Welcome to Life as Katherine!

Here you will find snippets of what brings me joy. I lead a simple life with simple pleasures.

I'm an avid reader, crafter, aspiring writer, tea aficionado, and amateur baker. I'll share many things on this blog, but most of them will surround reading, crafting, and writing. You can access those posts through the menu at the top of the page.

I also live with serious mental illness and struggle daily to make it through life without falling apart. I have anxiety, PTSD, and bipolar disorder. Because of it, I am disabled and am a housewife.

My husband and I live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest with our cat.

Books

I read a lot, mostly romance, young adult fantasy, and classics. My favorite author is Jane Austen.

In romance novels, I read most sub-genres. My favorites are contemporary romance, erotic romance, paranormal romance, and LGBTQ+ romance. I don't care about the gender identity or sexuality of the people involved. If it's romance, I want to read it! Generally, I don't read sci-fi romance, Christian romance, mystery romance, or young adult romance. Most of my romance selections come from the library. So far, my favorite romance authors are Kristin Ashley, Lorelei James, Robyn Carr, and Maya Banks.

Young adult fantasy has always been one of my favorite genres. For many years, I exclusively read young adult books, even as an adult. Most of them were fantasy or paranormal romance. My favorites are Garth Nix's Old Kingdom series, Alison Croggon's Books of Pellinor series, and The Chronicles of Narnia. On the romance side, my favorites are Colleen Houck's Tiger Saga and Lisa T. Bergren's River of Time series.

I'm always making my way through a classic novel as I keep exploring. I've been doing this since 2010, and I love it. My favorites so far have been the collected novels of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens's Bleak House, and Bram Stoker's Dracula. I've also read Moby-Dick, Anna Karenina, Little Women, a selection of short stories by Edgar Alan Poe, and many others.

Crafts

My crafting skills encompass knitting, crochet, and cross-stitch. Here, I will share both works in progress and completed projects.

I've been cross-stitching since my grandmother taught me when I was ten years old. My skills have gotten better with time, and I'm in the middle of a rather large project that I work on occasionally.

I taught myself to knit in 2005 while I worked to cope with a nervous breakdown. It helped, and I never stopped. It's taught me patience and started me on the path of consistently seeking to increase my skills in my endeavors. I added crochet to my repertoire in 2010, and caught on even more easily than I did with knitting. I've grown considerably in skill level since then.

Crafting keeps me sane as I cope with mental illness, and I use it both for pleasure and as a coping skill when my symptoms flare. I try to craft a little every day.

Writing

I began writing in 2016 with a sci-fi/fantasy series that began with a scene from one of my dreams. My journey since then has been filled with joy and pain as I experience both success and failure.

Currently, I'm working on a romantic suspense series. The first book is under the editing process and I hope to publish it soon.

The Future Is Bright

I'm excited to see what the future brings as I share my thoughts here. This website is a new one for my blog which existed on another platform for many years, but I outgrew what the platform could do.

I am transferring select blog posts from my old blog to this one. Feel free to explore. Comment and share as you like. I would love to hear from you. And join me on Facebook where I share even more content.