contemporary romance, The Love Simulation, will be published on March 4th, 2025. 

The chemistry and the romance between Amerie and our astronaut, Vincent, was a delight to read. At the same time, this book is more than the romantic story of a woman and a man. The book also deals with the power of female friendships, of adult children worrying about their aging parents especially when one parent has a serious chronic illness, and it explores the struggles involved with entrepreneurship.  

As a result, for this week’s blog, I’m sharing some of my non-romance favorite parts:

“Gina runs her thumb over my forehead to smooth out the frown. ‘Nuh-uh, none of that. How can you say all those sweet things about me but then deny what’s plain to see about yourself? You are a diamond; you’ve just forgotten how bright you can shine. Don’t worry, we’ll get you there.’ ”  (This exchange is between our main character, Amerie, and her best friend, Gina.)

“Gina’s words pierce through me. Who is the old Amerie? It’s like I’ve been in survival mode for so long. I don’t remember what anything else feels like. Sure, I’m good at putting on a convincing genial face, but most days are still a struggle.”

“ ‘Amerie, I’d watch you sit across the room like you were in a trance, only to go to the restroom and come out with bloodshot eyes from crying behind closed doors. I realized that we never taught you it’s okay to be vulnerable. You don’t have to be strong for me. You don’t have to hold in the fear that you’ll lose me so tightly that it suffocates you.’ ” (This is Amerie’s mom speaking to her.) 

“ ‘How do you and Daddy do it?’ I ask.
“ ‘Do what?’
“ ‘Live and love so freely, knowing your time together may be limited.’ I hate to acknowledge out loud the reality of my mom’s health, but I have to know.
“ ‘When it comes down to it, your dad taught me that our love has to be bigger than our fears.’ She smiles like a woman waking up on her wedding day. ‘I never thought I’d get married and have a beautiful family, but your dad is stubborn. He wouldn’t let me push him away, and here we are thirty years later. And make no mistake, as hard as some of them have been, they’ve all been good. Tomorrow isn’t promised for any of us, Amerie. My health just serves as a daily reminder.’ “

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.


Read 25 in 2025

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

Confession: I didn’t meet my goal for the 2024 Goodreads Reading Challenge.

This isn’t the first time I didn’t complete the annual challenge. But this was the first time I wasn’t even close to meeting my goal. (I read 29 books, and had hoped to read 45.)

Here are some things you should know about my 2024:

1.  I did read, but not as much and not as fast as I have in previous years. Plus, I also read magazines, including my subscriptions to Writer’s Digest Magazine and Poets and Writers Magazine, and magazines are not tracked on Goodreads. 

2.  I also spent potential reading time attending webinars, watching author talks on YouTube, and listening to podcasts. 

3.  Physically, 2024 was among my worst years — in terms of high levels of fatigue and pain, and low levels of restorative sleep and energy. Just the other day, my husband reminded me that I used to have “good days.” Neither one of us can remember the last time I told him I was having a good day (which translates into a low-pain day). Actually, I don’t know if there were any good days in 2024. 

4.  I short-changed myself. On busy days, the first things I stopped doing were the things I most like to do, such as sitting on my patio reading and completing my daily five-minute writing exercises.

So, after recovering from the horrendous flu, I made a few changes for 2025.

I set a much lower number (24) as my Goodreads Reading Challenge goal. Because it’s not the number of books that matters. It’s the books. It’s reading what I want to read when I want to read it. It’s spending money on books without feeling guilty, since I have more than enough to-be-read books at home. But I continue buying books, knowing my purchases help authors and bookstores. 

Reading goes hand-in-hand with writing, and I’m hopeful that if I start increasing the time I spend doing one of those activities, time spent on the other activity will automatically increase as well. 

Plus, I discovered the “Read 25 in ’25” challenge. Gretchen Rubin and Bookshop.org have partnered to support this group challenge to read twenty-five minutes a day in 2025. (You can read more about the #25in25 challenge by clicking here.)

Like I did with my Spoonie NaNoWriMo, I printed out a January calendar and am placing a sticker each day I read twenty-five minutes. I didn’t begin this challenge until last week, Monday, January 6th. You’ll notice, I fell short of the twenty-five minutes on my first day as well as last Thursday. (You can click here to read about my Spoonie NaNoWriMo experience.)

And that’s okay. 

What’s important is acknowledging that I want to read twenty-five minutes each day. That I am starting this new year aware of the importance of making the effort to regularly and consistently do something I enjoy.

How about you, dear readers? Anyone else participating in the #25in25 challenge? Let me know in the comments; I’d love to cheer you on, and learn about the books you’re reading!

Please note: I am including a link to buy the books I have mentioned on this blog. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.


The Rom-Commers

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

I’m a Katherine Center fan.

From her bio, on the back flap of her most recent novel, The Rom-Commers:  “Katherine writes ‘deep rom-coms’ — laugh-and-cry books about how life knocks us down, and how we get back up.”

The Rom-Commers is certainly a “deep rom-com.” I would describe it as a romantic-comedy-plus; it’s a story that makes you smile and bite your lip and think tenderly of your parents and your favorite romantic comedy movies. And, it was a pure delight. 

