I’m having a good morning. I feel like myself. I’d go so far as to say I feel light. And lemme tell you, I’m glad of it. All I cleaned last night was the toilet, so I’m sitting here looking at two weeks’ worth of dust on my coffee table. But I have coffee to drink, and I might finish this book before I start in on the cleaning. I also want to fix biscuits and sausage gravy for breakfast so I’m just easing into my weekend. Chester woke me up HOWLING last night. Idk if he was dreaming, bc when he woke me up it was little howls, and then he transitioned to full throttle. I remember LAUGHING. That’s an odd thing to do, just waking up. He’s so crazy. And yes, he was right there by my head curled between me and a pillow. I thought most dogs had the manners to curl at their owner’s feet in bed. Mine is a BRAT.
I am off to a good start with my word games, too, which always gives me a sense of well being. I got Wordle in three guesses, it was fairly easy, and I only made one mistake on Connections. I didn’t get Connections at all yesterday. Not one stinkin’ category. That takes a hit on the ol’ ego, I’m just sayin’.

So, just now, I was standing at the kitchen sink, washing my hands, and I spot a deer. Alone. I notice it’s a buck. I get my binoculars out and am watching him. It’s a nice 4 pointer plus brow tines. I watch him till he gets out of sight over the hill behind Aunt Bren’s. I’m all excited, chattering away to Uncle Dale (yes, the one in the little vase in the library, I’ve told y’all I’m crazy) and in a minute or two he comes back. But he’s limping.
A few weeks ago, right before I left for my little Crossville trip, I saw a buck back here limping along, and he only had one antler. He looked pretty beat up and I worried that he might not make it through the season. I get my binoculars out and it’s HIM!! His limp wasn’t as pronounced, and his antler was a lot thicker all the way around than I remembered, but I couldn’t believe I was seeing two bucks at the same spot within three minutes of each other!!! It was so exciting.
I was filling Uncle Dale in and got so wound up about it, Chester came in there, trailing his blankie and looking all quizzical, like who could have slipped in the house and how did he miss them?
I hope this makes you feel better about yourself, that I’m certifiably nuts.

I got the biscuits and sausage gravy fixed and Chester and I gorged ourselves. I decided I better knock out the housework, and therefore calories, while I was up and doing. I was reasonably sure if I sat down I’d be asleep in no time. And really, I could use a trip to the grocery store but that didn’t sound like a good idea at all. I still needed to get Lindsey some gift cards. And I hoped a new charging cable for my phone would fix the issue of not getting a good connection. I do NOT want to have to get a new phone and go through all that mess. But I’d suffer through one more day.

I’m finished with God of the Woods, I’m disappointed with what happened. It’s just like real life, they all made poor decisions and they’re all miserable but want to blame it on someone else. I expect better out of fictional characters!!! Obama declared it The Book of Summer 2024. He was either paid off or he didn’t read much else this summer. Idk why everything I’m reading lately has lesbians in it, but I’m tired of it. 90% of the characters were unlikable. The one I liked best of all was the villain. I would have much rather him have been the narrator and got his story. He was barely a player. It would have certainly been more interesting. Sometimes people are exactly as they appear on the surface. And sometimes people are delusional.

Knocked out a few blog posts this evening in an attempt to catch up, then decided to start a new book right away. It was a sequel to one I read several months ago, Summer of ’69 by Elin Hilderbrand. I thought it was a full-fledged book. I looked down not long into my reading and discovered I was at 18% (I read on my iPad). I thought, “wow, this must be better than I thought if I’m already that far!”. A few minutes later I look again and I’m at 35%. I get suspicious. Something is amiss.
Yeah. The whole book was only 64 pages long. This is disappointing, not only because I really liked the original book and was looking forward to catching up on all the characters, but because I had pushed other loans that had come through because I thought I would be devoting two or three days to this. Oh well.

Today is my mother’s birthday. I wonder what her life looks like now. Probably the same as it always has. I didn’t devote any more brain cells to it.

A quiet day, and I didn’t mind so much. I could have gone to JA’s, they roped this afternoon, but sometimes it’s best just to sit with your thoughts and make sure you’re still who you think you are.

Love from Appalachia,
~Amy