The Dance is Ending
Almost fourteen years ago, a coworker came into my office and handed me a tiny bundle. He asked if I’d take care of it till his shift in the warehouse was over, and then he’d come get it and figure out what to do. I took the bundle, and it started purring…the loudest purr I’d…
Texas, My Texas…as Seen From My Yukon
So, I’m a Texan. I don’t just mean I’m FROM Texas, I mean, I am a TEXAN. What’s the difference? Simple. Texans are not just people from Texas. You can be a transplant and become a Texan, just like you live there a million years and never quite qualify. To see if you’re a Texan,…
No, Thanks…I’ve Lost My Appetite.
My Facebook feed is filled with recipe videos. I don’t cook, but I like to find new things for my husband to cook, so sometimes I watch part of them. It’s incredibly rare to make it all the way to the end. Let me explain. Food video people are unhinged. Crazy. Possibly a danger to…
Stormy Weather
I guess as you get older you start thinking about when you were a kid…the storms tonight have me thinking about stormy nights when I was little. We lived in a beat up old trailer…it was bad enough in good weather. I think if a tornado had ever actually hit it, it would’ve just disintegrated.…
Ranty Aunty
I think we need a new advice columnist. I think it should be the cranky aunt that tells it like it is and you avoid at family dinners because she has no filter. I’m willing to take on the job. Here’s what I believe: If you change your Facebook status to “In a relationship” more…
God Help Me, I Had to Go to Walmart
It’s Friday night. The weather is balmy. The work week is over. And I’m headed to Walmart because being an adult is horrible. I have a shopping list for my house and for my husband’s uncle, who lives in assisted living. I can do this. HA! I hadn’t even made it all the way to…
Georgia On My Mind…
We just got back from vacation. By “we” I mean me, my husband and our 19 year old son. I have a counselor’s appointment tomorrow to process it. I wanted to go to Georgia because a man I’d worked for was retiring. He was always very nice and respectful, and was genuinely a wonderful boss.…
More Traveling
I wrote this many years ago, after a spring break trip from Texas to Orange Beach and back…. We were fortunate enough to spend Spring Break in Orange Beach, Alabama. Here are some vacation observations based on my own opinion only. You can’t get mad at me for opinions . 1. The speed limit in…
Prince Tango is a Dictator
I love pets. My oldest is a thirteen year old ginger tabby named Tango. Someone found him in a storage building at work when he was about six weeks old, and brought him to me. As soon as I touched him, he purred so loudly it sounded like a diesel engine…so of course, I took…
Andrea Yates – There But For the Grace of God…
This is probably going to be controversial, but here goes. For those who are unaware, Andrea Yates was a mother of five small children. Between 1994 and 2000, she and her husband had five children. At one point, she suffered from post partum issues so severe, she had a nervous breakdown. She was advised after…
Look at These Photographs…
I’m an amateur photographer. I love stalking birds and watching turtles and finding alligators and snapping photos. I’ve been known to pull over on the side of the road because I saw a butterfly in the weeds in the ditch. I’ve walked miles and miles chasing dragonflies. I sneak pics of my son whenever he’ll…
Christmas Chaos…Oh, How I Miss It
At eleven o’clock on Christmas morning, I was asleep. When I woke up, there were no shouts about Santa Claus, or frantic kids…Just my husband, sleeping beside me, and a cat slowly crushing my spleen with his oddly heavy feet. Our son, who is 19, had to work today; it’s his first Christmas away from…
Not Enough Spoons for Christmas…
Several months ago, I heard about the Spoon Theory. It basically uses spoons as a metaphor for personal energy, particularly in reference to people with illnesses, disabilities or mental health challengers. A person with no issues might have unlimited spoons, but someone with depression might have a very limited number. For example, you might start…
He Only Turns Ten Once…
This is an old piece I wrote for my son’s tenth birthday. He just turned 19 and I’m still traumatized. Well. On Friday, The Boy turned ten. We had a couple of his friends spend the night, and then took them on a day trip Saturday. My hands have almost stopped shaking, and I can…
Tonight on Mysteries at the Griffiths’:
Tonight, on Unsolved Mysteries: Pets Edition, we investigate a case so cold, so calculating, so evil, that many of you will sleep with one eye open. You’ve been warned. Picture this: an innocent lady, sleeping the sleep of someone who has a sinus infection and has slept six hours in two days because she coughs…
Um, Who Is to Blame, Now??
