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Browsing Tag: #resolution

Resolve to Write 2024 #308

Up and at ’em extra early! I did finally rest good, thankfully. It’s a relief that DST falls on the weekend I do manual labor! I wasn’t as sore as I was last night, but these old bones and muscles were reluctant to do their job without protesting this morning. But I’m good now, fortified after two cups of delicious creme brulee coffee. You may want to try it, it’s Walmart brand. I just put sugar in it, no creamer. It doesn’t need it. I don’t use a lot of creamer anyway. I got my sheets washed and dried but didn’t have time to get them on the bed AND eat breakfast, so of course breakfast took priority. And I was still 15 minutes late getting on location. I was inwardly dreading what I might find. Would the grout hold?? Wonder of wonders, the grout and pebble tile and fireplace were all one solid piece this fine morning! Everybody had their projects so I went back to mine. The millions of mums. It’s a never ending task. But the bumblebee? Well, she flew off (all honeybee workers are female, so it stands to reason bumblebees are, too. I just momentarily forgot) about the time I got settled. So I guess it was just her bedtime last night. Bless it. How long before they hibernate, anyway? It seems awfully late in the year to…

Resolve to Write 2024 #307

Someday soon I hope to sleep through the night. Is that asking too much? Nothing extravagant, just like, 10:30- 6. Or even 9:30-5:30. Oh well. Other people have bigger problems. It was pumpkin moving day and we were fresh out of lesbians. Like Kay said, “if you gotta move pumpkins, you’re gonna want a lesbian.” 🤣🤣 We had two help last year and they were the best! Oh well, we’d just have to get by the best we could. So I get to the convention center at the appointed time and of course Kay’s nowhere in evidence, no surprise there. I was just pulling on gloves and second guessing if something had changed and I was at the wrong place when here came the convoy: U-haul (the one with the blue horseshoe crab logo, one of my favorites), Vern and flatbed trailer with one zillion pumpkins, and Amanda. I thought the hard labor was over, since the roof was on the pavilion and I thought we were using Styrofoam bricks for the fireplace, but I thought wrong. I should have known. You can’t make a plan for that place, some catastrophe will occur and you have to improvise. And of course, that’s what happened. More on that in a bit. First, we had to go dig eight rocking chairs out of the containers at the back. And Amy promptly whacked her shins. I knew it was coming…

Resolve to Write 2024 #306

It’s amazing what you can endure. You may think you can’t make it one more minute in the situation you’re in, but then it’s ten minutes later and you haven’t gone round the bend. Whether it be waiting to hear about health results or sitting in gridlocked traffic or working with a person who drives you batty. The only way past it is through it. You can’t usually go around, and you sure can’t bow up and stop and wait for the obstacle to remove itself. You gotta plunge headfirst and go like you’re cutting vines in the jungle with a machete. And besides, what choice do you really have? I’ve said more than once I’d love the luxury of a breakdown! The bills keep coming, whether you’re in the nuthouse or not, so it’s in my favor to just keep that crazy tucked in and keep working. And I’m better for it. So Friyay. But not really, since I’d be working all weekend setting up the IGES trade show with my friend, Kay. That’s a big reason why I took yesterday off to spend with my dog, being his birthday and all. Plus I needed to knock out some housework since I had planned to go to JA’s for steaks and beer and visit with an out of town friend. But as the day wore…

Resolve to Write 2024 #305

Halloween. Chester’s Gotcha Day. I took the day off to celebrate the latter. I detest Halloween. But I do enjoy seeing the fun costumes. And I ain’t gonna turn down a Reese’s Cup, pumpkin or bats or standard shape, I have no preference. So we’ve had the bacon and fried taters, he’s opened his four presents, representing one for each of his years here (although I’m sure he would have preferred the number in dog years equivalent), we’ve been to Chickalay for the requisite fluff cup and nuggets, and have napped in between all activities. Although it was over 80 degrees today, the breeze is cool, more so because I’m in the shade. But I’m watching the chickens wade through the fallen leaves from my formerly showy sugar maple. They’re all so unique in color and patterns. I find their gentle clucking therapeutic. I was never permitted to have chickens, I don’t remember the reasoning. Prolly ‘cause I’d cry myself dehydrated when the hawk made a meal of one of them. And in my family, we revere hawks and other wildlife above domesticated animals. ‘Cept groundhogs. They never were tolerated. It was the holes they dug, they’d hobble a horse or kill a cow. There’s a ball game tonight. There’s a ball game most nights. I don’t mind the noise, people are having fun and united, politics hopefully a long way from their thoughts…

