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Amy
I’m stuck between wanting to do All the Things and None of the Things. Like, I feel a very strong urge to declutter, but then when it comes down to throwing things out, I feel the familiar, “Well, you might use it someday….remember that time you needed a whatsit for the whosit?” You know, that happens bi-annually or so. Better hold onto it. But I am finding it a lot easier to let go of objects that may have a less than stellar association. Not that they have a bad memory attached, just that where the thing originated from is someplace I don’t care to remember. Anyway…. I finally broke out my air fryer today. It’s truly wondrous. I love it a lot. I can’t believe I’ve been heating up my whole oven for one measly piece of fish. Ridiculous. And washing two pots and a lid for steamed vegetables. I only use my microwave for baked taters and the occasional reheating of food. I typically use my secondhand (from Lisa) little red toaster oven, but funnily enough, it took forever to toast bread. And my toaster (secondhand from Lorie) lives at work. Anyway, my thoughtful aunt gave me the air fryer for Christmas and I was marginally intimidated —ok, that’s a lie. I was lazy— about learning a new gadget so it’s been residing in its box since Christmas Eve. No time like the present! It’s super cute, almost…
I want Chili’s egg rolls. I want salad and breadsticks from Olive Garden. I want pizza from Gatlinburg Brewing on 66 and a great big draft beer. I want ribs and a small sirloin from Texas Roadhouse with a loaded sweet tater. I want a cheeseburger and fries from Five Guys. I want a giant slice of cookie cake. I think that’s it. Oh, no, I’m not out of food. I’m not even hungry! I merely want what I can’t have. It’s a metaphor for my life. I have consumed the following today: one biscuit with sausage gravy. One biscuit with blackberry jam. Two eggs, medium. One glass of milk. One sausage patty. Lunch was a bowl of hamburger helper with tomatoes. Supper was red beans & rice with andouille sausage, peppers, onions, and two small garlic rolls. One Mountain Dew and a pack of Little Debbie heart cakes. So now that’s something you know about me. Angela was kind enough to bring me a quart of milk. Why not a gallon, you ask? Because Weigels was out of gallons, that’s why. Evidently everybody suddenly started drinking milk for every meal 🙄 the heck of it is, I stood in the aisle yesterday, looking at it. And I came to the decision I didn’t need any milk. Well, lemme tell you, friends and neighbors, I was WRONG. I did need milk, especially if I wanted to have chocolate chip cookies this weekend…
I hate typewriters. It was that day again. I promise I haven’t been procrastinating. I was waiting on one last social security number. I finally procured it last Thursday night. Then Friday we decided to have Wizard Of Oz type winds, so I went home to work at midday. I wasn’t about to tote a typewriter home, and I’m not allowed to have personal information away from the office, so I’ve been at the mercy of the weather. I could feel the clock ticking all week. I’ve been feeling it ticking since Christmas anyway, since the secretary in a neighboring county got hers done before she flipped her calendar over. Overachiever 🙄 making me look bad! AND she’s already got her annual reports out. Geez. She’s probably one that keeps her expense report open to add to as she spends, too. Whereas me, I hunt for twenty minutes for a folder I JUST HAD to find it on my desk under some papers after I’ve looked in all likely and unlikely spots. Going back to work is BRUTAL. But I got a lot accomplished today, AND I achieved grocery shopping as well. It was stupid busy, but when you’re out of tomatoes, you gotta bear down and join the mob. They were out of my preferred chicken, 18-count eggs, and 85/15 ground beef, but I got everything else I went for. (Except, of course, the things I forgot to put…
I could have gotten so much done today. And yesterday. And Monday. But nope, I’m a slacker. There are no excuses. I have laid on my couches and in my library chair, with an 80# dog draped across me. I have cooked, and I have eaten. And I marvel at the people who can’t stay home for more than two days at a time. I don’t understand. When you’re at work, you want to be home. I see your memes, the cabin on the lake, secluded, and how that’s where you want to live and be left alone. Ummm. But whatever, most people tend to say one thing and do another. You’d think I’d be accustomed to it by now. I don’t know why I still expect honesty and transparency when people can’t even be honest with themselves. Y’all wonder why I prefer the company of my dog 95% of the time. I digress. I’m planning on working tomorrow and going grocery shopping too. I have plenty of food, overall, but I am out of bacon, eggs, tomatoes, butter, and sugar. Staples. I mean, not actual staples, but necessities. The snow, ahh, the snow. It’s all any of us can talk about. I guess that’s all there is to talk about, what with being stuck at home for three days. And more on the way tomorrow night. Like the old timers say, it’s waiting on the…
If this blog prompted me like Facebook does: “What’s on your mind?” You’d get an immediate, “snow and farmers”. You see, farmers have always gotten the short end of the stick and are constantly up against it. There are no holidays or vacation time or sick leave. Most of the farmers I know work a “real” job then come home and farm till after dark. And they’re up before daybreak, doing what they can. They have my respect, they have my admiration, and a few have my love. It’s amazing how often they’re passed over in prayer. We pray for our leaders, our military, our family and friends. When the weather is bad and our electric is out, there is always an outpouring of gratitude and blessings for our linemen, as there should be. An accident? You’ll see people thanking God for the quick response from emergency personnel and the doctors. A fire? Oh you bet firemen are put on a pedestal. And that’s fine, they all deserve accolades. (Dispatch is also frequently overlooked). It makes me a little crazy. Anyone who has ever put out a garden knows the hard labor involved, from preparing the soil, to keeping it weeded and watered, then spraying for bugs and praying the coons stay out of it. One cutworm can knock back a dozen pepper plants a night, and as much as I love turtles, they have a tendency to bite the ripest, juiciest tomatoes…
