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Amy
Like most people (maybe I’m presuming a bit here), my Facebook feed is filled with memes & links & billboards. Lots of bad news, politics, & sometimes a history lesson. Occasionally it’s interspersed with an antidote or joke. I scroll through lots of hysterical cat videos. There are recipes & makeup reviews. Here & there people check in at restaurants or cool places. Families smiling & laughing & barbecuing. There are plenty of prayer requests & praise reports & pictures of babies. I see tributes to our armed forces. Shared pictures of beautiful landscapes. I read about Vols statistics & what Peyton’s up to. Not just in the fall, but year round.But here my news feed may begin to differ. Mine also consists of eggs for sale by young 4-H’ers. Trophy bucks & ducks. Sausage, freshly ground & ready for your freezer, from hogs I just saw on the hoof a mere week or two ago. I see cows & four-wheel drives & tractors. It’s also sprinkled with book recommendations.I see children & crops grow.And Lord at the horses. Thousands of horses.And Sunday night, I saw my good friend TammyLynn holding a great big crappie.TammyLynn is my newest good friend. Like all the best people, she has two first names. I met her, like I have the majority of y’all, at the Co-op. She bought bookoos of birdseed twice a…
Thoughts I have while walking on treadmill: I should have four miles in about an hour. I can do this. Lalalalala… Should have brought my radio. This would be a perfect opportunity for listening to an audio book. Wonder if I could read a REAL book without falling off? Nah. *Close my eyes & try to envision how it would go* Immediately trip. Regain balance. Wow, the ceiling is really low down here. Wonder what those nails are from? Good thing I’m not tall, I’d be claustrophobic. Guess God knows what he’s doing. These dogs stink. I can’t believe Johnny used to let dogs live in his house. Look at all the dust they generate! Why does he like it down here so much? It’s so drab. Probably because I talk so much. And he can watch what he wants to on TV. (Platoon infinity) How do I turn that TV on, anyway? {It’s a big screen that’s probably as old as I am} Can I Facebook while walking? *Try it* *Become slightly nauseated* Nope. Sigh. How far have I walked? Not even a thousand steps?!? Bull crap! Maybe I could do Instagram. Less reading. Okay. Okay. Okay. Hmm. I’m getting kinda hungry. All I’ve had is coffee…
You ever been driving along, into the sunset perhaps, & thinking how glorious it is? And you wonder if other drivers around you have even noticed the gorgeousness? Or when the sun has those slanting rays through the clouds & it’s like a spotlight to a distant point ahead? Or when the air is so clear you can see the frost on the mountain, & the mountains behind it are a crisp, visible line & you’re sure, just positive, if you had binoculars you could find a deer picking its way along a ridge? Today this hawk flew up out of a holler & right across the highway in front of me & a couple of other vehicles. And I wondered if I was the only one who noticed. Or if they just saw a bird, with no idea it was a hawk. I don’t know, I see deer & turkeys all the time on my commute, I would call it commonplace, but no one else seems to pay any attention. I don’t know what I expect them to do, though. Wave their arm out the window & point…
This was the beginning of my adventure with the Reader’s Advisory for The Sevier County Pulic Library System. I was beside myself with happiness. I don’t know how me and my ego fit through most doors. https://sevierlibrary.wordpress.com/2016/01/13/guest-resident-bloggers-1st-book-of-2016…
I’m told the Powerball is 800 million. Johnny asked if I picked up some tickets. I gave him one of my blank stares. “Let me tell you how that would go: ‘I need to play the lottery, please,” I would inform the Pakistani gas station clerk. And he would ask me something that I don’t understand, so I would point to those scratch offs in desperation & he would rip off some & I would have to buy those too.” “They’re five dollars a line.” “And I don’t know what that means, either.” “You can pick your own numbers or the machine can pick them.” “Pretty sure I don’t trust computers. So then I’d be having to come up with numbers other than seven, & that could be problematic.” “Don’t worry babe, me & the guys from work went in on some. We’ve got 15 plays.” “But then we’ll have to split it with all theeeeemmm….” I whined. “You might as well say 500 million, split five ways, 100 million for us…you think you’d even notice?” “I’m gonna be like Monica on F.R.I.E.N.D.S. & hide some extra.” So I’ve been planning what I’…
I read an interesting post yesterday about not comparing your life to anyone else’s because Facebook is their highlight reel. I agree strongly with that statement. However, let me tell y’all somethin’. You know as well as I do that I’ll tell just about anything. That’s how it is when you’re an aspiring writer. Not much is off limits. So here’s how today went: Slept way too late for my own good. Still up because of it. Also because I chopped a red onion about an hour ago & my nose hasn’t stopped running & my eyes are still watering & no way can I go to sleep with all that goin’ on. Started laundry. Ended up making three trips up & down stairs that my Fitbit didn’t recognize. I don’t know why it does that. To mock me? Grrrr. Ate enormous bowl of Cocoa Puffs because I was too lazy to fix actual breakfast. Watched a segment of Titanic. I started it Saturday. I’m not very far. I think the last thing I watched was where Rose is partying with the Irish down in steerage. Got my book finished so I could have it back by the due date because my friend Brenda is waiting on it so she can read it & come to book club because I’ve been hounding her about it for…