Resolve to Write 2024 #304

Friends, Americans, Countrymen, lend me your eyes. Thanks to all the loyal readers and friends who have reached out to me in the last several months, checking to make sure everything was okay. It wasn’t, but it was. Nothing to alarm anybody about. Some of my undoing was my own doing, some of it wasn’t. It was a trifecta of loss, two friends and a leg injury got me down just as spring was cranking to full throttle. As I said on this day in 2021, life will kick you in the teeth time and time again but I just picture myself crawling to my knees, bloodied and disheveled, motioning for more, and grinning madly.Because weakness is fear. And I ain’t skeert. You ever win one of those goldfish at the fair? Like, when you weren’t even trying to win a goldfish, you were going for bragging rights against an old high school nemesis, or maybe the carnies offered some grand cash prize. But carnivals are twisted, and you have not a snowflake’s chance in the Sahara of winning what you really want. And you’re presented this sad little goldfish in its tiny plastic bag. If you’re unlucky, and the goldfish has a supernatural will to survive, it makes it through the jostling of the carnival, staring out and swimming madly but going nowhere, until you make it home and dump it in an old vase filled with chlorinated water…

Resolve to Write 2024 #274

It’s raining again.A week ago, we’d have been jumping for joy. Today, we quiver and pray.I see that TVA has declared the Nolichucky River flood a “one in 5,000 years flood event”. And I guess that’s good.I don’t know how people can sit on Facebook day in and day out, looking at all the trauma that unfolds across the world. I have been inundated with information for three days straight now and it’s proving to take a toll on my mental well being (some probably question how well it was to start with).Wednesday was downpour day for us in Sevierville. I had a bit of excitement getting through Frog Alley, but that was the extent of it. Thursday was more rain, but nothing unusual, really. Perhaps for the time of year. And all these warnings coming out about not traveling Friday unless it was critical. Schools were closed. We scoffed. All for some rain.And “some rain” is all Sevierville and my neck of the woods got.But just two counties away, upstate….Unicoi.Greene.And our neighbors In Cocke County, with little warning after Hartford Dam failed and downtown filled with water. Scary situation to see inmates being marched through downtown clutching their bedding.One of my board members lives in Cosby. He’s at a bit of a loss. Cosby ain’t got squat to speak of…

Resolve to write 2024 #112

It is not my intention To make you think I am miserable I am merely tenderBecause I am a little sadI feel untetheredI am a little angryWith all of usAnd honestly I am quite tiredOf myselfAnd that is why I can sayI am everything I also Do not wish to conveyI am feeling Light spiritedOr apathetic The last thing I want Is to appear insensitive But I have to keep somewhat busyOr the ants in my brainTurn to termitesAnd then I’m goneJust like this morning There was no rushTo make coffeeAnd start my daySo I laid there awhileWondering if I could go back to sleepAfter only five hours One would hope soBut when I started to curl like a snailAnd my eyes began to wellI flung back my quiltAnd shook my headI will not allowSadness to overtake meLife is for livingI can embrace another dayEven if it does pale To ones beforeEven if it isn’t filledWith what I would chooseIf I had all my druthersI have notWent off my feedI have not Lived breath to breathThis timeAnd I thank God for thatMay I never drown In emotionsEver Again I have elaborated on this before, but this was in my memories today and I felt led to share. so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski if it doesn’t come bursting out of youin spite of everything,don’t do it.unless it comes unasked out of yourheart and your mind and your mouthand…

Resolve to Write 2024 #111

Let me tell you something If you are targeting womenI would not selectTwo middle aged redheadsWho are supremely tiredOf everyone’s shitAnd wearing heelsThat hurt their feet Because not onlyAre they packing bad attitudesOne is packing a 9 mmAnd isn’t afraid to use itSo sit your ass downOn that park benchAnd decide if it’s worthHaving at least one bleeding holeTo make a woman uncomfortable Because she has a take no prisonersKind of policyAnd Shoot now Ask questions laterBecause life has not been Especially kindIt has been a good dayAnd I’d hate to ruin itWith a trip to prisonFor the likes of youLove from Appalachia,~Amy…

Resolve to Write 2924 #110

On my second patio of the afternoon I laughed for the first timeIn a few daysWhen my cousin texts meI try to say yesI will always brave the pollenTo eat sushiAnd drink beerAnd catch up on lifeWe will understand And have the hard conversations And tell the honest to GodTRUTHBecause no sense in sugarcoating it nowIt was supposed to rainBut I’m so glad it didn’t And now it is twilightThere is no moonNo starsBut I know they’re still thereJust like me Love from Appalachia, ~Amy…

Resolve to Write 2024 #109

I don’t know what I can sayIf you tell me I have sad eyesIt’s because I am sadIf you say I look tiredIt’s because I amIf you comment I’m short temperedI would cock my eyebrowBecause that’s not newsSo this afternoonI have lain my t-shirt quilt Underneath my stunted redbudI have sat upon itAnd tried to find some tranquility It’s not workingBut I don’t have anything elseI really want to doI am thankfulMy allergy pills seem to be workingAnd there has not been an invasion Of Boxelder bugsFor a few years nowI admire my ColumbinePink and yellowIt’s the little things, you seeDo I deserve to write of a battered heartOr restless nightsWhat are appropriate topicsYou reckonIf I could write of trite happinessWould my intentions shine through?So yesLush cloverInches from my faceBut still no four leaf-ers YetI wonder if you foundWhat you were looking for“You normally have to be bashed about a bit by life to see the point of daffodils, sunsets and uneventful nice days.” Alain de BottonLove from Appalachia,~Amy…