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Amy
Here we find ourselves at the tail end of 2016. I’m ending it much the same as I have every other Saturday night of this year: in my pajamas with a book and a glass of wine nearby. Although I have recently debated the merits of hot chocolate over fermented grapes… I am fully dreading taking down the tree tomorrow. Not because it’s enormous and laden with decorations, unlike the trees of years past. I’m dreading it because I’m lazy. That’s really all there is to it. I don’t WANT to. I got around to packing everything else up today: all the candles and knick-knacks…I broke my Pottery Barn reindeer but I have high hopes for the miracle that is superglue…once I eventually find it. That can wait till next November, at least. Until then, I have plenty of things to keep me busy, such as this blog post I’m rushing to finish before midnight (or, more realistically, until I fall asleep, which would have been by ten o’clock if I hadn’t been going back and forth with the good techies at Bluehost). I almost lost my mind there for a minute. You see. Turns out I’ve been logging into the wrong WordPress account. Who knew? When I log into Facebook, I log into Facebook, whether I want to post something on my page…
Our holiday was mild, which is the way I like it. I especially liked the part about being off for four consecutive days. Friday I was run-run-Rudolph, indeed. I had a hair appointment at 8 (what? You think I’m competent enough to keep myself this perfect red? I can barely apply blush). A pleasant surprise was a Krispy Kreme doughnut as I processed. Then a quick elf run to my cousin’s house to drop her off a thank-you-for-helping-with-my-blog/ Christmas gift. Then, as is common for me, I had to come back by the house to pick up Robin’s gift because I’d had plans to meet her for lunch for a solid week. I hurriedly washed dishes while I was here so they would stop mocking me. They’d only been there for fourteen hours…which sounds like a long time when I think about it, considering they typically don’t last more than thirty minutes. I digress. I also collected a helping of éclair cake because the heathens at the Co-op hadn’t thought to save her a morsel of theirs. I had my own personal one delivered to the shop by both the Newmans! I skirted by the dump, then by the Co-op to drop the dessert so it wouldn’t acquire E.coli while I ran my other errands before lunch…
They tell me I need to post pretty regular on here. So here’s the current situation. Last week, I walked over to my uncle’s house to pick up the latest installment from Amazon. Since our two enormous dogs tend to poo wherever the mood strikes them, one has to be cautious of land mines scattered throughout the yard. It was past six, therefore, past dark. I dug out my custom flashlight and, out of habit, checked to make sure the light was working. No dice. Johnny oh-so-helpfully offered the use of his, which is a chancy privilege indeed. He’s picky about his flashlights. And he has like, two dozen of them. Must be a guy thing. So grudgingly, I took it. It was one of his better ones, I knew. It sure was heavy, for no bigger than it was. You could screw the end around to get your desired brightness and beam diameter, or you could hold the button down on the end for immediate use. I elected to hold the button, since I wasn’t going far. Once I got on the other side of the fence, I tucked it into the kangaroo pocket on my sweatshirt with my dead one. I collected my packages after a few minutes of small talk and headed back home. Now, here’s where things get hazy. I placed my (non working) flashlight in my sweetgrass basket on the end table, where…
Purina Mills has been around for over a century. In that time they put on the most informative sales meetings (for companies & feed customers alike) I have ever attended. A few stick out in my mind. One was where they showed a tag for a 12% horse feed. It sounded pretty good from a nutritional percentage standpoint. When you got down to the ingredients they were actually motor oil, cardboard, and a whole host of deadly components that carry protein, fat, and fiber ratios. Purina sets itself apart from competitors by constantly researching. Their private farm is home to over 3000 animals situated on 1200 acres. Once upon a time, I was attending a training meeting hosted by Purina. This presentation began by telling a story that *I benignly thought* had nothing to do with feeding horses. Seems that there was this woman that was cooking her Christmas ham. Her husband was in the kitchen, underfoot and watching. He noticed she cut a good two inches off each end of the ham. “Why’d you do that for?” he wanted to know. “Do what?” “Cut the perfectly good ends off.” The wife reportedly scrunched her brow. “Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t know. My momma always did it when she fixed the ham.” The ham was pushed into the oven to bake in pork peace. Later, as it was transferred to the table, the woman…
I don’t read emails. I mean, I used to. When they were new and novel. But the past fifteen years, I have been inundated with all manner of “chain” emails, sales, and stupid jokes…so along the way I just stopped reading them. Ask Mike Rucks, he will tell you. He was my Farnam rep while I was at Co-op and it took him a year or two to catch on. But see, here’s the thing. If it was really important, he would come by. So technically, I’m a product of my environment. Well, anyway. Now that I’m a DOMAIN owner, emails evidently have a new level of importance. You’re probably wondering why I’m writing this on here instead of my sparkling new blog, as promised. Well, I’m getting to that. It has to do with reading emails. Or not, if you wanna get technical about it. So I go to login tonight and I can’t. I thought I had inadvertently reset my password so I hit the little “forgot password” located oh-so-conveniently at the top, just there. “Email not found” it spat back. Well, that’s just garbage. WordPress has been nothing but a headache from the get-go. So I moved to step 2. “Check that spelling is correct.” Of course it’s correct. I…
