I learned a new word this week: overegg.

Word Genius sends me a daily email to remind me how few words in the English language I actually know. It's quite depressing. But it keeps my mind sharp, and every once in a while, they send along a gem. These extra-special, new words make me think, “Wow! I’m going to figure out how to integrate this word into my vocabulary!”

Recently, some gems were quinquennial and ephiphenomenon—cool because of how many letters they use! And visually, these words look amazing on the page.

But, back to overegg.

Overegg also jumped out at me. Why? Simple. It's an awesome, full-bellied word. See how round it is? And it means to overembellish or exaggerate something, like a word that is full of baloney.

This English phrase originated in the 1800s, as in to “over-egg the pudding,” which literally means don’t ruin your baking with too many eggs.

I keep thinking not about pudding, but about “Don’t overegg your face.”

Read More

I was recently on vacation with some friends in Jamaica, where we took some amazing tennis lessons at an all-inclusive resort.

We worked with a number of different coaches, but a visiting pro named Anni was the one leading our daily clinics. She has taught tennis around the world—both on the tour and off.

And for some odd reason, about a day in to our visit, Anni decided I was a consistent and patient player.

She must have seen me complete one drill where I happened to be focused and wasn’t thinking about anything else (remember, I was on vacation). Anni pronounced, “It’s clear that Kellie must drive her opponents crazy just keeping the ball in play.”

What? When she said this, I thought, “Uh—no! That’s not me at all! I am completely inconsistent!”

Thousands of times I have faced an approach shot or perfect opportunities for a volley, and I run toward the ball like a crazy woman, go for some stupid angle or try to do too much. And I dump the ball into the net or hit it out.

Read More

I sometimes dream about grizzly bears.

In these dreams, one is usually trying to get into my house. It is often standing up on the other side of a door, clawing against the wood, breaking glass panes, as I try to lock the deadbolt and keep it out.

Not the most pleasant dream.

But bears and I go way back.

A soul reader told me almost 25 years ago that brown bear is my spirit animal.

”Big, brown bear,“ she said. “Hulking big. Bears know where the healing herbs are.”

I liked this idea. I imagined the deadliest of grizzlies wandering through the woods, sniffing for ginseng and goldenseal, chamomile and peppermint.

A friend sent a bear figurine to me as a gift a few years ago. He’s lying on his back, playfully waving his legs in the air. He sits on my bookshelf reminding me to relax.

This week, as I was collecting materials in preparation for a board retreat, I grabbed the bear.

Read More

I have a mixed relationship with Autumn.

The parts I love: Leaves changing to the colors of sunset; the giddy excitement of back-to-school; warm, sunny days and cool, crisp evenings and the scents of fall.

But the days are getting shorter and nights are coming sooner. The perennials are closing and preparing for winter. The Canadian geese are honking their way south. And the hummingbirds have already disappeared from the feeder that is still sticky with sugar water.

I always get a little wistful and contemplative in the fall. Not just because of the colors fading, and the animals and plants curling up and closing inside themselves and their burrows.

It's because it was this time of year that I learned my mother had six months to live.

My mother was a fighter. She battled Stage 4 uterine cancer—which has a 15 percent survival rate. But she overcame it anyway, and then bladder cancer arrived next, which she fought for three more years. But the second cancer ultimately did her in. Radiation and chemo had taken their toll over a decade. She grew tired. She did not want to try yet another drug.

The autumn she started slipping away, my parents' lawn was also dying. Their grass was circled by tall pines and received very little sun. It was deteriorating to crabgrass and moss, with a few spare patches of green.

Read More

I once found a letter written to my great-great grandfather tucked inside the back of a leather diary. The marbled stationery is stamp-embossed with a winged dragon.

20th May 1896

Dear Mr. Sollom:

I am sending you back the handkerchief you so kindly lent me at the paper-chase. Also, one to replace the one you tore up on my behalf, which I trust you will kindly accept, with my sincere thanks for all your courteous attention and kindness to me. I have never ceased to reproach myself for spoiling your run.

With kind regards,

Believe me, Truly yours,

Constance Bridge

Paper chase! An outdoor game where the person designated the “hare” takes off, leaving shreds of paper behind. Everyone else are the hounds, and they chase after the hare, trying to find him or her before they reach the finish line. But the paper trail moves about with the wind—so it’s easy to lose the trail.

Read More

I was having trouble falling to sleep one night this week, so I pulled out a book: Waking Up in 5D: A Practical Guide to Multidimensional Transformation.

Just a little light reading.

Perhaps it’s unwise to read a book with Waking Up in its title while struggling with insomnia. But I thought reading might make me sleepy.

At the beginning of chapter 2, it says: “Scientists and mystics alike agree that time cannot be measured. The only element of time that really exists is the present moment.”

Hmmmm. I pondered this.

What about 60 seconds making up a minute? And 60 minutes adding up to an hour? Isn’t that measuring time?

Read More

Ever seen that viral YouTube video of the little kid arguing with his mother, saying again and again, “Listen, Linda....”?

The three-year-old keeps chanting, “You’re not listening to me. Listen, Linda…”

And his mom keeps reiterating, “And you’re not listening to me….You cannot have cupcakes for dinner.”

My friends and I laugh about this video all the time. Whenever anyone starts a sentence with “Listen…”, the rest of us interrupt, and say, “Listen, Linda….”

