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Amy
A Book You Love & One You Didn’t There are so many things wrong with this subject. First of all the words “One” & “A”. Like I could seriously pick just one of each. But I will try. It’s fairly easy to pick one I love because I just finished it. It kept my attention like few have in the past few years. It was my Book Club’s selection for this month: Fever by Mary Beth Keane. It’s the story of Typhoid Mary, set in the early years of the 20th century. New York City’s lower east side tenements were teeming with disease and filth & Mary was a cook for some of the richest families of Manhattan. She is an unmarried Irish immigrant with strong opinions & an even stronger work ethic. Yeah, I know it sounds boring, but I am telling you it is gripping & engrossing enthralling & all the words. She makes it so interesting & causes you to speculate on your own life. Are you where you’d thought you’d be as an adult? Do you think it will always be as it is now? What if you are old & lose your job & no one wants you? What if the thing you love & that you are best at is punishable by law if you practice it? What if the man you love is an alcoholic…
Day 7: What Tattoos You Have & If They Have Meaning My first was a heart. I wanted something simple, something small, something that said I wasn’t what everyone thought I was. My second is a horseshoe with a red “Vegas” style 7. My lucky charms. My third is a four leaf clover. Another lucky charm. A tip to my Irish roots. Who’s surprised? I bet very few have ever laid eyes on any of them, & if you have, probably just the clover. I was with friends I loved every time, & it was an event & a ton of fun. I would be absolutely covered up if I thought I wouldn’t get tired of them & it would be hard to procure a job. Or keep the one I have. They frown on pink hair & visible art. I still want some wings on my back. Shug wants us to get cards (Jack & Ace) & guns. And I want a mermaid for sure. And my hometown postage stamp. Have y’all seen those? They are super cool. And a sparrow. And a stack of books with a thought provoking quote. And maybe a honeybee….you can see where I would run out of room fast. Update 11-7-17 Well, looks like I got my swallow ❤ Still waiting on a bunch more. I never thought I’d put one in such an exposed place, but I love it. I wish I had…
Day 6: Someone Who Fascinates You & Why Oh, my gosh. I don’t know why I labored over this for so long. Of COURSE I am fascinated by Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middleton! She is FABULOUS. And I’m not one to be awed by celebrities. But she seems so genuine! And she’s always so poised & beautiful & her clothes are gorgeous. Of course, if I had an army of people working on making me look perfect every day, enough precious jewels to sink a ship, & an unending supply of cash, I could probably look that good, too. But I still probably wouldn’t be that NICE. Elegance can’t be bought. I think Diana would approve…
Chick-fil-A is really something. I went by the one on Chapman this morning & the girl at the window went to fold down the top of my bag & it was barely torn so it wouldn’t make a nice crease. She frowned. “Oh, let me get you another bag, this one’s ripped.” As soon as I got my eyeballs back in my head that she was actually SERIOUS I waved my arm. “No, it’s alright! Really!” “Are you sure?” her brow was all furrowed, not understanding why I would accept an inferior bag. “Absolutely.” I accepted my barely damaged bag with glee. I just wanted its contents…
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…