I’m having trouble understanding the people who are going to sightsee the ruined areas of Gatlinburg. They ogle, they take pictures, they take souvenirs of ash and more. They are trespassing on all that remains of many people’s homes. I know people are curious, but melted aluminum isn’t “cool”, what’s left of the Castle isn’t “awesome” and the dregs of the apartments on Ski Mountain aren’t to be gawked at. I’m just sickened by what thrills certain people. I can’t bear to look…I still have trouble digesting how many people lost their jobs, their businesses, and their transportation. That Monday night I sat in my living room, surrounded by my life’s work. I can’t fathom what I would try to make it out with. I have no doubt that Shug would get the dogs and hopefully a chainsaw. I’ve lived in this very house almost my entire life. It was built by my great-great uncle for my Grandmother when my momma was still a wee tot. I reside on what remains of the original farm. I know every inch. My town has grown up around me. All these people have moved in and brought with them their restaurants and their way of doing things (namely driving entirely too fast and not waving when they see you working…
This blog is killing me. KILLING ME. I still haven’t figured out how to link my Amazon affiliate links to my website and posts, even though I have watched no shortage of YouTube videos. They’re all outdated, is the problem. And I thought all my categories had put themselves in the right drop down menu by the magic of elves, but found out tonight that the elves hate me and nothing had happened. Sigh. I did get that worked out. If anybody has any suggestions that don’t include the words “give up” or “get drunk” I will blindly accept them. Take advantage of this while you can…
It feels weird to have a website. I’ve been updating my favorite social media sites with my web address. Now I’m one of those people. Today I’ve done normal things…laundry, made sausage gravy, wrapped Christmas presents, watched Romy and Michelle’s High School reunion-I’d give you the link if it were any count, but it ain’t, so I’m not- {did anybody else just sing Janet Jackson with that? No? Just me then.} and submitted my book review for the library’s blog. Thank God they keep that one updated for me. I was just relieved to finish that book. It’s another’n I’d give you the link to if it was worth reading. But it’s not. Such a shame. I hate it when books and authors disappoint me. My next one is going much better. I DESPISE wrapping Christmas presents. I much prefer the buying aspect. I even like the buying of the paper. And I continue to buy more every single year, even though we have more than enough to see us through the next decade. My wrapping skills are sorely lacking. Johnny has these precise corners…mine are a wadded up, torn, much-taped, hideous disgrace. It truly is shameful. Now that is an example of one of my worst case scenarios. The package was too big for my wrapping paper. What choice…
You can ask just about anybody where their first date was with their spouse, and they can generally supply you with the name of the city and the restaurant. ‘Round here, it’s frequently “We went up to Gatlinburg.” It’s easy, it’s fun, there are no lack of things to do and see, so even if you don’t like your date, you’re in a pretty place with lots of fudge. I mean, how bad can it be? Y’all have heard about our first date before: hiking, no makeup, no heels, no dainty salad for supper. We went to Texas Roadhouse after scaling the mountain. The one in Gatlinburg. I ordered a barbeque chicken sandwich. Johnny’s pretty confident he got a barbeque pork sandwich. We’ve never been pretentious people. I had already warned him that I wasn’t a girl that ordered salads for a meal. Salads are what tide you over until the beef makes it out. And rolls. Mmmm rolls…. I digress. It was a pretty normal date, as far as dates go. He kissed me. (!) But I couldn’t tell you much else, I had stars in my eyes, and the fact of the matter is, I’m accustomed to the beauty of the mountains at this stage in my life. Johnny works in Gatlinburg a lot, as there’s typically some new building going…
Board meetings, on the whole, are notoriously boring. And I hate to admit it, but the library is no exception…matters of a civil nature tend to be a bit dry. As I prepared for the one this evening, I tried not to dread it. I tried not to think of the things I needed to be doing that were More Important. Because, truly, I typically find my role as a public servant meaningful. As I headed out the door of my workplace, I called off-handedly, “I’m off to save Sevier County…one book at a time.” At the time I did not realize how fortuitous my words would be. First of all, we led with a prayer, which was wonderful and I had been thinking about that the whole way there. I had been wondering why we didn’t every time, but thought it might be against some rule since we’re a public meeting. But I thought today, of all days, we could certainly use one. So thank you Mr. Sarten! It’s like you read my mind. We’re taking care of regular business and in the agenda under new business is the innocuous heading “Recommendation by director to waive any fees for services for fire victims until further notice” This seems pretty obvious, as they can’t very well bring back a book that is no longer a tangible item. But this…
