Kimberly A. Cook

Military Romance Author

military romance author

USPS Smart Locker vs Baby Boomer Author

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I know what you’re thinking. Why do I still have all these? Because I need to get them shredded. I’ve done that for my desktop hard drives and electronic recycled the towers, no problem, but these guys? eClutter. I have to keep Bugs Bunny, right?

Pretty sure my ovaries got scanned at the Post Office last week. (This is not a conspiracy theory.) I was there to pick up mail at my Post Office Box and a package. Didn’t get my usual locker key or yellow note to come to the counter. Instead, a slip of paper with a QR code on it. (We will not discuss my cranky relationship with QR codes right now. I digress.)

Turns out a shiny USPS Smart Locker had been placed in the bay around the corner. I approached the tall pretty blue behemoth against the wall and was trying to figure out how to use the device. Without my reading glasses on, I guessed I needed to punch in maybe six numbers or letters I couldn’t read. Or scan the QR code.

I had the slip hanging in front of my hip bone while I decided if the two little red lights staring at me might be the right place to scan the paper. About three feet away. Next thing I know, the red lights brightened, the box made a noise, and a small upper left door sprang open.

I had not moved.

It appears the machine took action while I dithered.

USPS Smart Lockers

This seems to explain the general state of tech affairs these days. I had some questions about what just happened, but I grabbed my box of Avon goodies and returned to Subie. Sometimes, you just don’t want to know.

As a Baby Boomer, I had to punch tiny holes in lots of stupid paper cards to make one computer program work to earn my business degree in the early 1980s. Then I was required to learn actual code to launch my first author web site in 1997. Let me explain. I am not a techie. Never aspired to that job. Now I use more than twenty-two software programs to publish my books. And counting.

I believe I should get bonus cookie rewards or frequent flier miles for all of these tech shenanigans I’ve had to navigate. That’s not even mentioning five-and-a-half inch really floppy disks, three-inch not floppy disks, my Palm Pilot, two Blackberry phones, and the first Nook.

Don’t get me started on the ramifications of social media if you don’t know what a dial-up modem sounded like with actual AOL mail.

Which is why my heart was so happy recently watching Craft Day on the Home Shopping Network. The host talked about the great uses of an actual camera and the limitations of cell phone cameras. Yes! Preaching to the choir here.

As a former journalist/photojournalist who had to learn to develop film and print photos for the newspaper, before digital, it was a joy to witness fellow camera geeks in 2024. Even if I am still traumatized from losing an entire roll of breaking news photos to contaminated chemicals for a magazine layout, back in the day. Shudder.

I switched to digital cameras in 2006 and haven’t gone back. But I’ve always had a point and shoot or my 35mm digital camera, and my mini-camcorder, as companions. Use the right tool for the job. But I do have two-thousand some photos to get off my phone. Managed to get about five-hundred moved, so, my Android can think again.

Everything requires maintenance. And more memory. Including me.

Now vinyl records are the cool new thing and folks are fascinated with typewriters. And 1970s fashions are all the rage.

I may accidently be in style again.

But since my ovaries haven’t been active for years, due to blessed menopause, I’d like to thank the USPS for giving them a scan.

I believe they appreciated the attention.

Sometimes, technology is useful.

P.S. I know someone will ask about AI, aka Artificial Intelligence. That is a topic for another time… I have thoughts… But first, chocolate.

*****

Still figuring out how to use my rebooted blog. Perhaps life with KAC will be my theme. That opens up SO MUCH possible material. Thanks for reading!

If you liked this blog post, you can choose a free prequel from two of my military romance series, plus get my almost bi-monthly newsletter as a bonus, by going here and providing your email. I know your time and email inbox are precious treasures, so you can unsubscribe at any time. It’s true, my quirky sense of humor is not for everybody. I’m good with that. You decide.

“USPS Smart Locker vs Baby Boomer Author” copyright © 2024 by Kimberly A. Cook. Image at the top of the blog copyright © 2024 Kimberly A. Cook

 

 

Back to the Blog 2024

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The first bloom this year on my Veteran’s Honor rose was on the Fourth of July. Perfect timing!

Life is nuts on earth right now. Add social media into the mix and it can get worse. So, to save my sanity and outfox all the “platforms,” I’m firing up my blog again. My own little online newspaper where my three loyal followers can find out what is going on and maybe crack a smile. We need fun!

I spent this last week holed up in my house due to a heat inversion and got stuff done. Excavated my desk, made file labels for folders, rearranged things, even ironed. A friend was speechless about the ironing part. And I accidently started editing my nonfiction writing book.

