Strawberries are not just my logo: we grow them….
Drew says one of the things he loves about me is that I am game to do just about anything. Really, he knows me well enough not to ask me to do things I WOULDN’T do, like sleep on the ground in a tent, but, yes, I am pretty adventurous. And we tend to like the same things.
A real advantage to be of being married to Drew is that he loves to garden. I’ve always gardened, but what I really like to do is pick the proceeds and then take care of them. So Drew now does most of the gardening, we pick together, and in this case, I hull and clean quarts and quarts of strawberries.
Here’s the funny part: Our new home in Tallahassee is on a tiny lot that came landscaped and with irrigation. We planned it that way, because our home in Maine is on several acres and has more than enough outside work to satisfy the farmer and lumberjack in us. But our Tallahassee home does border on too tidy and perfect, so the first thing that we did was build a privacy fence around the back yard. That way, we can let that patch grow a little wild and frowsy. Then Drew pulled up most of the landscaping and put in fruiting things like citrus berries. We planted strawberries under the shrubbery, they spread like crazy, and we are getting tons of berries this year. Blueberries and blackberries are blossoming, as well as the lime, oranges, and grapefruit. We have an edible yard.
This morning for breakfast, we had our own strawberries, and then our jam on home made scones. What a treat.
We’ve had so many strawberries lately that I’ve been making jam (I call it Southwood Yard Jam) and giving away the prettiest fresh berries. I’m thinking of starting a modest fruit and vegetable stand on our front porch.
Love notes to me
Everybody has got to love love notes, and I am no exception. Here’s one I got from a client recently—I had just finished a draft of a new profile essay for her, and you can see here that it fit perfectly. If your profile could use work, it’s the most popular service I offer. Here’s how to set your profile review up: Click here!
Hi Kathryn!
This is so EXCITING! I love it!!!
OMG - seeing the DANCE PART in print makes me realize that I’m “talking the talk” - so I better hurry up and take some lessons so I can “walk the walk”!!!
It’s very Upbeat and extroverted - just like “me”... I’m going to look it over more carefully over the weekend - but I think it sounds great!
Many Thanks, Kathryn…
Have a great weekend!
Emily
Getting Married!
I got this wonderful note in my email box the other day. What great news, and thanks for giving me some credit, Mary Jane!
I contacted you not to long ago; and, it was right after that I meant my soon to be Husband.
You have been a great inspiration; and, I want to thank you.
I will be getting married on May 18, 2007, to a wonderful man that I knew from high school; and, our paths have crossed many, many times.
We have been together for 8 months; and, when we get married we will be just 3 days from being together for a year. Thanks again.
Sincerely, Mary Jane Zeh
Congratulations!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I’m on Online-Dating-Confessions…
I just never know where I am going to turn up. I just got an email that noted I was on Online-Dating-Confessions scroll down to see me—not as juicy as it sounds, just recorded interviews with me and other online dating folks. According to the copy here, I’m pretty good.
Kathryn’s on Yahoo!
Did you know that I write for Yahoo! Personals? Every few weeks or so, a link one of my articles is posted on the front page of Yahoo!, and watch out! Visits to my website go up times ten or more, I get stacks of emails from singles asking for coaching and advice, and new readers join the mailing list of my enewsletter *eMAIL to eMATE* (You aren’t a subscriber??? Sign up here.) It lasts for about a day, then it is back to the normal flow. I can practically tell to the minute when my article goes off the board and the new stuff comes up.
I was a Yahoo! star earlier this week ( Yahoo! featured), and right in the middle of all the emails came the following:
I just wanted to thank you for sharing your insight and knowledge in the dating arena. After reading your article on “Are you ready for a new relationship”, it helped me to understand more about myself, and what to present to my future significant other.
Thank you again for your contribution to this modern problem that many people face.
Sincerely,
John
Isn’t that wonderful? That makes all my work worthwhile.
