They gave me a gold star.
Currently, I am writing to honor my late husband, Roger L. Adams, Jr. As well as being a prior United States Marine and an Army Soldier, he was a firefighter for three departments in North Carolina. The department we fought fire together at was Half Moon V.F.D. in Jacksonville, NC. There, his badge number was 543, and the number has since been retired.
After I pour my first hot cup of Cafe Bustello in the morning, I hold the mug with both hands, close my eyes, and inhale the bold bitter scent. I tried that this morning and felt the warm steam hit my face, but no smell of coffee. I tried again. Nothing.
Continue reading “That Stinks! Day 390.”I wrote my first blog post for Maescribes! It is very important content about homonyms and how incorrect usage can actually affect your business. Misuse of like words can cause potential clients or customers to have unfair misconceptions about your ability and product. Here she is:
Kindergartners with missing teeth are the cutest little angels, right? We cherish the old pixelated or curling photos of our children with gummy smiles, and look back at how cute they were with gaping holes where their little white pebbles once were.
Continue reading “Gummy Smile. Day 382.”
Sappy green canopies and umbrellas and a roof. Lush, sturdy pine branches with stick walls. Little big homes made of twigs, mud, hair. New babies tucked into siblings' warmth. Gray Mom reappears with three acorns and a fluffy, speckled off-white mushroom. Tail the size of her body, rising high in alert. The barred owl screams. Mom's ears perk. She wraps up with her kits until the sun. Safe. Above them the crows, Ma and four hatchlings. She flies away from the nest, then comes back, then flies away, then comes back. Earth's worm. Scream scream scream eat it. More. They, too, tuck themselves in for the night. Setting sun. Under Mom's wide black feather blanket. Away from the owls and the rain and the chill. Until the morning sun. In a tall pine close but far, owl's nest. The downy fledgling watches Mom fly and waits for the flimsy, soft mouse or the floppy graying lizard. All through the night. With the sun. and the waking lids and the morning dew and Earth's yawn. It comes. Not breeze or flutter of birds, but crashing and clanking and foreign yelling. Yellow machines aim at the houses made of twigs and sticks and branches and trunks. Work boots and fat tires, lunch boxes and canteens of coffee. Raspy yelling and Marlboro smoke. Chainsaws and ripped, dull blue jeans. Sappy bleeding horizontal trees. Settling, blinding dust. Owl flies, crow flies. Squirrel grabs her favorite and, in vain runs. Down down down the tall pine, grabbing with her sharp claws at the crispy bark while her little dangles between her teeth.
There’s a little country store for sale at the end of my road on the corner of 117 in Willard. It’s a small rectangle with a flat white roof, and has windows covering most of the front. There’s a little shed out back, a small propane tank, and it’s on a corner lot with ample parking in the dry dirt lot.
Continue reading “A Little Country Store. Day 380.”
Saturday’s event for Tunnel to Towers had young Marines in uniform there who volunteered and presented Colors. I was distracted by one simple thought; I know what the fabric feels like.
Continue reading “Marines. Day 379.”
“Hi,” Tye said.
“Hi, how’s things?”
“Good. Tired. It was a long but nice weekend.”
Continue reading “Twice a Day and Far Away. Day 378.”
Today is an exciting day!
My sister-in-law, Sherry, is on her way from Tennessee to stay for the weekend. She will join us tomorrow for the 5K in Swansboro, then we will hang out all weekend. Plans? Yes! Menu planned? Yes!
Continue reading “Tomorrow! Day 374.”When I was a kid, I ate what was put in front of me. There were no other options.
“She’ll eat anything.” To this day, there isn’t much, unfortunately, that I don’t like.
Continue reading “Picky? Day 372.”
It was October and my carriage was full of Hot Wheels tracks, downy Elmo pajamas, miniature Hulk Hogans and Stone Cold Steve Austins, and plush character blankets covered in football helmets or Power Rangers. I pulled up to the register at the back of the store by the bathrooms.
Continue reading “Layaway. Day 371.”Split yellow highway lines at night, walks in the cool mossy woods, and the scent of a clean oak fire have been infiltrating my mind lately, in short, abrupt blips that have no meaning or reason.
Continue reading “Must Be the Light. Day 370.”*If you wish to learn more about our upcoming T2T 5K, or if you would like to donate, please click here:
https://runsignup.com/Race/130359/FundraiserDonation/GvD74BlyeWO0d0MM
I wrote this post a year ago and it still stands. Use today to live a little slower, soak up your freedom and peace, and reflect on those we lost that day 21 years ago. Somber, yes, but let’s maybe try to pry ourselves out of that just enough to live live live out of respect for those who perished that day. Also, celebrate the lives of ones like Roger who followed years later because of 9/11.