Note to fellow writers: when you put a project away to sit for a bit, for the love of plum pudding, leave yourself a detailed note. Because when you return to it twelve years later, you have no flipping clue what you were doing. In spades. Never mind Word 97 is no longer in use and what the flock is a formatted page break?

My current fiction book, Mission: Runaway Hearts, will return in the mail from my editor next week, so I have to get cracking on all the other things. I have a long list of production items and a web site overhaul this year. And it’s July! Marketing next year. I’m pacing myself. Good thing I’m retired from my day job, right?

If you want more details about my upcoming books, you can sign up for my Cookie Sheet newsletter. I seem to be on a barely bi-monthly schedule. When I have a stiff wind at my back. And chocolate.

Hoping to head to the beach for a day trip this next week. With parkas and mittens. We topped out around 104 F (40 C) degrees yesterday, so 62 F (16.6 C) is going to feel like the Antarctic. But a restaurant down there has killer chocolate cake, and I must visit my favorite glass blowing artist to see if I need one more heart for my collection. Plus, I need to research a building in Lincoln City for the writing book. Really. It’s not just a cake trip!

Consider this opening blog across the bow a proof of life. I’m still standing and writing.

(To be honest, I’m sitting.)

Cake hunter, Kim

P.S. I have no idea if I can figure out how to get the comments turned back on after last year’s track back attack. No bots allowed on my watch! My blog. This is a kind people space. Don’t make me come over there… The likes button might work. Ah, tech. The true four-letter word. Cake ahoy!

Sending Valentine Wishes

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The Double Delight rose is one of my favorites. You can see why. From my backyard in a past summertime. Ah, summer. Soon…

They say people give the gifts they want to receive, so I must love cards, Dove dark chocolate, and roses. I do! But I can’t push those things through the interweb, so a photo will have to do. Was going to use a picture of my blooming Yuletide Camillias, but it snowed on them last night. They’re a tad droopy and cold this morning.

So, into the archives! Wanted to share a rose bloom from a while ago.

The thing I love most about today is we celebrate love.

And the world needs so much more love these days.

Only one of many reasons I am proud to be a romance author.

Spreading love every day of the year!

Cheers to more love on our planet.

And the comfort only love can provide in challenging times.

Love is the greatest power in the galaxy.

I hope you take some time to be kind to yourself and others today.

And all the fur babies.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

 

P.S. Happy 164th birthday to the State of Oregon too! 

 

A Fresh Start For Kindness

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Happy New Year, my fellow earthlings. Think I was kind of waiting to see if we actually made it. So far, so good. Bumpy, but we’re coping.

My goals this year are kindness, play, writing, and decluttering.

While I have been doing the last two, I need serious retraining for play, plus I’m working on kindness by trying to do a good deed each day. If I make you smile, this post counts for today’s good deed.

One article I read a long time ago said if you changed three things in your morning routine, it would turn your world upside down. Can’t even imagine what a multiple-year worldwide tri-demic does, but we’re beginning to find out. Think we are upside down, turned inside out, and floating in space.

While the entire planet is in various stages of flux and upheaval, we can recognize we are all in recovery. And that will take as long as it takes and is individual for each person and animal. Basically, this event screwed everybody, mammals, insects, all organisms.

Kindness to ourselves and others is a powerful way to move forward.

On Dec. 8, 2013, I was standing in the customer service line at Kohl’s to pay my almost overdue credit card bill. My dad had died early that morning, and my family were on our way home from saying goodbye to him at the foster home.

Sleep-deprived, grieving, in shock, and pretty exhausted, I felt like an empty vessel. Standing in line was taking way too much energy. After I paid my bill, the clerk gave me a business card. On it said #SHOWKINDNESS. I held onto that little card as if it was a surprise daisy in winter. I still have it.

You never know how you will touch someone’s life in a positive way. And sweet sea biscuits, we need as much kindness and love as we can produce right now.

Take positive baby steps. Whatever you can handle.

Elizabeth Lyon, a favorite writing instructor, talked about one percent improvement a week at a long-ago writing conference. She said we have to “chop wood and carry water” every day to be better writers.       

That goes for kindness and love too.

In that vein, I’m adding some of my new favorite videos to enjoy. I need more play and nature in my life, and given our winter weather, these videos help a lot.

The Movie Squirrels are from Norway and their humans are working to save the forest for the animals. Let’s do this!

(It’s eight hours, so pace yourselves. I watch it on my TV. You have to see The Nut Bar!)

https://youtu.be/cIvEGjm0qGM

And let’s finish up with some positive news from the Oregon Zoo!

https://youtu.be/gwBkeiHfFds

Gear up people.