I also heard from one of my old therapy clients who now is single, found me via Yahoo!, and wants Romance Coaching. And I heard from a Romance client from way back who is getting married. Yahoo!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Feedback on My Article on Yahoo! Personals
I get letters from visitors to my website and readers of my enewsletter all the time. When I think that the questions posed are of interest to more than the writer, I often alter the writer’s note to conceal identifying details, then publish the relevant content here or in my free *eMAIL to eMATE* enewsletter. (Not a subscriber? Sign up here!)
Kathryn:
Just read your piece on Yahoo personals and wanted to thank you for that. I’ve had to
say “no” a few times since being back in the dating world, but when I finally found someone I was truly interested in, and she said “no” to furthering the relationship, it just killed me. I ended up drinking beer all day the next day and being terribly depressed. It hit me much harder that it should have, and I wish I’d read your article before it happened, because now I can see it wasn’t the end of the world after all, and being removed from it now, I can see we probably wouldn’t have been a good match anyway. I’m only a tenth of the way through those hundred first dates, and feel very hopeful that I will find love before I get there.
Thanks again! Jim
Your Romance Coach on the Front Page!!!
Well, of Section B in the Tallahassee Democrat today: Take a look! Thanks, Jeff Burlew for that nice article. And as a result, before I was even up this morning, the phone rang from a local DJ, John Dawson or the “John and Tammy Show” on Star Radio 98.9 here in Tallahassee. So without even coffee or a shower, I was on the air for 1.5 hours! We had so much fun that we are talking about a regular appearance. All RIGHT! Thanks, Tallahassee Democrat and Star Radio!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Back to Work and Blogging Again
Okay, I’m back! Yeah, like you, I took some time off over the holidays. And isn’t it hard to get going again? Oy. But really, I love it. And I missed y’all!
Drew and I had a wonderful time in our new house in Tallahassee. He still has a few more months on the job in Vicksburg before he will move to Tallahassee full time, so this time will be the longest he has in his new home until then. When Drew and I met in 1998, I was living in Tallahassee and moved to Mississippi to be with him. So here we are, eight years later, heading back to familiar territory. We looked at lots of other options, but Tallahassee kept coming out on top. So we stopped resisting.
We had a nice visit after Christmas from my mother and new step-father George. They got married last April, and are the best example of “It’s never too late to find love.” Mom was 81 on her wedding day and George was 87. They are pretty goofily in love. Next weekend, they head off on a cruise through the Panama Canal.
So fasten your seatbelts, readers. I’m back to work.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
What can I say? I’m famous. Here’s the latest place I’m quoted, in Match.com’s online magazine “happen.” Actually this is the second time the reporter Laura Gilbert has quoted me: Here’s the first article. Yea, Laura! As we know, Match.com and Yahoo! Personals are the Big Guys in the online dating game. I’ve right now too, as well as my predictions for 2006 being included in So that’s twice on Yahoo and twice on Match, in just a couple of months. I’ve been discovered.
It’s about time.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Recently Yahoo! Personals asked me to make a prediction about Online dating trends in the near future. They are online now— at what lots of dating experts are saying. Here’s what I wrote:
I think we are going to see a real trend towards it becoming standard that online daters officially establish their identity on the Internet while also keeping anonymity. We are already seeing sites pop up that appeal to the fears of singles (like true.com which does criminal background checks and prohibits married people from signing up) and truedater.com, where people can go and report in, positively or negatively, about the accuracy of a date’s online presentation. Sites are also appearing that help you verify your own identity for others as well as check out a potential date, like trufina.com, safedate.com, and verifiedperson.com. Soon it will become as odd to see a profile without a verified identity as it now is to see a profile without a photo.
It seems very 21st Century to me that we all should have an awareness of our online presence. It also feels a bit like the old-fashioned small town, where everyone knows everything about everybody. Of course, that’s part of the allure of big cities, the anonymity. Similarly, big online dating sites. Clausterphobic as small town life can be (Lord knows, I’ve been both repelled and attracted), everyone knowing everything has a real social value. There’s much more pressure to behave yourself when you have to face the same people day after day.