Mention them, talk about them, REMEMBER them.
This repost is about taking it a little slower and going down virgin roads:
Warning!: Exciting content!
If you have dogs, cats, or floors, get a Samsung vacuum. It’s called a Samsung, Jet 70 Pet Cordless Stick Vacuum with Lightweight Design, and I’m in love.
Continue reading “Samsung Vacuum. Day 366.”
Today marks one year of my 543-day writing journey for Roger. One year! Click HERE to read all about it.
Continue reading “One Year of 543! Day 365.”The basement of the Primary School in Southampton, MA was the first place I have felt complete shame, and it’s attached itself to my psyche and self-worth even until this day, 43 years later.
Continue reading “Brownies. Day 355.”
It’s hard to believe we are coming up on our second full school year with Baylee as a homeschooler! The first year was terrifying at first, but then we found a groove, some pretty awesome online groups, and fell into it.
Continue reading “New Curriculum. Day 335.”Selling myself is a little awkward, but it is important for people to know that I will be strong, confident, and capable when I work for them. About-Me sections have always made me uncomfortable and I’ve kept them quite short, but not this time.
I’ve also added a few sections in the process of building my site. The color is still not grabbing my attention, but I have time to figure that out.
Take a peek if you like, or even just give it a click so it’s not so lonely.
I took this poem of mine, one of my favorites actually, and made it into a pose poem:
Miss Geller’s Barbados crown circles the other girl’s face, yet blonde, while she bakes. Cod with Ritz. And she watches the dolphins with their accidental grins wave in the waves with their virtual arms and hands at her curious gaze while they suck fish bones from their pebble teeth. The ocean is one and many, while it shows its black at night, sometimes. With its billions of workers who in their grain bodies soften with their grit, the contents of its cupboards. And it sighs at the oohs and ahhs that it hears while the not-noticed is seen once again. Plain gray rocks and little black teeth, broken shells or miniature trees. Chunks of glass, Budweiser. They rub their thumb on the edge, and feel it in their chests, and if the blood does not come, they call the brown compressed sand, that became smooth by its relatives, sea glass. Repeat it. Sea glass. Natures unnatural art. As they walk with their heads down. Hunching to find the treasure or, the fantasy message, in a bottle of ale. The breaths are deeper. Deepest. Loud, full breathing, slow. Long outs. Longer ins, keep some. Lungs’ delight. And the skin somewhat smoother than yesterday, toes and shoulders turn brown under the pink Coppertone and squarish freckles. Roaring hushes the thoughts of what is next and what was before. Wavy steps slow as the end appears. Boat-tailed Grackles wait to take it. Seeds of the sun’s flower, black and oiled like their windy feathers. And the leftovers are gently grabbed by the one-footed gull with her perfectly pedicured toes. Her soft feathers just white flow as she looks into your eyes to see where the next toss will aim, or to know your blues. And she gracefully dangles in the air, singing like a squawking angel, needing no sympathy as she takes turns with her new old friends. The fuzzy, savage cats, smash their young faces on their mate’s as they beg and exist in their fatness of black stripes on brown fur, flicking tails and kneading toes. Dancing for their food, deli turkey or leftover salmon. Their song is like the water’s while the purring and roaring dance and the humans fall for their massive blinking and their hypnotic petition. The velvet deer in the beaten trees twitching her wavy ears hiding in the crooked sharpness living in the death. Waiting for her turn to dine. After the cherub cats and the fliers and swimmers and the ones with the money or the prehistoric glow of the celebrity bird. If I only had a silver fish to drop into your impressive gullet. As you glide by with your russet friends with the same tattered plumage. Not even a side-glance. Maybe you’re praying for your vanishing kind.
Continue reading “Topsail. Day 332.”Day five of the business being legal and I am dragging my feet and making hot pepper sauce with the abundance of cayenne peppers the hot NC sun has helped us grow instead of adding to my site. Why? Because I have to write my About Me section for my website.
Continue reading “Me, Me, Me. Day 331.”I naively and dreamily figured opening a no-overhead business would be cheap and easy. It makes sense, right? No insurance, no new lease on a building or storefront, no electric bills, no employees to pay.
Continue reading “No Overhead, No Problem. Day 330.”
Apple, Instagram, and Yankee Candle started as side hustles. I’m starting one, and it feels scary, surreal, and so euphoric!
Continue reading “Maescribes. Day 327.”Mundane non-change feels so good and fat, like your body after a giant baked potato with extra butter and sour cream. It’s like a warm blanket that never changes but it will wear and become scratchy and uncomfortable.
