Perpetual Student by Milou Koenings

 When I grow up, I want to be a student.  

Okay, so I'm sort of grown up, but I still want to be a student.  Few things rev up my excitement more than a course catalogue.  I'd take it all: Philosophy 101, Make Up for Theater, Military History, Fashion Design, Advanced Biology ... pretty much everything (except math!)

High-school Russian?  Check.  Doctoral-level  music theory? Sign me up.

And with the advent of the internet, anyone can learn practically anything online, and mostly for free.  It's enough to make my head spin.  Do I want to enroll in the Masters in intellectual property law (of course!) or continue learning Python?

I often have fantasies about what profession or career I'm going to pursue next, before I retire.  (My retirement years, I've already slated for medical school. Why not, right?)

But the truth is that I already have the best career of all, one that allows me to pursue all of these interests, and lets me be what I really am - a perpetual student.

I am a writer.

It means yesterday morning I discovered Rai stones - thousand-pound stone discs that are legal tender on the Island of Yap. Actually, I simultaneously discovered the Island of Yap, which I had never heard of before.  In the afternoon, I was digging up medical journal articles about the impact of sleep on teenager's immune systems. 

Not long ago, I grilled a friend who is a drug rehabilitation counselor, consulted a physician about the after-effects of carbon monoxide poisoning, called my aunt for the accurate version of my grandmother's spice cookie recipe, and spend several hours discussing the pedagogical aspects of The Rainbow Fish with an expert on early childhood education, all in service of my holiday novella, Sweet Blizzard, part of the 19-book bundled set, Sweet Christmas Kisses 2, that we at Sweet Romance Reads are releasing later this month. September 29, to be exact, so mark the date!

Today, I was going through diaries of a sojourn in Lichtenstein, researching its history, and reviewing art auction procedures at Sotheby's, culling the details that will make my next story come alive.

So yeah, high school, college and graduate school may all have offered a cornucopia of fascinating courses, but nothing beats the constant learning and research involved in being a writer - with no final exam! 

Whether we write non-fiction or romance, blog posts, novels or magazine articles, authors can never cease exploring, observing and studying the world around us, or the worlds that we create in our imaginations.

Fortunately, our universe is so vast and wonderful, there's no way to ever run out of new things to discover!

Milou Koenings writes romance because, like chocolate, stories with a happy ending bring more joy into the world and so make it a better place.
 

Her sweet romance, Reclaiming Home, A Green Pines Romance, is available at Amazon.  You can find her on her website, www.miloukoenings.com, on Facebook, or Twitter. 

Her newest novella, Sweet Blizzard, is included in  Sweet Christmas Kisses 2, an exciting anthology of  19 sweet Christmas novellas by award winning authors.  SCK2 will be released on September 29^th, and is available for preorder right now!  

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It's Never too Late to Learn by Karen Rock

It's Never too Late to Learn by Karen Rock

I brought my daughter, Danielle, to college this week and learned a few things without attending a single lecture.

1.       1. An empty nest doesn’t have to be negative. Think of it as an opportunity to fill it with new and wonderful things. My sister and I are joining a cake-decorating class at Michael’s and I’m excited to bring home new gadgets to try out in my kitchen. (Pssst. Don’t tell my husband ;)

 

2.       Being a parent doesn’t end when your child is eighteen. Danielle still needs advice and help. The only difference is that I offer it when she asks rather than jumping in and taking charge or assuming I know best. For example, bees kept coming into her dorm room (which we have nicknamed The Apocalypse- lol) and my husband talked her through the right channels to take care of the problem. Our job as parents may change, but it’s never done- and thank goodness for that!

3.       My identity is still the same. I don’t have to be a hands-on mother to be me. If anything, having this time on my own is giving me a chance to get back in touch with myself- my new self- who is older, wiser, and eager to meet the future rather than dwell on the past.
 
4.       Just as ice is still water, a separated family, though reconfigured, is still a family. That is a constant I can count on no matter the time or distance.

5.       I haven’t lost a child, I’ve gained an adult whom I’m so proud to have raised. No mourning the “loss” of the kid she was. I’m celebrating the person she’s becoming. There are lots of ways to contribute to society and raising a compassionate, respectful and conscientious person is giving the world a great gift.  At the end of the Steve Hawking movie THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, he and his ex-wife look at their children playing in the palace gardens and he types: Look what we made. It was such a poignant moment because even a man as great as Steve Hawking knows that raising amazing kids is a far greater achievement than even solving the origin of our universe.
 
6.       I can master new technology. For example, I now know Skype isn’t some complex technology only 35-year-olds and under can comprehend. It’s just an app on my computer that lets me see and talk to my daughter every day. And yes- Danielle got a big chuckle when she helped Greg and I bumble through setting up our account. But now, I have added three cousins, both of my sisters and a friend from high school to my new Skype list and can talk to them, too! So happy to have learned this and renewed and strengthened connections with other loved ones.

7.       Change is frightening but, survivable… even something to be celebrated. There is no milestone or Hallmark card to acknowledge or congratulate us on having successfully reared a child, yet there should be. This is a big transition and one worth some kind of shout out… so I’m giving one, right here in this post, to all the moms and dads of adult children. Let’s be proud and happy about all that we’ve done and will continue to do.

I hope these new lessons help you as much as they helped me! Remember that just because you aren’t as directly involved in your child’s daily life doesn’t mean you are less of a parent. If anything, your child’s growing independence says one thing: “Job well done, mom and dad!”

What are your thoughts about the “empty nest”, whether it’s in your future, present or past? If you have a chance, I would love hearing from you in the comments section below. Thanks!