I just Googled my name and got 911 hits, at leas half of which are really about me. Thank goodness, the citations are in general good ones. The one I particularly love (that isn’t me) is on a site called pathetic.org. Wouldn’t you know it?
Go ahead and Google yourself and see what comes up. You ought to know, because others are going to Google you, especially dates, so if you’ve got a pathetic.org in your Google resume, be prepared to explain!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The Yahoo! Personals Connection and More Blog Successes
I’ve had some great leads come directly from this blog, and one was an editor from Yahoo! Personals. He found me via my blog, liked my writing, and asked me to consider writing for Yahoo! Personals online magazine. Lots of places would like me to do so, and I have articles posted all over the web. But Yahoo! Personals is THE largest online dating site, period, bigger than Match.com or eHarmony. That’s a lot of eyeballs. He got my attention. Yahoo!‘s editor wanted new material, nothing that has appeared before. We worked together easily, and finally (his timing, not mine—I had my part done in a day or two), my first article is now available. , the writing around it all new. Each question is taken from the theme of a chapter in my book “Find a Sweetheart Soon!” which is of course available for purchase. Note on the Yahoo! page that on the bottom are links to my website and the book web page. Click on the picutre of the book and you go right how to buy it. Tah-dah!
Most recent blog prize: Husband Drew and I are in the middle of a move to Tallahasse. A reporter for the local paper found my blog by doing a search on"Tallahassee+blog”. Since “Romance Coach” is such an attention-getter, he contacted me for an interview, and an article is now in progress and due to be published in the next few days. I’d been in town less than a week. That’s some introduction to town!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Just as I recommend that you Google yourself*** regularly to find out what’s out there in cyberspace about you or someone else with your name, I Google myself once in awhile, too. And along with what I see listed every time, like my own website, I usually find my articles posted in new places that I didn’t know about, or me quoted in other people’s postings.
Here’s an article on GreatBoyfriends.com that the author interview me for—It’s pretty darned good, if I do say so myself. Great advice for new online daters. The author Kathleen Murray quoted me accurately, not always the case in interviews.
This is one of my favorite pieces on the importance of have a good attitude.
Four of my articles are posted here, including one on… Googling!
This British site MyAgonyAunt (isn’t that a great name?) has Speed Dating Online and Off and
Does Internet Dating Work?
How did I get on this site for Russian Brides? Well, the article on why not to lie is a good one!
Whew! That’s enough for now. I’ve got lots of links I need to trace down.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
***You haven’t Googled yourself??? Here’s how: go to google.com and do a search on your name in quotation marks. I searched “Kathryn Lord”
Well, we are back. It’s been over two weeks now since I have posted here. I had hoped to do so while we were away in Maine and Massachusetts, but we were plagued by veeerrrry slow Internet service (or none at all), some of it because our house is on an island, and some because of Hurricane Katrina.
Maine was wonderful as always, made more so because we have been having construction work done there, in preparation for Drew’s retirement next year and our spending more time in Maine. The anticipation of getting there was tough, because we hadn’t seen what was being built for a long time. But we were happily very pleased with the progress. Glad to see that all the decisions and money spent were to the good.
We got back to Mississippi Sunday night to a standing house that was pretty much as we left it, except for spoiled food in the fridge, a downed fig tree, and a sprung storm door. Gas lines and no fresh food in the stores, but things seem to be getting back to normal quickly. The kitties were glad to see us, if only because we opened the doors and let them out for the first time since we had left.
So I’ve got some catching up to do here on the old computer, website and blog. Stay tuned while I read up one what’s been happening while I have been away, and have chance to summarize for y’all.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I’m Quoted in the Clarion Ledger
Cori Bolger of the Clarion Ledger called me Monday. She was doing a story on “no more blind dates” and said I was the dating expert in Mississippi, so she got in touch. And sure enough, I’m quoted, right at the top of an article in August 16th’s paper: “Forget the Pickup Lines, Go Online.” Click on over and see what I had to say and what Cori wrote. Essentially, the article is about what I have been saying: Don’t lie online, because it is so easy for potential dates to get accurate info on you. Or not so accurate, which is why it’s a good idea to keep track of what comes up when your own name is Googled.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The Single Life—The Emotional Ups and Downs
I remember from when I have been single in the past that one of the most difficult things for me to manage was my day to day emotions.
