Welcome to Cathi’s Choice

Hi there. If you’re looking for a blog to read that is themed to a particular subject, I’m not sure I can promise you that. But, don’t leave yet – let me try to explain.

I just published my first book. Start to finish, it took me about eight years to complete. But it’s actually been in process longer than that. The story began a little over fifty years ago – however, the catalyst to write the book was an event that took place almost twenty years ago.  And I’ve been telling people about it verbally ever since. Each time I’ve told it, someone has said, “You should write a book.” It took twelve years of hearing that before I thought they were probably right and decided to give it a shot. It was, and continues to be, the most frightening, invigorating, frustrating, challenging and empowering journey I have ever taken. I came to one conclusion early on: the majority of people who say, “You should write a book” have never written one!

In the summer of 2017, I had the privilege of attending a Christian women’s conference for speakers, writers and leaders. As part of that conference I was introduced to a whole new world. One that contains words like “publishers”, “agents”, “book proposal” and “platforms”. I had a nodding acquaintance with the idea of publishers and agents. Although I didn’t know what it was, “book proposal” seemed reasonable – but “platform”? That was a whole new concept for me. Did you know that in today’s world of writers and speakers a web presence is pretty much a requirement? And that web presence is called your platform? I didn’t. I’ve spent years trying to avoid anything on the web that didn’t fall into the categories of shopping or emailing. I only have a Facebook account because my youngest daughter caught me late at night when my defenses were down and set it up for me. Now suddenly I was being told that I would need to establish a web presence – just the thought of it makes the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten up.

Once I began to wrap my head around that, I was gently informed that the best way for me to get my platform started was with a blog. And that it would need to have some sort of theme. Well, that was where I hit another brick wall. With all the people and experiences in my life that I want to write about, how could I possibly settle on one theme? But one morning while I was pondering this, a thought popped into my head – maybe there are people out there who would like to read a blog just because they like the writing – and the subject matter isn’t all that important. I’m hoping you’re one of those and you only need a loose theme – hence the title, “Cathi’s Choice”. Sometimes I will write about choices that I’ve made, maybe this week, maybe years ago, and how they worked out. But sometimes it will simply mean I’ve chosen a topic that I think might appeal to my readers.

There are some things you might like to know before you decide whether or not to come visit again:

• Blog subjects are likely to include, but not be limited to, marriage, parenting, grand-parenting, friendships, travel, politics, animals and nature, those “Ah-ha” moments in my life and the questions I ponder.
• I promise that I will try to be as brutally honest and open about myself, and my world, as I can be.
• I am a Christian, so more often than not, what I write will have an element of my ongoing relationship with Jesus.
• I will try to post on a regular basis, hopefully once a week. But you need to know that I am technologically challenged (in case you didn’t pick up on that earlier), so if something weird happens with my computer, it may take a little longer to get another post out.

I hope you will decide to come back again. And if you do, I would love it if you tell your friends about my site.