Let’s get kindness trending!

Spring, Squirrels And Snow?

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Looking North to Mt. Adams in Washington from the Packer Bakery last Thursday. Peach blossoms in the foreground.

Several days ago at midnight, I was herding a possum around my backyard wearing my long puffy pink bathrobe, nightgown, and black Skecher running shoes. It dawned on me I might have gone a bit off the edge. Not sure possum cross-fit training is a thing. Yet. But given all that is happening in the world, who knows. I’ve never been “normal,” so why start now.

Spring in Oregon is always a bit quirky, but this year Mother Nature seems to be going for the gold. Last Thursday a seventy-seven degree day was forecast. My friend and I headed for Hood River to catch the opening fruit blossoms and do cookie research. Packers Orchard and Bakery is our go to destination to perform this grueling task. We were not disappointed.

Peach trees blooms were pink and open, the white blossoms of the apples and pears, right on schedule. (There is a bloom watch website at http://www.hoodriverfruitloop.com) Purchased an array of needed cookie supplies and empanadas, took some pictures, sat in the glorious sun. Then off to The Riverside Restaurant for lunch, because it is right on the Columbia River. As the name suggests. Never did a tuna melt taste so good.

The hour drive home landed us in the middle of a freeway traffic jam, but we didn’t care; there were cookies in the car! My friend went home and mowed her lawn, since it was supposed to rain over the weekend.

Then this morning we woke up to snow. In April. In Portland. It’s the first time PDX has registered snow in April since 1940. Go figure.

Think this bird is as confused as I was about the snow this morning. But breakfast was provided!

Our fabulous Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood has had thirty-six inches of snow in the last seventy-two hours and expects to get about that amount in the next three days. The mountain looks so pretty all covered in white. And us valley dwellers cheer the rising snowpack for summer water reserves.

Since today is a snow day, decided to catch you up on all the goings on around here. The possum has disappeared. It may have been my outfit in the wee hours of the morning that did the trick. Or crossing the road. Always a gamble for critters. Not sure.

Also had a potential stray cat in my backyard and was trying to feed her/him/it when it took off. But the possum had found the cat food. Which he liked much better than the birdseed he’d been hoovering up. Which explains my midnight workout with the furry thing. But the possum rodeo might have done the trick.

But the squirrel is back. After the crows and hawk left. And now the little birdies and Mourning Doves have returned.

Nature is nothing if not resilient.

And so are we.

Enjoy Spring!

Recent sunbathing squirrel on my back fence. This is how I hope to spend my summer afternoons. This furry one is getting an early start. Watch and learn.

My blog post would not be complete without an Oregon Zoo video. This springy baby is adorable. It’s about how I felt in the orchards last week. But I can’t jump that high!

 

Be Kind To Yourself

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In the midst of holiday chaos, gloomy weather, and a never-ending pace of challenges for us earthlings, I find it best to focus on what I can control. Which is not that much these days, luckily, so that works with my limited ability to concentrate. I’ve been thinking about what I’m grateful for at the end of this year.

Here is my starting list.

  • My HVAC was fixed and I have heat again. After eleven days. REALLY like that.
  • When I showed up for my free flu shot, I got the booster too. Bonus!
  • My favorite new gadget is a manual can opener which replaced the ancient, rusty one. I’m smitten. It actually cuts metal and has a large cushy handle. Be still my heart.
  • I’m able to keep the birdies, squirrels, and chipmunk’s fed in my backyard. Barely. But I may need to get a dump truck load of seed. Impressive appetites.
  • My family and friends are relatively stable after this crazy year.
  • There are still health care workers, delivery drivers, grocery clerks, police officers, restaurant workers, teachers, banking clerks, tech workers, airline pilots, postal workers, military members, and city, county, and state workers who keep showing up to support us all.  

I’d be happy with three things on my list, so six is golden.

Today we celebrate the Winter Solstice and getting one more minute of daylight. I’ll take it! At my former day job, we used to celebrate this day with Hawaiian shirts, Macadamia Shortbread cookies from the islands, and Jimmy Buffet music. It always perked me up.

I’ve had Beach Boys music playing in my car this entire year. When things get a little dicey, I bring in the big guns and head straight to disco. Never underestimate the power of music.

And being kind to others.

Animals show us how to stay in the moment and enjoy life. We need to be kind to them too.

This year has been challenging for everyone.

Take time to be kind to yourself during these winter days.

Happy Holiday Hugs for you and your furry or feathered friends. Like the ones below at the Oregon Zoo.

I plan to have fun in 2022.

Who’s with me?