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Amy
Day 4: 10 Interesting Facts About Myself Oh good grief. Tuletta said, “Well, it is called a challenge…” 1.) I’ve had two vehicles in my entire life. To paraphrase Lonesome Dove, I’m not one to give up on a vehicle just because it’s got a little wear on it… 2.) I’ve done a bit of traveling. My favorite place in the US is Bear Lake, Idaho, closely rivaled by the Oregon coast. 3.) I think strawberry ice cream is disgusting, and I don’t like macaroni and cheese much better. 4.) I would love to write for a living. Or read books. I read about 50 a year, anyway, but I would like to read a few hundred. But I would still have to write, it eats at me. Sometimes, I’ll be trying to figure out what’s wrong with me, why I can’t concentrate, and it occurs to me that I haven’t spilled my guts out about anything. As soon as I spin a tale, I feel more settled. 5.) I am perfectly happy staying in and never going out. I would like to pay someone to do my shopping for me. I would make a great hermit. I hate to talk on the phone, too. Please don’t ask me to call you. It makes me sweat and I spend a lot of time thinking up excuses why I didn’t answer or didn’t call you. 6.) I used…
ChiA colleague of mine recently lost his mother. I don’t mean that she cannot be found, of course. This evening was the first time I’ve seen him & of course I expressed my condolences. I simply said, “I’m sorry about your mother.” He thanked me, & since we were still standing there awkwardly, I additionally offered, “That sucks.” A smile. “Yes, it does. And I appreciate your saying so.” He paused. “I had wondered what you were supposed to say to someone who lost their mother? I didn’t know, I still don’t. What CAN you say? But that sums it up sufficiently. It DOES suck.” He went on to say no one had said this to him yet (leave it to me) but it was an accurate assessment. So, let this be a lesson to y’all. It may not be the most eloquent phrase that ever comes out of your mouth, but if it is heartfelt & sincere, it will be appreciated, perhaps more than you know. Just speak the truth. Always & for any situation. The truth is always the right thing to say…
The Day 3: First Kiss & First Love Ugh. First kiss that COUNTED was in the loft of a beautiful old white barn. The barn was much better than the guy it came with. First love. My first true love was horses. I knew I loved them early on, even though I’d never had one. I loved carousels, and had to always have a pony ride at the fair and wherever else we went that offered them. Plus, ya know, I had all the hundreds of My Little Ponies to keep me entertained. But we eventually sold all the cattle off & my Mamaw leased the property to some horse owners. Oh, happy days! They came over each night to feed them and I was allowed to hold the bucket. Sometimes they let me ride when they had their saddles with them…and sometimes I snuck off and rode bareback, with only a halter and some makeshift reins from baler twine. I was a bit of a daredevil. I also took every opportunity to go over to Uncle Roy’s and ride any of his knothead ponies & horses. I would pore over horse magazines and catalogs, dreaming of all the things I wished I had the money to buy. Any horse program came on TV, and I would be glued to it. I would watch for horses out in pastures any time I went out, & loved visiting Churchill Downs and Kentucky Horse Park whenever…
Day 2: Earliest Memory Hmmm. While I do have a vague recollection of going to the circus as a toddler & bringing home some sort of inflatable creature…Bugs Bunny? Whatever it was, I remember racing across the basement & straddling it across the sides of my playpen. However, I realize this doesn’t make for very entertaining reading for my evening armchair readers (I recently learned I have a following that logs in just to read my stuff!), so I will share a little more. I remember going out once a week with my mom and great-grandmother, “Mamaw”. She couldn’t drive, & depended on someone to cart her here, there, and yon. We would go to Howard’s, which was kind of like a Kmart. It was across the road from Kmart, as a matter of fact. (Where Nova or Avalon or whatever it is is now). They had My Little Ponies priced at $4.99. My weekly allowance was $5; I could generally coerce someone to contribute the tax. In this way, I accumulated a pony a week. More if I lost a tooth or made straight A’s on my report card. I also scored an extra one for having a tee-tiny mole removed off the tip of my ear. Mom promised me if I didn’t cry I could have the one I’d been coveting, a “baby pony” complete with playpen and bottle. I didn’t cry, but the way she…
Purple. The color of the day was purple. Where I was, anyway. So, even though everybody else in the greater Knoxville area was wearing their best Vol orange, emblazoned with giant power T’s, drinking orange flavored beer, eating cheese dip on Doritos, & singing Rocky Top till they were hoarse, I was wearing heels & politely sipping wine. Even the mountains had turned orange in preparation of one of the oldest rivalries in SEC country. Who gets married on a football Saturday in Tennessee? Who gets married on Tennessee versus Alabama Saturday, no less? Crystal Allen, that’s who. A GRADUATE of the University of Tennessee, so you’d think she knew better! But the wedding has been in the works for almost two years, and the romance since high school, so I couldn’t miss it. Crystal is a sweet soul; nothing is more important to her than family. Her quirky demeanor makes you giggle, & she’s so plainly beautiful you can’t help but stare. So, as a few raindrops fell yesterday on her simple ceremony underneath the maple trees, I couldn’t help that a few of my few tears joined them. I was expecting a princess gown, full tulle skirt & fitted bodice, but I was wrong. She was elegant in a lace gown with a short train adorned with sparkles. I was expecting a long veil, but she had flowers…