When I am in a relationship, I have someone who cares to talk over things with. When I am upset, I can vent. My partner reassures me, give me ideas, or tells me I am full of bologna, we have a good laugh, and I get over it.
When I am alone, if I get into a funk, there’s no one around to help me out of it. I can wallow in it for days, churn and fuss, and only with a great deal of effort do I get out of the trenches and back to some kind of normal
I am having a spate of that now. I wrote earlier about some financial difficulties that I am having to straighten out for my mother. I am continuing to deal with it, explaining the situation to my brother and sister, working on a letter to send the offending party, and every dealing gets me massively stirred up. Drew and I have talked on the phone every night since he has been in Bulgaria, but that time is precious, and I don’t want to go on and on with him about the distress, long distance. So I stew by myself.
I know that I am happier and more content when in a relationship. It’s very nice to have company through life’s up’s and down’s. That’s why I worked so hard to find a good one, and why I work so hard to help you have one, too, if you want that.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The Single Life—I am so RIPPED!
I know that something I really like about being in a relationship is having someone to talk over things with. Not only does it allow me to vent when I need it, two heads are usually better than one, and when I am upset, I don’t always think too clearly.
Drew is great in that role, and he’s too far away—in Bulgaria!!!—to consult. We’ve talked on the phone a couple of times, but he is very busy and not really able to tune in to what’s going on here. So I’m on my own.
I help my mother with her finances. Most things she handles fine on her own, but big sums of money buffalo her, and she is easily manipulated and intimidated. I’ve stepped in a couple of times when thousands of dollars were involved, and am having to again, and I am pissed. Each of these incidents have involved her being taken advantage of, and take concerted effort and cleverness to untangle, massive letter writing and judicious arm-twisting. I haven’t been able to get my bother on the phone, either, though he has sent supportive emails. So I have been ANGRY for two days, and have no one to talk myself down with.
Having someone who cares, who is willing to talk through daily minutiae, helps with problem solving, and just generally gives verbal and real hugs—what a gift in the otherwise lonely journey of life. When Mom and George found each other (they got married in April, he 86 and she 81), I was so pleased that they would have that kind of companionship again.
I wish Drew would call.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Calls from Bulgaria—via Omaha
Finally heard from Drew in the middle of the afternoon yesterday. The caller ID said “Omaha” so I didn’t answer the phone. Telemarketing calls tend to come in with those locations. But it was Drew, and he left a phone number. So then I had to figure out how to call Bulgaria. Thank goodness for the good old Internet—I searched “International Phone Codes” plus Bulgaria, and was able to figure the mess out. But then the clerk at the hotel answered in a long string of words that I assume was Bulgarian. All I could do was blurt “Room 127,” and it worked. Drew was on the other end of the line.
He got there fine after the very long flight, and I could tell that he is really enjoying experiencing the foreignness of Bulgaria. As much as he has traveled, he has never been over the Atlantic, and this is all new.
We both remarked that this feels like old times: right after we met for the first time or two, he was gone for a long stint of field work, and we both spent time waiting for phone calls and emails. The yearning, waiting for the phone to ring. I remember that very well.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Well, not really. But sort of. Drew’s away for the next 10 days, and I mean REALLY away—he’s in Bulgaria. I haven’t heard a peep out of him yet. Either he’s dropped from exhaustion (he left here yesterday at 8am, should have arrived there about 24 hours later), or he hasn’t figured out an Internet connection yet. Or maybe he’s lost.
So anyway, I am on my own.
Drew travels a lot for his work, but this is the farthest he’s ever been and it’s a little disconcerting. I could get in touch if I absolutely had to, I supposed, but meanwhile, I wait.
Now, usually I rather look forward to his being away, and I did this time too. I like the difference, the time I suddenly have, the lack of distraction. As much as I love Drew and being married to him, I like being by myself too.
