Sarah Kurz

 Irises smell like my childhood My grandma cutting me big bouquets Of all of my favorite colors I liked purple the best It always amazed me she'd willingly cut The beautiful flowers that lined her house I knew she did it just for me

      "I don't want another dog," I said as we walked along the rows of kennels at the animal shelter.  Tears stung my eyes and I quickly batted them away.  "It's too soon."     My husband gave me a reassuring pat, murmuring words of encouragement as he headed out the door and into the outside play area.  He was excited, the idea of adding to our family forcing a huge grin across his face.     I paused in front of the first kennel of the second row, memories I wasn't prepared for slapping me in the face.  Ten years ago I had stood in front of this very kennel and laid eyes on my best friend for the first time.  Three days ago I said goodbye to her for the last.     We met the dogs and I loved them all, as I have a tendency to do.  But I didn't want to bring any of them home.  I didn't need a dog.  My dog was gone and the pain left behind was unbearable.  And we had another dog at home.  R...

 "I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'if this isn't nice, I don't know what is." - Kurt Vonnegut It seems that life very rarely offers us perfect moments, and when it does we are far too busy to stop and notice them.  Or we are trying desperately to capture that perfect moment, to cling on to it for just a little longer, but then it vanishes right before our eyes and we are left with just the fuzzy memory.   Perfect moments can't be captured.   But they can be enjoyed. It rained last night.  The kind of gentle downpour that's easy to sleep through, the rain coming straight down so evenly that the windows can be left open without the worry of a stray drop traveling in and finding its way to the hardwood floors.  The clouds lingered and the rain decided to continue on throughout the morning, pausing my plans to plant the last few petunias in the hangers that line my fence and chicken coop....

 Everyone expects that writing a book will be challenging.  It is, after all, a lot of words.  And those words need to make sense.  They need to tell a story that is captivating and comes to life in the reader's mind.  So yes, writing a book is challenging.   But not as challenging as you'd think. Here's a little secret about people that like to write.  We have words floating around in our heads all the time.  Those words grab onto each other and form sentences and those sentences form stories.  The stories never stop.  Now, sometimes the stories are terrible.  Those rarely leave our minds and mostly happen while waiting in line at the grocery store or during very long car trips.  But sometimes the story is fantastic.  And that's when a novel is born. Writing the novel was the easy part.  Of course there were moments of writers block and moments where I struggled to make things make sense.  Moments where I c...