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Monthly Archives: October 2015
Purple. The color of the day was purple. Where I was, anyway. So, even though everybody else in the greater Knoxville area was wearing their best Vol orange, emblazoned with giant power T’s, drinking orange flavored beer, eating cheese dip on Doritos, & singing Rocky Top till they were hoarse, I was wearing heels & politely sipping wine. Even the mountains had turned orange in preparation of one of the oldest rivalries in SEC country. Who gets married on a football Saturday in Tennessee? Who gets married on Tennessee versus Alabama Saturday, no less? Crystal Allen, that’s who. A GRADUATE of the University of Tennessee, so you’d think she knew better! But the wedding has been in the works for almost two years, and the romance since high school, so I couldn’t miss it. Crystal is a sweet soul; nothing is more important to her than family. Her quirky demeanor makes you giggle, & she’s so plainly beautiful you can’t help but stare. So, as a few raindrops fell yesterday on her simple ceremony underneath the maple trees, I couldn’t help that a few of my few tears joined them. I was expecting a princess gown, full tulle skirt & fitted bodice, but I was wrong. She was elegant in a lace gown with a short train adorned with sparkles. I was expecting a long veil, but she had flowers…
Y’all know how I feel about kids. I don’t want any, & most of the time, I don’t care for other peoples. But I have recently learned something. We need to be praying for mothers. Mothers everywhere. Whether they’re raising their own children or someone else’s. Whether they have one or two or ten or none and just want to be blessed with one. Or, in the case of this month’s “Awareness of the Month”, if they’ve lost a child through miscarriage or death. All these women are mother…s. Mothers are constantly fretting that they aren’t adequate. If they spend all day nurturing their child, they feel that they are neglecting housework or their husbands. If they miss a “Mom watch this” they fear that their child will have development issues & be in therapy for abandonment when they turn 21. They feel that they can never do enough & will never be able to protect them throughout their life. Mothers have a hard time. Most of my closest friends are mothers. Some of them, it’s all they ever wanted, & they are totally immersed in the motherhood thing. But they can’t protect their children from heartbreak. They’ll do anything to avoid problems. Other mothers are living the dream too, but the kids don’t cooperate. You hear these stories of kids that NEVER sleep….apparently that’s true. So that mother definitely needs prayers, as she…
There are few places as intimidating to me as the makeup counter. Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds. But women like me can’t just go to Walgreens & pick out a shade that you think “looks about right” because then you apply a foundation that is two shades darker than your neck & it looks like you’re wearing a mask. And it’s not because you didn’t blend it. And I need a sweat-proof, waterproof, not-coming-off-unless-you-use-a-brillo-pad makeup line. So, that being said, I find myself at the department store makeup counters with the semi-snotty, perfect hair, impeccable makeup, & lab coated models. I beg for their assistance with my clumped mascara & poorly applied eyeliner. They are always eager to come to my rescue. The following is an account of last night’s session at Belk. I beeline straight to Clinique for my foaming face wash that I’ve been out of for some time now. I keep thinking I can find a better makeup remover for cheaper. I cannot. I see one girl working the entire cosmetics department, currently assisting a man at fragrances, so I think I will settle in. What ever happened to those fun springy chairs? This one is all hard and has no bounce. I’d rather stand than partake in this molded-to-look-like-a-chair-but-is…
I have a friend who is married to a farmer. They are raising their boys among the cows & corn. The boys have calves they bottle feed & sell, they have horses they check fences astride. They enjoy the day to day life of being outside, helping their daddy tend to the newly born, the ailing, the healthy. One day, I was disheartened to read on Facebook about how one of their sons was being ridiculed at school. A schoolmate called him poor because he lives on a farm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trust me, farmers aren’t poor. They meet struggle every day of their life. They are up against it at least fifty percent of the time. Imagine if your livelihood was dependent upon the weather. If it doesn’t rain one day & the sun shine the next, you might be looking for a job in town. And then when hay is ready to cut to feed the cows all winter, you pray for three straight days hot & clear. To get your hay to grow, it must be fertilized. Fertilizer runs around $500 a ton. One ton will fertilize roughly seven acres. If your fields yield well, seven acres of hay will produce maybe 100 rolls of hay. A cow will eat half a roll a day in the wintertime if their pasture is thin. You figure four months of winter, which is 120 days. If you have thirty cows, that…