What I always notice when Drew is gone is how much time I suddenly have. Relationships take a lot of time! And that’s not just the time that he is actually here, we are talking or having dinner together. It’s also the mental space of being aware of where he is in the house or at work, thinking about what needs to be done to maintain us physically, like buying groceries, or doing laundry, or keeping things picked up and organized.
Of course, I still eat, whether he is here or not. But I usually don’t plan and cook in the same way. Last night for dinner, I had a big bowl of popcorn and a small bowl of strawberries. And the housework isn’t so demanding—things don’t get so disordered or dirty, and I don’t care so much, since no one is seeing it but me.
I can focus more single-mindedly and for longer periods of time. I get a LOT done.
Except when I am doing what he usually does, like water the garden, take out the garbage, get the mail, feed the kitties. Don’t forget to feed the hummingbirds, and watch the mail for bills that might need paying. Where is he when I need him? I’m going to have to fix the broken doorbell, too. Rats. It’s much easier to ask Drew to do it.
So you’ll be hearing about it over the next few days, what my temporary single status is like and how that might relate to you…
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Seven Years Ago Yesterday
This time of year is when Drew and I first met online. Last night we were reminiscing, and Drew asked me to pull out the notebook we have kept which has nearly every one of the emails we exchanged before we met in real time and space, ten days after that first contact.
The big surprise was that yesterday marked seven years exactly—May 21, 1998, was the date on the first email I sent Drew. I had been thinking that the anniversary date was May 25. So we started reading through those old emails, starting with each of our profiles.
We had the best time. What a treasure that notebook is! Fortunately, we both printed off the emails as we sent and received them, so we have an almost complete record of that part of our courtship. The emails are so SWEET, poignant, wistful, and true! And funny! We laughed and laughed.
What really struck us both is that in the very earliest communications we had foretold our lives today: Fascination with color and glass (we have a stained glass business together); Mutual interest in cooking (we had just eaten a wonderful meal—Drew rotisseried a chicken on the grill, I made lemon rice and the fresh vegetable sides, with hot date filled cookies for desert); reading, gardening, dance lessons. It’s all there, in the first emails we wrote. And every single word that each of us wrote was and is the absolute truth.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS Print and save every piece of correspondence! It’s a future treasure.
Here’s brother Bill in a characteristic pose—with camera and talking—this time, with his soon to be step-father George.  Bill is father to Rachel.
Brother Bill, Stephen King, Warren Silver, and Russian Brides
Sunday mornings at Romance Headquarters are pretty quiet, but a couple of interesting pieces came via email. The : Stephen King, who was president of my class at the University of Maine in Orono, spoke to the current graduating class yesterday. King, who is probably the most financially successful UMO grad ever, told graduates to read voraciously (I do), give 10% of your income away (I’m working on it), and stay in Maine (we’ll be there six months a year starting in 2006). I never met King, but I do have a signed copy of “Cujo” somewhere, and I hear that my debate partner in high school (Warren Silver) is his attorney. I guess that’s one degree of separation, right?
The other piece of interest was about Russian brides and fraud. Mikhail Vanin lives in Samara on the Volga River, and has made himself a business tracing down the would-be girlfriends of foreigners. “Vanin, a 44-year-old romantic at heart, said he doesn’t want to sound pessimistic, but ‘eight out of 10 times the women I investigate turn out to be nonexistent or even a gang of criminal Internet scammers.’‘’ I’ve written about Russian brides and Ukrainian grooms before, my advice is still the same: Buyer beware. Generally, that’s what you are: a buyer, and you will be putting up the money without any assurance of getting the goods.
Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS I just did a Google search on Warren Silver and see that he was nominated to the Maine Supreme Court ‘just last month. All right, Warren! And Warren, if you see this, I’ve got a different last name now. Get in touch, I’d love to hear from you!