Well, it appears most of Sevier County got gypped on the blizzard, including Gatlinburg. I’m not complaining, though. Knoxville got our share and I’m happy for them. I’ve been warm and cozy inside with Chess, reading and eating. We’ve seen snowflakes like Forrest Gump saw raindrops: big, fat, heavy flakes, powdery specks, almost sleet-snow that came straight down, fast and true. Right now they’re moderately sized and coming down with purpose. It’s been an event. I don’t care what it does as long as the electric stays on. So this morning Angela posted this picture with the caption: “The most utilized light in the house.” And BAM, onslaught of memories and I knew exactly what I’d be writing about this evening. Yes, my grandmother often burned this light when the rest would be off. My great-grandmother, too. It was just enough if you were pillaging for a snack, it would get you enough light to see by without running the big light and alerting the entire household of your presence. Sometimes it was spotlighting a treat, or a pan of bread, or maybe just the kettle to put some moisture in the air. It stayed on through the night, helping you see the way. I guess they got electric before they got indoor plumbing and so maybe that was the guiding light to the outhouse, too. It symbolizes home and cozy and the home fires burning for me. It’s…
I just momentarily sniggered at myself because I thought I had been naming them 2023 and nobody had noticed, but I went back and looked and no, they’re correctly labeled 2024 and I’m the idiot. Per the usual. So, just sitting around, waiting on the snow. I dunno, seems like they only hit it half the time, so we’ll just have to wait and see. It’s coming from the west, so it’s a crapshoot. Out of the south and you better hold on to your hat, it’ll be a big ‘un. I’m down to two eggs and four slices of bread, but I’ve got lots of everything else, except tomatoes. Oh well. I’m sure it will be fine. I’m just praying the power stays on because I don’t have much wood. And if the pipes freeze I’m for sure up a creek without a paddle. But there’s no sense worrying about it now, because I ain’t going out to bust wood. I need to go buy a generator, once and for all. But it always seems that other things are more pressing. Generators are like tires. Necessary, but not fun. Finally finished my first book of the year. What should have taken one day stretched out for three whole weeks! As I wrote on my Goodreads review, it wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t very good. At least not for me at this age. Had…
Some days there is nothing. It stretches out, bland, as I search my mind, shaking out books and folding blankets and fluffing pillows, like I could be searching for lost change. I am looking for the note I wrote to myself hours ago, when I thought, “when you sit down to write tonight, if you don’t have anything else, write about this.” But of course I didn’t write down my idea, that would be ludicrous! Surely I can remember something so simple! It is no use patting my pockets, it is not there. It is not in the pile of receipts on the desk, or stuffed into a compartment of my pocketbook. I did not even whisper it to my dog. The simplicity of my life must come as a surprise to some people, who couldn’t stay home if you pinned them to their couch like a rare butterfly specimen. Speaking of specimens, did y’all see where we will have two broods of locusts at the same time this year? Have the entomologists been looking forward to this for decades? Or did they just recently procure the data to predict it? I remember a major locust emergence as a child. I went to Uncle Dale’s and plucked them off his maple trees, entertained for hours on end. No, I wasn’t scared. Bugs don’t bother me. Snakes do. Typewriters intimidate me. House fires terrify me. But not bugs. So today is my good friend…
It is weathering outside. It has been weathering weirdly all day. I went to work, anticipating the weird weather, but was woefully unprepared for just how weird the weather would become. It started off frosty and cold, with a stunning sunrise in certain parts of the county. It wasn’t long before it had warmed to about 50, which has a tendency to make me suspicious of what’s coming. Nader weather. Sure enough, about 12:30, here it was. The house behind my office has been under a near-constant remodel since early spring of 2020, and stuff was flying off their house in every direction. Time for me to hit the road before it got any worse. Thankfully my board is understanding in such matters, so I packed up my laptop and away I flew. So I’ve been curled up in my late Uncle Dale’s chair all afternoon, pecking away at the minutes and sending an email or two. What with the long weekend, and not really fully back at full throttle after the holidays, nobody is expecting much. Anymore, it is constantly on my mind what I’m going to write about each day. This morning, as I started up the road, I spotted a horse on the hillside in a red turnout rug. I thought I might write about it…which would evolve into some story or another about one of my past experiences with horses. Then I stopped by Bojangles for breakfast, and…
This is turning into a JOB. I have had a 12 hour day, with two meetings and lots of running around. I just want to brush my teeth and go to bed. But I have made a commitment and I intend to stand by it. Just like the people at the gym tonight. I saw them, well, rather, I saw the parking lot, and I thought they must be giving away free cupcakes to draw that many people. Then I remembered it was still early January and that explained everything. So I continued to Zaxbys and then ate a vanilla zinger. Hey, somebody’s gotta keep the industry alive. Hung out at the Co-op today for awhile, trying to garner signatures for the petition for the election ballot. In many ways, Co-op is the same as it’s ever been, but in other ways, it’s totally different. There are new faces every time I go, but they’re still a friendly bunch and I feel certain I would fit in with most of them. The tire shop isn’t the bustling place it once was, but I believe the mechanics they have now are problem solvers. I had so many fun times there within those walls, and I’m faced with a memory every time I turn around: Willie allowing me to pull the breakers down at the end of the day if we met at the time clock, the time an entire gallon of Red Cell…