Y’all know how I feel about kids. I don’t want any, & most of the time, I don’t care for other peoples. But I have recently learned something. We need to be praying for mothers. Mothers everywhere. Whether they’re raising their own children or someone else’s. Whether they have one or two or ten or none and just want to be blessed with one. Or, in the case of this month’s “Awareness of the Month”, if they’ve lost a child through miscarriage or death. All these women are mother…s. Mothers are constantly fretting that they aren’t adequate. If they spend all day nurturing their child, they feel that they are neglecting housework or their husbands. If they miss a “Mom watch this” they fear that their child will have development issues & be in therapy for abandonment when they turn 21. They feel that they can never do enough & will never be able to protect them throughout their life. Mothers have a hard time. Most of my closest friends are mothers. Some of them, it’s all they ever wanted, & they are totally immersed in the motherhood thing. But they can’t protect their children from heartbreak. They’ll do anything to avoid problems. Other mothers are living the dream too, but the kids don’t cooperate. You hear these stories of kids that NEVER sleep….apparently that’s true. So that mother definitely needs prayers, as she…
There are few places as intimidating to me as the makeup counter. Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous this sounds. But women like me can’t just go to Walgreens & pick out a shade that you think “looks about right” because then you apply a foundation that is two shades darker than your neck & it looks like you’re wearing a mask. And it’s not because you didn’t blend it. And I need a sweat-proof, waterproof, not-coming-off-unless-you-use-a-brillo-pad makeup line. So, that being said, I find myself at the department store makeup counters with the semi-snotty, perfect hair, impeccable makeup, & lab coated models. I beg for their assistance with my clumped mascara & poorly applied eyeliner. They are always eager to come to my rescue. The following is an account of last night’s session at Belk. I beeline straight to Clinique for my foaming face wash that I’ve been out of for some time now. I keep thinking I can find a better makeup remover for cheaper. I cannot. I see one girl working the entire cosmetics department, currently assisting a man at fragrances, so I think I will settle in. What ever happened to those fun springy chairs? This one is all hard and has no bounce. I’d rather stand than partake in this molded-to-look-like-a-chair-but-is…
I have a friend who is married to a farmer. They are raising their boys among the cows & corn. The boys have calves they bottle feed & sell, they have horses they check fences astride. They enjoy the day to day life of being outside, helping their daddy tend to the newly born, the ailing, the healthy. One day, I was disheartened to read on Facebook about how one of their sons was being ridiculed at school. A schoolmate called him poor because he lives on a farm. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Trust me, farmers aren’t poor. They meet struggle every day of their life. They are up against it at least fifty percent of the time. Imagine if your livelihood was dependent upon the weather. If it doesn’t rain one day & the sun shine the next, you might be looking for a job in town. And then when hay is ready to cut to feed the cows all winter, you pray for three straight days hot & clear. To get your hay to grow, it must be fertilized. Fertilizer runs around $500 a ton. One ton will fertilize roughly seven acres. If your fields yield well, seven acres of hay will produce maybe 100 rolls of hay. A cow will eat half a roll a day in the wintertime if their pasture is thin. You figure four months of winter, which is 120 days. If you have thirty cows, that…
Mondays suck. It’s just one thing after another. People are crabby because they have to go back to work, I guess. They’re indecisive & needy. But that’s small potatoes. To most of you, this will just look like a good ol’ country baptizing. But to some…oh, it is so much more. This is Miss MacKenzie Henry, being baptized by her papaw (preacher) Danny Henry, & her daddy, Scotty. MacKenzie is a special needs, loving, beautiful child of God. About a month ago, her momma was tucking her in, doing the whole ritual of singing to her & reading a little bit, talking about the upcoming week. “And you know what’s happening Sunday?” Kenzie nodded enthusiastically. Brandi told her again who all was getting baptized. Kenzie nodded more exuberantly & pointed at her chest. “Me!” Brandi was stunned. “You want to be baptized?” “Yes!” Nodding excitedly. She got her point across. Now, we would like to believe that children are protected, until they become the age of accountability, but I could not find any specific verses to support this belief, which is somewhat disturbing. At any rate, MacKenzie had sat through enough Bible School lessons & church services to know that she needed to be saved & it had laid on her heart for knows how long before she was able to communicate her desire. The problem probably stemmed from her fear…
Y’all ain’t gonna believe this. So, you know how yesterday I was telling you about dropping 500 horseshoe nails in the floor? And how I compared it to dropping toothpicks? Well. I’m in the kitchen, fixin’ spaghetti, the aroma of onions & garlic filling the air, pasta bubbling away on the stove. I go to get the Italian seasoning out of the cabinet. This would be the cabinet above the stove, crammed with all manner of spices, excess olive oil, Crisco, & whatnot. It happened so suddenly, I’m not sure what happened. I’m standing there, toothpicks raining down around me, when Johnny appears from the basement with the garlic bread I had requested from the chest freezer. I stood paralyzed. They were everywhere: in my hair, on the stove, scattered all over the floor, IN THE PASTA. I sprang into action, frantically scooping them out with a spaghetti fork. Did you know toothpicks float? Well, you do now. About that time, I smelled something burning. I hadn’t put the bread in yet (that’s what I typically burn) so it couldn’t be that. There were several charred toothpicks lying under the eye. I turned the burner off, moved the pot, & turned the blower on, sucking away the smoke that was making my eyes water. I think this catastrophe was somewhere in the neighborhood of 200 toothpicks. I bought one of those containers from…