Why is this video funny?

Because listening is a lost art.

It’s so hard to listen to anyone today. There’s so much noise out there.

Read More

When I was divorced, my ex got the couch.
I got the loveseat.

It was a scratchy plaid monster. Ten years earlier I had thought it was comfortable. But it had since seen its share of Sponge Bob episodes and fruit snacks crushed between the cushions.

And when my son was about 12, he became all arms and legs. He grew a foot in about a week.

For a long time, I would walk with him in the mall, peering down and saying with authority, “No, I will not buy you one more Bionicle.” Then, suddenly we’re walking the same corridor in the same mall, and he’s looking back at me straight in the eyes. How did he get as tall as I am?

Eventually, the loveseat was no longer big enough for us and the cat.

Isn’t this always what happens? Just when we find something that fits perfectly, that we love and that is familiar, we think we’re golden. We cling to it—because we know it—even if it’s a few sizes too small.

Read More

In July, I was almost hit by lightning driving to a board retreat in Michigan.

In August, I was t-boned by a car while I was innocently returning to my hotel in Pennsylvania.

Now that it’s September?

Driving home from the airport in the middle of the night this week, I hit an owl.

An owl!

He glided from a low perch somewhere in the dark to a spot in front of my car. For a brief moment, I saw brown bars and mottled coloring on his wings and chest as my headlights lit him up.

And there was a thump.

Read More

I was hiking up North Tripyramid in the White Mountains recently. On my way to conquer two more 4000-footers.

But I lost a brief but memorable battle with a wet granite rock slab.

I went down. Hard.

My right hand held a hiking pole, so my left braced the fall. My left shoulder absorbed the shock of the whole experience.

Note: The shoulder is a useful structure, but not meant to absorb a falling force.

I had been looking and looking for these granite slabs, because my partner Dana had said we would hit some open rocks that are the most challenging because there are few holds to grip or put your feet. As the elevation increased, through the first several miles, I kept asking, “Are these the slabs? Are these the slabs?”

Read More

Do you remember the movie Avatar and the helicoradian plants on Pandora?

Those were the plants that when you brush against them, they disappear into themselves.

In the movie, when Jake touched the first one, Shtoonk! The beautiful spiral flower jerked into the ground so quickly that the plant seemed to vanish. He was curious, so he brushed another, and Shtoonk! It, too, sucked into the ground.

One by one, the flowers pulled inside themselves, each more abruptly than the last.

Ever feel like a helicoradian? Like you’re folding up inside yourself?

Read More

My son and I got into a conversation about life this week.

Sometimes he is like the old man of the sea, reflecting on life after 84 days without a fish.

He said, “Everyone has a backpack, and your life is like a mountain. As you move through, difficult things that happen to you are like rocks you have in your pack. One person’s climb up the mountain can therefore be harder than it is for another.

Read More

I got into a car accident last week.

Actually, I should specify: Someone got into a car accident with me.

I was driving through a residential neighborhood in PA, heading to the hotel after a day of work. As I entered an intersection, a car that was paused at the stop sign on my left proceeded to plow into me.

Read More

A few years ago, I made a vision board. And I glued to the upper left corner a superb cartoon that reads, And on the eighth day, God puttered around the house.

The image shows a robed figure arranging flowers on an end table. It always makes me giggle.

Why?

Because I don’t really know how to do this.

Read More

When my son was young, at the end of every preschool day, his teachers left a Toddler Tales one-page summary of his day in a mailbox labeled with his name. It reported whether he ate all, some, or little of his snack and lunch, how long he napped, and his general disposition.

Read More

Have you ever come face-to-face with an angel?

I don’t mean that friend who makes you chicken noodle soup when you’re sick or that colleague who picks you up when you’re down. I mean the person who shows up unexpected to deliver a message that is just what you need at a specific moment in time.

It happened to me once, twenty years ago, and I remember it vividly.

Read More

I was almost struck by lightning this week.

A colleague and I were driving to a meeting, surrounded by torrential rain, cracking thunder, and sheets of lightning. We could barely distinguish between the sky and the road. We were chatting casually, windshield wipers flipping back and forth. But then the loudest thunderclap I have ever heard reverberated right next to the car. And we both jumped as a bolt landed somewhere to our left, in the brush just off the road.

Read More

If your house is on fire, and you can grab only a few things to take with you, what would it be?

Assuming all people and pets in your space are fine, what else would you take?

Of course, my purse and laptop. Maybe the basket my grandmother wove in fourth grade that holds a century of family mini rosaries and prayer cards.

I might grab the brass perpetual calendar on my desk.

Read More

I have a love-hate relationship with beginnings and endings.

I love beginnings. Hate endings.

Favorite things: Boarding a vacation plane with a suitcase of clean clothes and unread books. That package of Ticonderoga pencils and crisp college-ruled notebooks on the first day of school. First day of a new job: projects I don’t know yet that are like presents to be unwrapped. The buzzing excitement of a first date, meeting another soul who could be the one.

Read More

I once sold educational books door-to-door as my summer job in college.

Our team from drove halfway across the country to attend a week of sales school in Nashville. And then we kept on south to Georgia, where we lived out of sleeping bags on the floor in a one-bedroom apartment. My two roommates and I knocked on doors six days a week for about 12 hours a day.

Read More