R O Y A L L Y A V E R A G E

Lady So and So

Browsing CategoryMessages from God

Today is my birthday. Every year on my birthday, I take the day off work to reflect on what has gone wrong during the past year and what I can do to make it better. After some contemplation, I then resolve to make this next year my year. It’s a term we millennials use to say that we are going to do something that resembles living our best lives now during the next 365 days. When I say it, it means I am going to find a way to stop feeling like I’m trudging through life, and feel like my steps…

Continue Reading

There are certain moments that you will never forget. They follow you around like the smell of day-old perfume on a shirt you forgot to wash. Every once in a while, if you turn your head a certain way, the aroma hits you again, and there you are: days, months, years back in time. Tonight, I got a whiff of August 2014. It is August in Alabama. The heat and humidity feel heavy and yeasty like standing inside a loaf of baking bread. I am perched in a storage shed, covered in grime, looking at the frail frame of my 86 year old grandmother. She looks like…

Continue Reading

Imagine the universe is a big white box. White walls, white floor, white ceiling. The whole bit is brilliant, blinding white. Then people come along. And we, in particular people fashion, have decided to claim little squares of this white box for ourselves. For generations, we have carefully taught one another how to mark our respective territories, scratching lines like frames into the white box to define a piece of what’s rightfully (such a relative term) ours. We have no tools, no art supplies, nothing to create with except our worn down fingernails, but scratch we must until we carve…

Continue Reading

It’s my birthday. Which is probably the only reason I am giving myself time to sit and write anything, when there is so much to do. I’m 29 now. Yesterday I was 28. Yesterday, and the 364.3 days  before yesterday, also known as my 28th year of life, has ((hopefully)) been the craziest one of my life. I’ve been so busy, busted up, scattered, fearful, joyful and tired that I haven’t been able to formulate a story from it. There have been no nuggets of wisdom, no cutesy headlines or main ideas from all of this. I can feel myself…

Continue Reading

For our family, the holidays are crazy. When you live in one town and ALL of your family on both sides- mine and Chris’s families- live all together in another town, things get crazy. Everyone wants to see you. Everyone wants to have a special audience with you and your children. It’s really nice to be loved that much. It’s really nice to have people want you to be with them, but scheduling in all of those visitations and gifting and eating makes for a crazy existence. Factor in some divorced parents, several sets of aunts and uncles, and a sprinkle…

Continue Reading

There have been changes afoot in the Bethea house. More than usual, even. Which is why I haven’t sat down to write anything since July. In reality, I haven’t sat down since July for any reason. But change is a-comin’ and that is worth writing about. Some things have not changed: Yes, I am still growing our second baby in my uterus. This one happens to be a boy. No, that baby boy doesn’t make me want to vomit anymore. Yes, we still live in a really small town and the only time I leave the house is to go…

Continue Reading

Every day, something reminds me why I hate living in the Bible Belt. Church signs are usually the culprit. Classics include: “Jesus always answers his knee-mail”. “Fight truth decay- read your Bible!” “The best vitamin for a Christian is B1” “Thanksgiving? Come in and let’s talk Turkey. ~God” (Since when does God speak Poultry to people?) or my personal favorite: “No dropped calls on the GloryLine Express” (Yep, this is one I really saw with my own eyes. I have no idea what it means.) Or sometimes my hatred will spring forth at Bible Belt usage of the phrase “I’m…

Continue Reading

Here is a post that I started writing on January 12, but hadn’t finished yet. I had been saving this post since Eloise was born. I figured if I gave it enough time, the inspiration would come. I thought it may take at least a month or two, but three, four, six, seven months have gone by and I’ve got nothing. I have nothing to say about myself. As in, there is no news to report about me. Not that anyone was ever that interested in me in the first place. But the reason I started this blog almost two…

Continue Reading

I don’t normally plug my own previous posts, but if you haven’t read “Toilet Parts and a One-Armed Angel” this post won’t make sense. I swear. I cross-my-heart-hope-to-die-pinky-promise swear that this next entry is 100% true. So my week had been stressful yet again.  I was behind on my work. I had snapped at my sweet husband, more than once. I had a important meeting for work on Wednesday, so Tuesday night I stayed up late in the garage building new and exciting projects from cedar balls and planking (one of our clients is CedarSafe Closets). After my drill died,…

Continue Reading