I read a story on Fox about a couple of political candidates in Montana. The Senator, a man named Sheehy, is a veteran who was wounded in Afghanistan. The woman, McKnight, was a candidate for city commissioner. Several months ago, she disagreed with a decision the Senator made, and called to leave him a voice…
Trixie Belle Has Left Us
This is very difficult to write, and I’ve put it off for a couple of weeks…but I needed time to think about it, and time to grieve. It’s a long story, but please, be patient with me. In 2019, on a cold (for Texas), blustery night, one of the neighborhood kids showed up at my…
My Baby’s Not a Baby Anymore
I’ve struggled this year. My only child graduated high school, got his NREMT certification and started his “grown-up” job. My husband has worked some overnight shifts most of the time we’ve been married, so the boy and I hav always had time where we could go eat or watch a movie or whatever and he…
A Season of Change
This has been a wild year for me. I switched from a job I’d had 17 years to another position working from home for the same company. My husband lost a lot of weight and started training to be part of the SWAT team. My son graduated and starts his first “grown up” job tomorrow…
A First Responder’s Last Call
I’m feeling very emotional today. A very young First Responder was killed in a traffic accident several days ago. His funeral service is being conducted now. I’d never met the young man, but Hunter attended EMT class with him at AC. At most First Responders’ funerals, there’s a tradition referred to as “Last Call” or…
Oh, Gnatalie….
I just murdered a gnat. There’ve been a few in my office for days. I’m normally a pretty “live and let live” kind of girl when to comes to bugs that don’t sting, but these jerks like to fly THISCLOSE to my eyeballs and I don’t like it. What if they’re trying to steal my…
MLMs – NOOOOOO!
So first of all, I have to confess. I have personally been a part of several MLMs. All together, I probably lost several hundred dollars. Sounds crazy, but in a way, I was lucky. Some people lost thousands and thousands, some people lost their homes, family, friends…all kinds of stuff. For clarity, my first MLM…
It’s a Dog Eat Dog World…Literally
We have four dogs. One was dumped as a puppy and ended up with us. His name is Duke, and he has two functioning brain cells, and they don’t communicate with each other. He’s also the happiest dog I’ve ever seen in my life and is devoted to my 18-year old son. Duke is not…
Moving On
In March, I left a position I’d held for over seventeen years. I worked very hard to make the position a success, and had an excellent working relationship with my colleagues. I even thought some of them were friends. I was wrong. I didn’t leave the company I worked for; I just moved to a…
I’m Not Feeling So Funny Today
I’m watching the news reports from the Guadalupe River floods. I’ve been to the river. I’ve tubed the Comal. I’ve camped on the Guadalupe with my church youth group. We even tubed the Comal because the Guadalupe was flooding, we were told. And I walked away, safe, healthy and dry. I’ve sent my son to…
Working From Home…With Pets
I’ve worked for the same company for a little over seventeen years…but in March, I changed positions to a “remote” one, which basically means I work from home. In some ways, it’s the best thing ever. I wake up thirty minutes before start time, take a shower, put on clean pajamas, commute for seventeen feet,…
Whatever Floats Your Boat…
I love the lake. That is, I love being ON the lake. If you put me in the water, when I get out, you’re going to be sorry. And don’t splash my face. Ick. Nonetheless, there’s nothing I like better than floating around and taking pictures of all the crazy wildlife. Just last night, we…
Thank You Cards…Yea or Nay?
