Woolly Eyebrows and Overdue Books

So I got up this morning and put the coffee on (I do this with my eyes still shut). Wasn't long before I started thinking. This is where things usually go sideways and Gary gets weird texts about fears that don't make sense to him. But he didn't this morning. At some point my thoughts drifted to my eyebrows. I have plucked them myself for my entire adult life. I know how I want them. I can no longer see them. I think there is probably a $10,000 makeup mirror at Ulta that will light and magnify them to the point that I can still do something with them. But I'm resisting the expense and making do with a cheap one that still leaves me a little in the dark as to specifics. I have a vague notion that they look like woolly caterpillars. Some mornings I think my heavy lids are being held down by them. This is so unladylike I cannot believe any of my southern friends are still speaking to me. I would probably get better service in retail shops if I would just break down and let someone with normal eyesight do something about them. I know I live south of the Mason-Dixon line. I was born and raised in the south. I know I don't want to live elsewhere. I know I love my southern culture. But I just cannot seem to get to the typical southern lady's obsession with appearances. I am trying, but daily fall short. Right now I'm wearing a red t-shirt from the Amish Comedy Theater in Berlin, Ohio. Case closed.

I'm not super-organized, nor am I altogether disciplined when it comes to time management. This is NOT a product of my southern heritage. No ma'am and no sir, as my sister Mary would say. I've seen southern women organize a luncheon to the finest detail, their homes as clean and perfectly put together as the White House at Christmas. The food will be pretty, mind you. Not just delicious, but ATTRACTIVE. Cookies may have themed icing. You just never know. Me, I'm lucky if I remember to dump the cookies out of the package so that I can make a show of home doings.

I always have the very best of intentions. But creative people, some of us, have a little bit of a problem with the follow-through. We can get down and dirty making a "to-do" list, a goals binder, a spreadsheet with plans...and then fly by the seat of our pants for six weeks before returning to those well-laid documentations with a sad look of defeat, a bit of doughnut icing on our faces from the morning's indulgences. It's sad, really. I recently sat down with myself (something I do often) and had a "Come-to-the-Lord" meeting. It was sobering. I'm fifty-one and need a life coach. Since I'm frugal about some things, that coach will have to be me. I'm also the client. If you're confused by now, so am I.

I have decided to write about as much as a human being can write while still lolly-gagging some, cross-stitching, reading, cleaning (as little as possible and while using anything and everything that will make it easier) and various and sundry other exploits that I happen upon as I traverse this sad earth. I know, however, that writing is my calling and I'm by golly getting to it, folks! Thank you for coming on this ride with me! Like I said yesterday, I'll boost your self-esteem with the daily escapade that is my life. Right now I'm headed to the library to get a stack of "free" books to read that'll cost me approximately $40 in overdue fines. Seize the day!

Dining Rooms and Cheap Shoes

I haven't lost my sense of humor. No, it's still here. But the things that have happened to me, an insulated housewife in eastern Tennessee, in the intervening two years since that last post have, at the very least, been a bit UN-funny.

I am reviving my freelance career and jumped into my southern blog because, after all, my sense of humor has been a saving grace as I waded through the morass of heartache. One son nearly died in a car accident. The other has walked through terrible trauma, taking everyone who adores him with him...all of us tied to his waist and bobbing in the wake of his challenges. Rising and falling with him. We are, as a family, emerging from all of this ridiculous hardship thanks to our loving heavenly Father. He is our anchor.

I've still got my glass of sweet tea in one hand. I sure do. I still have my Yankee Candle coupons in my console and my house near the cul-de-sac end of a street bordering a golf course. I still enjoy a blue-blood accent as much as the next person, even as I realize that this sweet sound will probably end with my parents' generation. I'm still the same dichotomy...fully equipped formal dining room (rarely used) and ebay-purchased Yellow Box flip-flops (my summertime preference). I'm still the Weezer of my generation. A lot weird, a little mean, and some heart.

I will joke and laugh and write my way into my own little history book. I will survive on a steady diet of laughter. I want you to, too, my dear readers. Don't you love to realize, with startling clarity, that someone else is far more discombobulated than you will ever be? That's me! That. Is. Me. Allow me to boost your self-esteem as I recount my daily escapades here. I'm decidedly southern. Knoxville is most assuredly south of the Mason-Dixon line (I don't honestly know where that thing is, by the way). Come along with me !

See you tomorrow here in the pages of my silly little life.