Hi! I’m Catherine.
By day I work in employee benefits. By night I write, drink too much sweet tea, and occasionally overthink life. This site is where all of those interests collide. You’ll find musings, rants, spiritual stuff, life updates, recipes, cats, pictures, and whatever else I feel like talking about.
If you’re looking for my other projects, you may want to try:
- Benefit MIMS — my employee benefits blog
- Contentnea Creek Books — a private imprint I use for self-publishing
- CSquarent Solutions — my professional/business site
Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, welcome to the web site! I’m glad you’re here. Pull up a virtual chair and let’s talk awhile.
I’m a fifty-ish crazy cat lady, currently living and working in Eastern North Carolina. Yes, I have an accent, although I’m told it’s mild. No, I’m not a redneck — but I will firmly correct anyone who carries the incorrect belief that barbecue is red (or made out of anything except pork).
During business hours, I’m an employee benefits specialist. On the evenings and weekends, I’m primarily a writer. I began with fan fiction, but moved out into original fiction and poetry in my thirties. In addition, I maintain the employee benefits blog I link above.
But there’s a lot more to me than that, and that’s why this site exists!
Its name comes from two things that have shaped my life: novenas, a traditional Catholic devotion, and novellas, one of my favorite forms of fiction.
Here’s where you’ll find the things I have to say to the world that don’t fit neatly on my employee benefits or writing sites. (You’ll sometimes find items about those, too, generally if it’s strictly personal or inappropriate for those sites.) Topics range from Catholicism, photography, recipes, political and non-political viewpoints, cats, reading, and anything else that catches my fancy.
Pretty much anything is fair game for comment or discussion here, although I do insist that this site remain mostly family-friendly, and there are a few other rules that I enforce for the sake of prudence. And in case you’re wondering: yes, I administer the site myself.
Take a look around! Whether you’re here for the writing, the photographs, the cats, or simply because you stumbled in by accident, you’re welcome. Thanks for coming by, and I hope you’ll enjoy your visit.
Contact Me
Want to talk offline? Sure! But before you complete the below, please check out the terms & conditions to find out more about what information is collected, how it’s used, and how I will respond to external contacts and blog comments. Please especially note that:
- While polite and constructive criticism is welcomed, any contact that contains flames, trolling, or similar offensive and non-constructive content will be ignored and the IP address blocked.
- The same goes for any contact deemed to be spam, a solicitation, or that appears to be from a bot or an automated artificial intelligence application.
- Contacts containing illegal or unethical actions (including threats of same) will be reported to the appropriate authorities for further action.