Continue reading “Starting Something. Day 326.”
I go to the office once a week and that’s pretty much it for me as far as socializing goes these days. It’s truly impossible with the limited time and significant distance between me and, well, everyone I know. We live way out there, which is awesome, but it does limit my stop-at-the-bar-for-a-drink meetings and mid-day baby showers.
Continue reading “Do I Smell Like a Dog? Day 318.”
Love, we all know, is a complicated, and at times, subjective topic. Since it’s not tangible or even visible, there are gray areas lingering within the definition of it, and it’s on a very wide spectrum. One thing we all know very well, is that it does not die easily, and it’s a tough beast to slay.
Continue reading “The Death of Love. Day 317.”We don’t talk about half-age enough. It’s not a half-birthday, but when your child for once in their life is half your age.
Continue reading “Half-Age. Day 312.”
Maybe it’s the bright, cheerful lights, or the wide-open, tiled space with soothing music from my teens that melds with my footsteps in sweet syncopation, fast or slow. It could be the sweet scent of the Macintosh apple fritters in the bakery oven that mixes with the brightly-lit air, or the promise of tomorrow that is made by the date on the red-capped milk. Either way, I just love grocery stores.
Continue reading “Grocery Stores. Day 310.”. . . A haiku
Hired new weed guy
Starts Monday a hundred bucks
His name is Hunter.
The headlights from our white Chevy Venture van lit up the front yard of Shamrock Drive, exposing the freshly-cut green grass and the real brick façade that protected the bottom front of our little home. The hunter green front door opened and Roger, hair still wet and sticking up from his shower, walked out. He had on his plaid pajama bottoms and a clean white t-shirt. He was holding the front of his PJ’s just above the knees so they wouldn’t touch the ground. His skin was sun-kissed and squeaky clean.
Continue reading “Thirteen Years. Day 295.”
I don’t watch many shows or movies which are horrific or violent, but some I like have some unsettling moments, like Tarantino, Marvel and other similar science fiction. I don’t generally watch movies or shows of horror, war, or thriller (that’s a broad spectrum, but either way), but the genre that freaks me out the most is dystopian fiction like Handmaid’s Tale.
Continue reading “Dystopia. Day 294.”
“He’s a natural-born leader.”
“Everyone looks up to her.”
Continue reading “Followers. Day 291.”Tough guys are at it again.
Mostly this is for my own reference, but maybe you’ll think it’s fun. Here are/were all the chickens I’ve had:
Continue reading “All Their Names. Day 289.”
The cats and dogs are about to be due for their veterinarian appointments, and it grants me with heavy anxiety.
Continue reading “Vet Appointments, the Animal Kind. Day 288.”
If you think about it, who amongst us doesn’t experience a little sadness on days like Fathers Day? Whether we’re missing someone who’s passed, mixed up in an estranged relationship, or maybe some of us have never had a father.
Continue reading “Facing it Head on With a Silver-Can Shield. Day 285.”
The boys and I moved to a bigger house in 2009, but I couldn’t imagine selling the home that Roger and I bought together, the one where we raised our little family for seven years. It was the last place I saw him, and Max and Baylee’s first house.
Continue reading “Squatters. Day 284.”
I am over halfway to my 543 days of writing finish line, and although there are many days I just don’t feel like it, I am not sure it will end there.
Continue reading “Writing. Day 283.”As Steve Rogers says, “I can do this all day.” I love love love writing property descriptions, especially ones as charming as this. This is one of the five I’ve written in the past twenty-four. Thanks, God.
Continue reading “A Bungalow. Day 282.”“Maxwell, come up here,” Roger said to Max, many, many times.”
Max dragged his blanket with one hand and used the other to balance himself as he stood and walked from the end of the bed to the middle of me and Roger.
Continue reading “Perspective. Day 277.”I sneezed. “Sorry,” I said to Baylee.
Continue reading “Sorry. Day 276.”
Fleecy flannel feeties, Warm, lightweight, cheap, Kmart $3.99. Primary red, blue, yellow. Soft hand-me-downs, washed in Dreft and Downy. Hanging by the wooden pins, by the white plastic toes, swaying in the North Carolina wind. Zip up zip down, carefully, Lesson learned once. You, too tall but not too wide, so I cut the feet off for you, then they fit again. Big brother then small, Same ones shared at different times, until one day. No more feetie pajamas swaying in the wind, or tumbling in the washer, or sticking out of the top drawer, or in the cart at the non-existent Kmart. One day, gone. No warning or thought. Just gone, in the dump on Ramsey Road in Jacksonville, or the white trash bag for the Good Will, or the box in the attic that the rats got to. Gone. RIP feetie pajamas.
