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Amy
Day 3 of the rest of my life. And the rest of yours. I’m digging these prompts, I hope you are too. {#240 You are taking medicine that you’ve been required to take for a year now. You notice that the label seems strange though, you peel it back to find something curious.} 6:00 a.m. A struggle. One eye open to mash the big silver button. Sleep. 6:13 a.m. Did you know you could set your snooze to more than nine minutes? You do now. Although I could probably use at least another hour of REM, the team could use me. I rise, and is my custom, head for the medicine cabinet. I should really invest in one of the those pill-a-day containers, because halfway through my first cup of coffee I’ll be wondering if I already took it. But of course I did. I do it first thing every day so I know I did. My eyes are adjusting as I try to focus on my face in the mirror. Law, another zit. How come when you hit nineteen they don’t just up and disappear? Here I am, nearly twice that, and they’re still popping up unwanted on my chin. Or on my cheek. On the inside of the my nose. Those little bastards HURT. I shake out my allergy pill, my vitamin, and my script. It’s a small thing, innocuous…
Greetings on this second day of January. Monday it was tropical, today it was frigid. Whatever. I work inside, what do I have to complain about? Besides coming out of spin class and the sweat at my hairline forming ice crystals, that’s all. Other than that, though, all is well. On this second challenge, I flipped a little further into the book. Seems I ruffled some feathers yesterday with not telling the whole story. Hey, the choice wasn’t mine!! Think about yours truly over here, wanting to tell about the rest of the gruesome night and I had to stop. This is why I don’t play by the rules. Rules generally suck. You’ll be soothed by today’s. Instead of typing it all out, I’m just gonna show you what it says. Wicked fun, right? Since Beth was the first to give me feedback on yesterday’s, she got to choose the letters. She didn’t know what she was choosing letters for, and I obviously didn’t tell her what they stood for. This was my version of pulling them out of a hat. Now I have to write quickly because it’s my bedtime. Spin took a lot out of me. Leave your worries and cares on the bike! Hey, I went almost ten miles in 45 minutes. But this, this is my passion. BSATD {Or, as they are known here: hubcap, hair…
Happy New Year!!! 2019. Hmm. I’m challenging myself to write more this year. Last year I set a goal of reading more, which I achieved, but not the number of books I wanted to read (75, I only got to 63). I took up a digital farming game back in the summer and unfortunately my reading fell by the wayside. Anyway, a couple of years ago, I got a Kindle book: 1,000 Awesome Writing Prompts. I was skimming through it recently and found out they are, indeed, awesome. I’m starting haphazardly at the 9% mark and will be flitting around to wherever suits me. Or I might get all brave and do a blind selection. Anyway, this particular prompt that piqued my interest is in the Flash Fiction section. I didn’t even know there was such a thing, so I’m learning already! Flash fiction is either a word count maximum or a maximum time you’re allowed to write on the subject. Or I guess both! It sounds truly challenging for me, as I tend to get carried away, but perfect for the first day of the year when we’re all laying around after foundering on shrimp & cheese grits, cornbread, and collard greens. I still have all my decorations to put away. Except the big tree. It was dead as a hammer so I took care of it Sunday. So hopefully this will get me back in…
“Not everyone is as lucky as you are,” is a phrase I’ve heard my whole life. I would just roll my eyes and march off, thinking of all the ways I didn’t have it made, all the little disappointments and injustices. My hair was unmanageable, I always had some pimples, my legs were never what you would call shapely. I was rarely permitted to stay overnight with friends and forget about going anywhere on a weeknight. I wasn’t what anyone would deem “cool” due to my penchant for riding horses and to make matters worse, I wore glasses. Going all the way through school in the town you were born in presents its own problems. Guys don’t ask out girls that have thrown up on their shoes. Guys don’t ask out girls who write their English papers for them. Guys don’t ask out girls who don’t smoke weed, pretend to be dumb, and don’t wear flashy jewelry and experiment with makeup. High school guys don’t, anyway. I had friends, though. They were all cooler than me. There was the cheerleader, there was the wild girl, there was the math whiz. I was none of those. I wore my cowboy boots and listened to the Beatles. I just wanted to be included on the weekend activities and have somewhere to go when I didn’t want to go…
I’m sure you sniggered a little reading those words from me. ‘Cause of COURSE I know it. I know everything. That’s why y’all love me. But no. I’m asking you, how do YOU know? “How do I know what?” you ask. Are you confused yet? Or just tired of me? I’ve not written in awhile and I feel like driving you just a little crazy before I get down to it. I’m not serving up meat and potatoes right off the bat! You gotta endure cocktail hour. Which, as we all know, is the best part. Ok I’ll stop. I get tired of hearing myself ramble, believe it or not. And I gotta go to bed eventually. How do you know it’s Christmas? Obviously not from the stores, who start placing their wares in June. (Looking at you, Hobby Lobby. But wait! I’m not complaining. I love Christmas. Drag out all the sparkles and glitter for as long as possible, I love it. Truly.) Do you know it by the weather getting that frosty edge of the morning? Or by the Christmas carols on the radio? Do you know it from all the tasty treats that start to become commonplace in the office? Maybe from well wishes coming to your mailbox? I’ll tell you how I know. How I’ve always known, apart from looking at…
