So much for getting home on time. As they say, what goes up, must come down.
It was the tearing down of what I put up Saturday and Sunday. And it was even hotter today than it was then. It’s ridiculous to be sweating that much at 6:00 on November 7th. But here we are.

I’ve been scrolling writing prompts, because I am bored to tears with journaling. It ain’t like I’ve got some big exciting life to write about. It’s more about staying in the habit, and since I spend the majority of my time alone, I’m all I’ve got to write about, hahahaha. Or my disgusting coworker and I don’t want to relive a moment of being in his midst.
So in my searching for something new, I discovered it’s National Novel Writing Month (or as they call it online NaNoWriMo. I thought I had stumbled on some Japanese). If only I were the type of person that could write with a plot in mind, and come up with some twists and conflicts. I am not that sort of writer. It’s also Aviation Month, so I guess I could tell about my various flights (not all of fancy), or the time I tried to take Lightning Bug to the Wright Brothers Museum in Outer Banks. Or about where I’d fly to if I had my own helicopter.
But the most typical prompt I’m finding is being thankful and grateful. It makes sense, being that it’s November. Emily and I send each other three thankfuls every morning, so I’m already doing that.
But upon consulting my Pinterest, I’ve found more. One is simply, “aloe vera”. The self reflection ones included “in the mirror”, and “5 words I’d use to describe myself because…”
I may get somewhere with these.

I’m only at a two minute read time, so why not do them ALL????
Not the novel one, though.

So lets see. Flying….
My first flight was to Lincoln Nebraska for a Co-op trip. It was no great shakes. I was game for Vegas, Texas, St. Louis, I don’t know where all we went. There was one memorable landing, I believe it was San Antonio, where the wind proved a bit of an issue and we had a rough go touching down, but not enough to make me sweat. Although I much prefer takeoffs, where you can tell you’re just going faster than the speed of light and all I want to do is go even faster.
Another notable flight was coming back from Seattle, where I held a $200 glass octopus in my lap the entire time. He was too valuable to pack. Chester broke him with his tail two or three years ago. The original artist is still alive and well, but not interested in repairing him, sadly.
My first helicopter ride was fortunately, not Lifestar, but in one of the tourist helicopters. Lisa took me on my birthday in 2022. It was a great time. We flew over the lake. I intend to take another one sometime over the mountain to look at the fall foliage. I missed my window of opportunity last year and this year both.
Outer Banks was disappointing all the way around. I was looking forward to touring the Graveyard of the Atlantic museum, but it was closed for Covid, as was the lighthouse. What a bummer. Many places are dog friendly, so when I pulled into Wright Brothers and was turned away because of my toothy passenger, it was just another nail in the coffin. LB wasn’t able to walk very far by that time, anyway, but still.
If I had my own chopper, I’d definitely fly to JA’s instead of driving across the mountain at his every whim. He seems to forget I’m not 10 minutes down the road. But I’ve cut back to about once a month, so it ain’t too bad. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to see him and the fine reverend and Jessie Jackson more often, just that I’m not willing to make that trek. I’d also fly it to Kevin’s, but I guess it’d have to be a pretty good size helicopter to make that nonstop flight. I don’t know. I don’t know much about fuselages and helicopter mileage. I guess that’d be something I’d need to study up on before embarking.

Aloe vera has kept me from being mighty uncomfortable on more than one occasion. I take me a leaf (stem? leg?) or two in a Ziploc bag when I go to the beach. To buy it in the grocery stores is an expensive endeavor when I have pots and pots of it at home. I give tons away, too, because I can’t seem to kill it like everybody else does. Emily asked me my secret this spring, and I told her, like I tell everybody, “Forget about it. Set it outside, don’t water it unless we have no rain and it’s 100 degrees for a month. Pretend it doesn’t exist.” And guess what?
It flourished.
I guess that’s why aloe and I get along so swimmingly. I don’t like to be bothered, either. I’m kinda prickly.
I went back to find her exact words: “I’m thankful that I somehow got lucky enough to befriend the aloe growing master of Seymour and thanks to her sharing her complex method of leaving it outside on it’s own, my aloe is prospering. I know I mentioned it yesterday but its brought me so much joy it deserves a thankful post” That girl cracks me up.

Now, onto the thoughtful ones:
So when I look in the mirror, I see:
A woman who is courageous because I’ve never ran.
A woman who often needs help with her hair, because even after I spend time on it, it still doesn’t look as shiny and sleek as Christy gets it. I use the same product, it stands to reason it should behave for me, too!
A woman who loves without apology, whether it be my dog, my friends, my books, my food, or someone I can only love from afar. I love, and I won’t be ashamed.
A woman who could lose a little weight because my legs sure are jiggly.
A woman who isn’t scared because there’s nothing to be scared of. Life goes on. You can get ahead, get out of the way, or get left. It’s going forward. Might as well grab hold and steer the best you can.
It’s tiresome, to be sure. But it’s worse to be scared.

Love from Appalachia,
~Amy