And, as a bonus, the book is pretty, “featuring beautiful spray-painted edges with vibrant designed endpapers.” 

Here are a few of my favorite lines:

“You had to maximize joy when it fluttered into your life. You had to honor it. And savor it.”

“A rom-com should give you a swoony, hopeful, delicious, rising feeling of anticipation as you look forward to the moment when the two leads, who are clearly mad for each other, finally overcome all their obstacles, both internal and external, and get together.”

“ ‘A great rom-com,’ I said, ‘is just like sex. If you’re surprised by the ending, somebody wasn’t doing their job. We all know where it’s headed. The fun is how we get there.’ ”

“I had a theory that we gravitate toward the stories we need in life. Whatever we’re longing for — adventure, excitement, emotion, connection — we turn to stories that help us find it. Whatever questions we’re struggling with — sometimes questions so deep, we don’t even really know we’re asking them — we look for answers in stories.”

“Donna Cole, whose most famous wise quote — ‘The most vital thing you can learn to do is tell your own story’ — was the centerpiece of my vision board back home.”  (What a phenomenal quote!)

“There’s something about a kiss that brings all the opposites together. The wanting and the getting. The longing and the having. All those cacophonous emotions that usually collide against one another teaming up at last into a rare and exquisite harmony.”

“The kiss lit a warmth that spread though me like honey, softening everything tense, and soothing everything hurt, and enveloping everything lonely.”

“ ‘Whatever story you tell yourself about your life, that’s the one that’ll be true.’
“I lifted my head to give that idea my full attention.
“My dad went on, ‘So if I say, ‘This terrible thing happened, and it ruined my life’ — then that’s true. But if I say, ‘This terrible thing happened, but, as crazy as it sounds, it made me better,’ then that’s what’s true.’ “

“Humanity at its worst is an easy story to tell — but it’s not the only story. Because the more we can imagine our better selves, the more we can become them.”  

“ All I remember for certain was the feeling of my heart unfolding to its full wingspan in my chest, like a bird that had decided to stretch out wide at last and absolutely soar.
“Was this a happy ending?
“Of course. And also only a beginning. In the way that beginnings and endings are always kind of the same thing.
“I had no idea where we’d go from here, or how we’d manage it all, or where the future would take us. But it was okay. We don’t get to know the whole story all at once. And where we’re headed matters so much less than how we get there.”

“But what does okay even mean? Life is always full of worries and struggles, losses and disappointments, late-night googling of bizarre symptoms — all tumbling endlessly over one another like clothes in the dryer. It’s not like any of us ever gets to a place where we’ve solved everything forever and we never have another problem.
“That’s not how life works.
“But that’s not what a happily ever after is, anyway.
“Poor happy endings. They’re so aggressively misunderstood. We act like ‘and they lived happily ever after’ is trying to con us into thinking that nothing bad ever happened to anyone ever again.
“But that’s never the way I read those words. I read them as ‘and they built a life together, and looked after each other, and made the absolute best of their lives.’ 
“That’s possible, right?
“That’s not ridiculous.
“Tragedy is a given. There is no version of human life that doesn’t involve reams of it.
“The question is what we do in the face of it all.”

“ ‘Because love is something you can learn. Love is something you can practice. It’s something you can choose to get good at. And here’s how you do it.’ He let go of his walker to signal he meant business: ‘Appreciate your person.’ ”

“He went on: ‘Choose a good, imperfect person who leaves the cap off the toothpaste, and puts the toilet paper roll on upside down, and loads the dishwasher like a ferret on steroids — and then appreciate the hell out of that person. Train yourself to see their best, most delightful, most charming qualities. Focus on everything they’re getting right. Be grateful — all the time — and laugh the rest off.’ “

“Tragedy really is a given.
“There are endless human stories, but they all end the same way.
“So it can’t be where you’re going that matters. It has to be how you get there.
“That’s what I’ve decided.
“It’s all about the details you notice. And the joys you savor. And the hope you refuse to give up on.
“It’s all about writing the very best story of your life.
“Not just how you live it — but how you choose to tell it.”

Please note: I am including a link to buy the book that I’m highlighting this week. If you use my link, I do make a small commission on your purchase at no additional cost to you. I am working with Bookshop.org which also sends a portion of the profit to support local, independent bookstores.

Happy New Year, Friends!

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

My Dear Readers,

This is not the post I thought I would write for my first blog post of 2025. 

I imagined I would write something reflective about last year, and something hopeful and promising for the new year.

Instead, I’m going to keep it short and sweet and celebrate the fact there is a blog post today. I wasn’t sure I would get this post written and published, which would have meant that for the first time in more than a decade, I would have missed writing a weekly blog post. 

Thankfully that didn’t happen.

Friends, since Friday, December 27th, I have been in bed, sick with a nasty flu (though we all got flu shots back in September). As my doctor said, having an autoimmune disease makes other health issues — including this “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad” flu — more complicated, and it affects my body somewhat differently. 

The good news is I’m slowly getting better.

So as we turn the calendar on a new year, I wish for you some of the simple pleasures that have meant so much to me these last several days — a comfortable bed, a warm home, support and love from those closest to you, and the hope that tomorrow will be even better.

Happy New Year, friends!