I remember being in awe of the ladies who rode the elephants at the circus when I was little. They were sooooo glamorous, with their feather hats and sparkly costumes and beautiful smiles. They looked so elegant, perched upon those majestic beast’s necks, waving with one hand while holding to the sequined harness with the other. I so dearly wanted to be them, gracious and gentle and gorgeous. Some girls want to be Disney princesses, some of us want to be elephant riders. *shrug* Well, I didn’t get to run off and join the circus, but I still dream about it. Here’s a print I like, but I need a great big huge one. So it’s no big surprise that I never miss the fair when it’s in town. There are no elephants, but the excitement is there. And it’s by no stretch of the imagination the greatest show on Earth, but it is certainly every bit as entertaining. And I get PAID to go. Why would I miss it? It’s worth it, just for the food. It only comes once a year, for Pete’s sake. GO. Well, it’s too late now for my fair, but there might still be one happening near you. And if not, remember my words for next year. I always have a good time. Even the year Johnny and I rode the double Ferris wheel and I…
It will rain today. I can say this with authority because I made a deal with God six years ago today. I asked him if it had to rain, could it just rain everywhere but at our venue, and then it was free to rain every year on our anniversary, as long as it didn’t rain on us today? And it didn’t. And it has. So it will rain today, I can guarantee you. Indeed it rained all around us on our wedding day: it rained on my carriage driver and horse on the way in, they had to pull over and tarp the carriage. It rained at my house. It rained within a half of mile of us all afternoon. But not a drop fell from the sky at the Historic Ramsey Plantation. Sweat drops and tear drops were in abundance, I will say. Wednesday, I had the pleasure of leaving the office and visiting a farm of one of my old Co-op customers. He happens to be one that I bought a quarter of a cow from a few years ago. He has a gorgeous place; his house sets on top of the hill, overlooking his spread. We met with him and his wife on the front porch, and settled ourselves on the cushioned swings. There was enough breeze to keep me from sweating a drop, even with my hair down. It was the perfect day to be on a call. I knew…
There’s a guy here in the office with me. He likes to talk. He will not stand still when he talks to me, he paces and peers outside and is just a twitchy human. He likes to tell me stories about hunting. I’ve grown up listening to hunting stories, and I tire of them easily. However, we don’t have anything in common so as long as I let him ramble on about his turkey club (not that kind) and camper, I don’t have to come up with anything to say. He’s trying to be nice, I get it. I’d rather hear about his skydiving adventures, but he’d rather talk about hunting. So. He has also kept me up to date about this friend of his vacation progress. First he was coming to Pigeon Forge. Then they decided to go to Florida. Then the tropical storm hit, so they changed their plans back to here. So they all went out to eat last night (Holston’s, if you’re curious. I didn’t ask what they ordered, even though I really wanted to know). As he was telling this story, I wondered how he knew this guy. I remembered he’d told me, but I couldn’t recall how it was. And I couldn’t ask, because then he would know I hadn’t been paying attention, and so he…
Memorial Day, of course, warrants a post to the blog. When I sat down to write about it, I thought about all the people in all the different wars and decided to write a little piece on each one, what significance it has on me as a woman in 2018. So I began compiling a list: The Revolutionary War, the Mexican War, the Civil War, World War I, the Korean War, WWII, the Vietnam War, The Gulf War, and of course the War on Afghanistan. I didn’t want to leave anyone out that had slipped my mind, so, like everybody does in this day and age, I turned to Google. And the results were staggering. I hadn’t touched the iceberg. I was barely in the right ocean. Many Indian wars, Shays’ Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion (??? and it lasted almost four YEARS), Quasi War (with a “co-belligerant” of Great Britain), First AND Second Barbary Wars….did I even GO to history class? The list went on and on as my eyes got bigger and bigger. The wiki details are nominal, it doesn’t even list casualties, but one thing is clear: you can depend on the United States to have its finger and gun in everything coming and going. We’re a nosy nation. Movies glamorize our involvement, but there’s nothing pretty about death and destruction. There are no rock stars for background music as you run with your…
I don’t have much on my social calendar. Granted, I have more on it than I did five years ago, but I’m still not what you would call swamped. And I prefer it that way. I need time to recharge, time with my books. However, at the last board meeting, I cemented a whole whirlwind month’s worth of activities with my gal pals. We’re going to read and eat and watch the royal wedding. Friday, I finally convinced Shug to try Aubrey’s. Of course he loved it, as I knew he would. What’s not to like? Saturday was my mega-busy day for me: baby shower, hiking, dinner and drinks with two of my three lovelies. But then the rain. But maybe it wouldn’t affect the festivities. It didn’t matter to me. I could be just as happy at home, curled into a corner with my book. Unlike most people, I embrace the rain. Plus I’m too lazy to water my flowers, so it’s always welcome. The best thing about baby showers is the food. The worst thing is the children. Luckily, there were no children in attendance, so the worst part to endure was the oohing and aahing over tiny socks. Once that was over (alas, there were no games where you couldn’t say baby or win a prize for having the most abnormal crap in your…