Home is a relative term. If you’re in your hometown and someone asks where you live, you will perhaps give them specific directions. Say I see you at Food City in Seymour, I would tell you I live behind the high school. If I’m in Knoxville, home is Seymour. If I’m in Atlanta, home is Knoxville. If I’m in Asheville, or Savannah, or Charleston, I might care to explain I’m from a small town near Dollywood. People from away are always fascinated that I’m from the same county as Dolly Parton. If I’m on the West Coast, home is simply “Tennessee”. If I were to travel to Ireland, “home” would be the United States. I’m arrogant, but not so much that I would expect them to point out the South on a map of the world. And if aliens abduct me, planet Earth would be close enough for me. So if you move away from where you’re born, but leave behind your family to cleave to your beloved, of perhaps to just a new life, then you hopefully have two homes. Hence the phrase, “Going home for Christmas,” the same as going home after a long day at the office. Home is where the heart is. For years, home was where my horse was, because my heart was my horse. I’ve been home…
So there’s this family I know, & they’re not normal. Allow me to explain. I’m scrolling through all the pictures of smiling faces & homemade cookies & well wishes on Christmas Day. Being as that I have no children to clean up after, I had a fairly relaxing day & could spend it mindlessly trolling the internet, looking at y’alls madness & mayhem. I got to a picture of a home I know, a home I’ve visited, a home that belongs to a family I love. In the picture was a modest tree, decorated with traditional colored lights & homemade ornaments, nothing flashy or showy about it. The tree sat on warm hardwood floors, polished to a shine. Nearby, perched on a low table, was a glass of milk & a plate of cookies. Other pictures revealed stockings hung on the chimney (with care, I imagine). The pictures themselves weren’t perfect, either, kinda blurry. Nothing was staged. But it was perfect in my eyes. I looked closer. And I saw something there. Or rather, a lack of something. Underneath the tree were just a few presents. Maybe six. Maybe there were a few more that didn’t make it in the frame. I was puzzled. Houses with children are usually overrun with presents. Even here, Johnny & I are terrible & have all of ours under the big tree in the living…
I hear a lot of people dreading Christmas, hating Christmas, saying the gift giving isn’t what it’s about. And while that’s true, I hope these people realize that getting back to the true meaning of Christmas starts within yourself. I hope that they pick a child off the Angel Tree, or volunteer with a Food Pantry, or some other selfless act. It WILL change your heart. Last week at work, this couple came up to the counter, inquiring about a discount if they bought several pairs of boots. They said six pairs. So we offered them the same discount we had on Black Friday, including 50% off our closeouts, which are already marked down. They bought fourteen pairs. They were at the counter for awhile, as you can imagine, as we were checking sizes & whatnot. They explained what they were doing. They were from North Carolina & it all started four years ago. A few members in their church are teachers & brought up the subject of a few of the underprivledged children in the community. These teachers had an inkling that some students weren’t getting anything to eat over the weekend. They thought the only food these children received was at school. So it came about that the church was making up sack lunches for these kids to take home over the weekend. It wasn’t much, like a can of soup or a sandwich, some…
Guess what? No, I didn’t hit the lottery. Y’all goobers really think I’d post it like this? No. You’d see a picture of me with my toes in the sand & a drink my hand. Guess what? Guess who your newest blogger for Sevier County Public Library System is? ME!!!! *picture me holding my arms out, head tilted towards the sun that is shining directly on me, much like a spotlight, eyes squinched shut, spinning* Miss Rhonda pitched a reading challenge at me last week & it was 40 books. Combined with our one a month for book club, that makes 52, which is perfect because my goal is one a week. So she said since I basically write a review on Goodreads anyway, would I care if they shared it on the library’s media sites? Well, heck no!!! So, that’s the gist of it. The way I understood it, anyway. Follow me! Follow me! I’ll be harping along as usual. P.s. Coming home tonight, I stopped for supper to bring home. Most women my age have children, & when traveling, if they have to slam on the brakes, they instinctively reach an arm across their kid’s chest. You know, like a backup seatbelt. Me, I sling an arm across my bag of food to prevent it from hitting the floor. Priorities…