My son graduated this year…and he got gifts. Well, mostly he got money and gift cards, but still…thank you notes are in order. Right? I’m old, and I think they are. He says nobody does them anymore. We’ve been at war. He finally consented to sign them if I wrote them. I ended up typing…
Oh, This Cat…
This beautiful creature is Allie…and she deserves shame. So much shame… For background, I found her in February, shivering in a parking lot, starving and begging for attention. The lady at the number on her collar said she’d given her to someone, who gave her to someone, and that’s all she knew. We advertised. She’s…
That ONE Time I Took My Mama Fishing…
I am not what you call “outdoorsy.” I’m pale, and fat, and prone to overheating. But I love to take pictures of animals, and the lakes are my favorite places. I’m lucky; we have four or five lakes within thirty minutes of my house, and we have a boat. I’ve only gone out a couple…
Achoo a Little Louder
If anybody heard what sounded like an explosion within five miles of my house last night, don’t worry. It was just my husband sneezing. And sneezing. And sneezing.Jets fell from the skies. Birds migrated early. Dogs howled. Cats trembled. People posted the local Facebook groups about tannerite, and sirens went off. Somewhere in the distance,…
He Graduated. Now What?
My son graduated high school. He graduated with an associate’s degree, was in the National Honor Society, and will be taking his National Registry EMT test tomorrow. Sounds like he’s all grown up, right? Sure. That’s great. But he’s my only baby, unless you count the cats. He’s going to get a grown up job,…
Oh, Amazon…I’m NOT Reading That
I love to read. Fiction. Non-fiction. Historical. Current. Comedy. Romance. I’ve read some wonderful books. Friends recommend them, or I see a blurb that looks great or I look up an author I like and then get suggestions from whatever website I’m on. For instance, a friend recommended Jodi Taylor’s “Chronicles of St. Mary’s” series…
C’mon, Uncle Hank
So, I have an aunt who is hands down the meanest person I’ve ever met in my life. Always has been. We’ll call her “D.” She and her siblings, including my Dad, came from a rough home with parents who weren’t really parents because of their childhoods…generational curse, I guess. She’s married and divorced twice,…
Claw and Order: Housecat Edition
“In the cat justice system, the pets are represented by two separate yet equally important groups: the wife, who brings them home and begs to keep them, and the husband, who secretly wants them to go away. These are their stories. We have cats. Six of them, in fact, all inside. They are also known…
Temptation, What Now????
So, I like cheesy reality shows. I know, it’s a personal failing, but it is what it is. My current favorite is “Married At First Sight,” which is a train wreck where “experts” sort through applicants to find matches, they get married (at first sight!) and then proceed to almost universally annoy me to death…
Things I Still Wonder About…the Walmart Edition
So, I’m 47 years old, and I think I’m doing ok…got the house and the car and the husband and the kid and the pets (SO MANY PETS) and a church family and a good job, but there are still some things I wonder about. I wonder why people think it’s ok to walk down…
If I Hear “Journey” One More Time…
I love words. I love learning new ones, and new phrases. What I do not love is hearing the same one eleventy four times in one sentence. One of my “guilty pleasures” is crappy reality tv. The ones where the guy is trying to pick from 41 girls who all just looooove him, or the…
Scholarship Night…Lord Help Us
Last night was Scholarship Night – Hudson grads earned over four million dollars in scholarship dollars and the whole ceremony took two hours. And, you guessed it, I have thoughts. First of all, congratulations to these kids. In a time where parents worry about money and student loans are practically a political weapon, these kids…
Our sweet girl left us…
I wrote this a couple years ago. We’d had to euthanize my son’s sweet dog because she had untreatable tumors in her lungs. It was a very hard thing to do, but it was for the best. We couldn’t stand to see her suffer. I wrote this about her. Tonight, our sweet girl left us.…
KANSAS CITY OR BUST
So my new job takes me from Texas to Kansas City, Kansas. These are my field notes from my trip there and back. Brace yourselves. I’m going to be in Kansas City this week for work but I hate flying…so I drove to Tulsa tonight and I’ll finish the trip tomorrow. Here are my thoughts…
MUSINGS FROM THE MIND OF AMANDA 