These zucchini balls can be eaten with your favorite homemade or jarred sauce and served with crispy, buttery garlic bread, and a spring green salad. That is, of course, if you can wait. They have the same texture as a meatball, but are filled with healthy, flavorful ingredients, like whole-milk mozzarella and fresh herbs. Enjoy!
Continue reading “Zucchini Balls. Day 274.”Working full-time after staying home for so many decades changes my ways and forces me to condense my time. I do use the minutes more wisely now, and I also have a harder time wasting them. I stay up later and really appreciate all my seconds.
Continue reading “My List. Day 273.”
I sat up in bed and looked at Roger who was standing in the hallway outside our bedroom on Shamrock Drive. The only light was shining a dim yellow from a small fixture above and behind his head, so I could only see his shape, and not his face. He was about to pull down the stairs to the attic because we just heard a mouse trap snap.
Continue reading “Raided by Rats. Day 271.”Pet peeves are lovely in the way they slightly pretend to touch you just enough and never really admit they’re trying to be annoying.
Continue reading “We’re Better Than This. Day 267.”
There are some shows and movies I watch simply because the kids do, and they recommend it. I begin because I like talking about stories, and since they’re not big readers (cry), I appreciate the next-best thing.
We discuss and debate the storyline, intention, character development, theories, etc. We don’t simply look at the surface of what’s on the screen, but all of the intricacies. After a couple years, they convinced me last summer to watch Stranger Things.
I’m not particularly fond of gore, and science fiction is a new interest of mine. I thought it would be a show about a bunch of kids, kind of Gooniesesque, with young, shallow love storylines or monsters who jump out and say “boo.” I didn’t realize the amount of layers and conversation starters the series would have.
Well, it does, and yesterday we watched the first few episodes of Season Four, the newest release from the franchise. It was awesome!
What’s new to me, besides my interest in science fiction, is my ability to withstand the gory scenes. Maybe it’s the way the team presents it or maybe it’s me being desensitized, but I am able to move past it and look deeper into the story.
I am babbling, I know, but I don’t want to spoil any of it for anyone, so I suppose I should end it here and continue later when people have had enough time to watch.
Try it! If you lived during the 80’s, that alone will be enough to have you gape-mouthed watching the TV for the different styles and brands, oh the brands. You’ll see old soda cans, different store brands like Benetton, and sneakers that I imagine were hard to find or had to be custom-made.
I just love it, all of it. Broaden your scope and break away from the same old. Trust me.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I have to do it this way,” he said with a kind, firm tone. He was responding to my babble, my unanswerable questions, my erratic spin.
There was another man in uniform next to him, Sgt. Perez. I knew him, yet it didn’t register. There was also a police officer who I went to high school with. The night was dark and quiet. All of this was going on while the boys were asleep inside.
American tradition with its glory and Colors dictated how I would find out. My husband, Roger, of thirteen years had been killed in Iraq. He was driving a Humvee and ran over an Improvised Explosive Device. He was killed instantly, and I know it was fast because they said, “He didn’t know it even happened” like a billion fucking times. My first reaction was to reason with this young man and ask for proof. I thoroughly believed I could argue it away, mechanical and irrational.
I didn’t cry or fall like they do in the movies. There was no yelling because I didn’t want the kids to find out. I stood there in my parents’ front yard on a warm summer night in Southampton, Massachusetts. I’m sure the crickets were making noise, and maybe the bats were circling above, wanting to nuzzle their faces into my tangled hair. I felt like I needed to put on a bra and brush my teeth.
The boys and I had only been in the state for a few short hours. I stood there without my legs, with nobody to hold me. It felt like everything inside me was unattached and floating around. It was all gone. I was floating on very hot nothing, melted hell, and all I could concentrate on was the young private’s face.
“I’m sorry you had to do this,” I said to the poor kid. He just stood there after telling me the words. He looked perplexed, not knowing what to say next, pale. When I recall that night, I still feel for that boy, and the job he had to do, his vital composure.
The stranger and I stared at each other for some time, then for some nonsensical reason, I looked in the window of my parents’ house. There stood Sammy, ten-years old, pillow hair and full lips like his daddy, looking at me through the glass door, wondering who I was talking to in the middle of the night.
“Do you know what a VHS is?” I asked Baylee.
“It’s the thing you put into a VCR. The horror games use them to give it an old, creepy vibe.” Thanks, video games.
Continue reading “VHS. Day 259.”
I used to click on the comments, especially on a controversial post. It took me years to realize it altered my mood and made me snappy and even crabby. Why do we do this to ourselves?
Continue reading “Comments. Day 258.”
Teresa Forester Adams 