Photo time! Here’s three nice things about living in the South: My Sweetie Drew, who I would never have met if I hadn’t left Maine, azaleas in the spring, and gardening almost all year. Drew loves to garden, and we both love to pick and eat the proceeds. Some of the larger plants you see in this picture were actually planted last fall. They wintered over and then took off when things started warming up in February. Drew’s planting the last lettuce for this spring. It will soon be too hot for those tender greens. Then comes cucumbers, beans and tomatoes. Where I come from in Maine, it’s almost a waste of time to plant tomatoes. They usually don’t get a chance to ripen before the first frost.
Water Babies Haley and Rachel
Too long without a picture, which is very boring. These are two of my nieces, the youngest in the next generation, right on the edge of adolescence, and still able to tussle in the pool like dolphins and not worry about what they look like in a bathing suit. Yet.
Proof that the Romance Coach Meets the Geezer
The Romance Coach meets the Geezer
Some of you may have noticed a flurry of comments posted the last few days in response to my blog entries (Like under the “Gender Ratios” piece or my rants about True.com). The comments are signed “The Geezer,” but the writer is much more handsome than his handle would suggest. Here’s a picture of the two of us when I took Mark out to dinner in Seattle, August 2003. Mark found my enewsletter about the second time I published it three years ago, and has been a loyal fan and gadfly ever since. He really takes me on when he thinks I am bashing men (MOI? Mais, non!), but then I smack him and he straightens up. He’s a sweetie, and gave me the greatest compliment after dinner: “Drew’s a lucky man.You’re better looking than your pictures.”
Readers of my enewsletter *eMAIL to eMATE* know that I was pretty stepped back before Valentine’s Day. As natural as it would seem for a Romance Coach to capitalize on the holiday for lovers, I just didn’t feel like it. My readers knew that Valentine’s Day was coming, and they didn’t need me to bludgeon them with the news. So I didn’t try at all to get my media contacts stirred up to feature me in the flood of articles that came out all over the press.
However, Cori Bolger at the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, MS, did give me a call for some juicy quotes. Cori had interviewed me before, and knew that she could count on me for the article she was writing about last-minute Valentine’s Day gifts. Cori wrote a very clever article, and in the paper Monday, the article even had a picture of me. The online version left that out, but here’s the link so that you can read what she and I had to say: Click here!
I didn’t know what Cori was going to ask me, so I wasn’t really prepared, but frankly, I think I came up with some good ideas. The two best ones? On our first Valentine’s Day together, Drew gave me a framed copy of the first email I sent him, making the contact that eventually brought us together. It now hangs in our bedroom. The second idea was pure on-the-spot inspiration: Go to the grocery store and buy a box of strawberries and a can of chocolate Reddi Whip (that whipped cream that comes in an aerosol can).
Interestingly enough, I had never even had chocolate Reddi Whip. But I bought some, with the strawberries, and let me tell you, that is one hot combination! Chocolate Reddi Whip tastes like chocolate mousse. Yum, yum, yum.
What’s February 15th like for a Romance Coach?
My first job out of college was as an Activities Director in a nursing home. For those of you who haven’t experienced the December holidays in such a facility, it’s a mad house. EVERYONE who you couldn’t scare up with a million dollar lottery the rest of the year, suddenly wants to come in and “do something nice” for all the old folks. By the time that Christmas finally came, everyone in the whole place was exhausted. Me included. I started crying over Christmas dinner.
It’s the day after Valentine’s and my office looks like it was hit by a tornado. For the last week or so, I have spent at least half of every day scanning, printing and reading the news posts I get from Yahoo and Google on Internet dating and romance. Face it, folks: CyberRomance is now mainstream, big time. Dr. Phil even did a whole show on it last Friday (February 11). He had the audience packed with single women and then brought in guys they were matched up with through PerfectMatch.com. Dr. Pepper Schwartz who is PerfectMatch’s resident romance expert was also on. I emailed her congrats over the weekend, and asked if any of the pairings had “worked.” She said it was too soon to tell, but some looked promising.
Anyway, I am SO glad to get this blog started, because it will be a great way for me to share what I am seeing come over the wires thick and fast now. It’s too much info for two newsletters a month. So here we are, and welcome to you! And me! We are launched!
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