Cat Pollock Writes

I realize how late this is going up this evening. You can thank Potluck Sunday and a joyful and productive Vacation Bible School planning meeting for that. I appreciate your patience. Before you read this, I strongly recommend you read the four stories listed below (and also posted on this blog) in order to understand the context of tonight's short story, which you can find after the jump. It's not one hundred percent necessary, but a lot of things will make much more sense if you do. For Sarah One Million Things Den of Violence Cane Crackin'

This is the second blog to be written for the Pinterest Challenge (which I actually just decided to call it). Wondering what it is? Read about the challenge  here . And the first challenge post here . I spend a lot of time talking about hope. I noticed that because when I went back to make sure the title for this post wasn't going to be the same as anything I had written recently, I found more than a few on the topic. Also, I found one from last week with that exact title. Hope  (Yeah, click on the link and read it if you haven't already). I'm not trying to beat a dead horse into the ground, but I'm also not going to apologize for how much it comes up as a topic. I will concede that part of the reason it has been on my mind so much lately is that the theme of the bible study unit we're wrapping up with the youth group next week is hope . Part, but not all. When I take the time to look - really look - at the path my life has taken up until this point,

Last week, I was watching the almost season finale of the TV show Castle (one of my favorite television shows of all time) with two of my younger sisters. What can I say? I'm a sucker for a well-composed story about a writer and his muse. *wink wink* It was a bit of an emotional roller coaster last week (to say nothing of the season finale we just finished watching an hour or so ago... but I'm just not ready to go there yet, so don't ask if there is anything of value in your life at this particular moment in time). We've been waiting for six television seasons for Kate Beckett, butt-kicking NYPD homicide detective and muse to murder-mystery writer Richard Castle, to finally see justice served as far as her mother's murder case is concerned. My youngest sister and I were in tears off and on throughout the episode - At first when it looked like the man who ordered her mother's stabbing was going to find a way to frame her for the murder of another man inv

Author's Note: This is actually a short story I wrote for a writing competition several years ago with a "Mothers" theme. Though I tried and tried and tried this last week to write something new, I kept coming back to this one. Thank you for reading, and Happy Mother's Day to all of the strong, wonderful, amazing women reading this who all hold that title. You are incredible, and I love each and every one of you! It had been a difficult drive getting here, but now Fee was glad she had come. She set her bag on the ground to let the feeling rush over her for a second, then turned around to see where that mischievous toddler of hers had gone in the last second. Luckily, Chris hadn’t gone too far. Instead of walking with Mommy, Chris was running around the base of the stairs to the bushes that lined them. She sighed, left the bag and went running after him. “Christopher Richard McCormick, get back here this instant,” Fee yelled as she ran, answered by Chris’s excite

(This is a repost of the blog I posted on the blog I kept up while I was on The World Race. You can see it, as well as a series of blogs about my adventures from that time period by clicking on the World Race tab at the top of this page.) Five years ago, I remember sitting in front of a laptop, madly compiling lists of possible financial supporters for my journey around the world and planning fundraisers, deciding which shots were absolutely necessary to get and which gear would be best. About four years ago, I was sitting in a van on my way to help put on VBS for school kids in Kenya. Not my favorite month of ministry, but it was a solid month, and I didn't walk away from it feeling like I never wanted to go back there again. At the time, I just didn't expect it to pop up on my radar again. It's funny, the places life takes us to. Even funnier, sometimes, the places it takes us back to. I say that because I am going back to Kenya this summer (July 31st-August 12t

This is the first blog to be written for the challenge I issued myself last month - click here if you missed it. Be selective in your battles, sometimes peace is better than being right. - Unknown It was the weekend before my last full year of college, and there I was... curled up against a concrete block wall crying my eyes out in my friends' dorm room. The day before, I'd written an altogether too difficult email to my oldest sister. I'd felt like I needed to call her out on something she was doing. She'd vehemently disagreed, and ripped me a new one in her response. Maybe there are some people reading this, and they can't understand what the big deal is. I've known a few people more than capable of doing exactly this kind of thing without having a problem. To all of those people - I wish I could be you. I wish I could be you because, generally speaking, I hate conflict. Put that together with a need to please the people around me (especiall

"Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent."  -  Jean Kerr, Finishing Touches (Act III) It's spring, and everything around me seems to be in bloom. Trees, flowers, shrubs... Sometimes their brightness is almost as blinding as natural sunlight on a day with no clouds in the sky. It's an amazing sight to behold. But today has been one of those days where I just.  Couldn't.  See it. Because today I feel as brittle as a piece of dried-out grass in a nondescript Phoenix neighborhood in the middle of the summer time. One wrong touch, one wrong movement, and I'm going to shatter into a million pieces. Kind of like the days after that one at the beach in Brisbane, Australia (the one where I scared even myself with thoughts of walking into the water, and letting myself get pulled away by the currents of the Tasman Sea) nearly four and a half years ago. I'm talking about the days in Northern Territory aft