Smithellaneous

Wherever the Road Takes Me

Becky Smith — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 12:07:25 +0000

I recently declared a Me Day, which means “A day when I can do anything I want.” (I declare them from time to time, as needed.) The first part of the day involved leaving the house at 5 a.m. and driving through the darkness for two hours. Great fun! My plan was to leave the house early enough to catch the first minutes of a sunrise in the Smokies. I was glad to have caught a wisp of fog at the bottom of the photo; that’s always been one of my photo goals. I had wanted to take my Nikon along because I haven’t used it for a long time and was getting a hankering to shoot with real gear again. But alas, my propensity for misplacing things struck again. Although I found my camera bag containing the camera and every lens and accessory known to man, inexplicably, there were no batteries present. I searched in every logical and illogical hiding place and finally did a panic buy from Amazon; they delivered batteries (free shipping!) in about 4 hours. But alas (yet again), in my hurry to order, I got the wrong size. So it was just my iPhone and […]

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The Way Home

Becky Smith — Mon, 12 Oct 2026 11:40:40 +0000

My growing-up years left me with a lot of insecurity and self-esteem issues. Those issues didn’t stem from parents who weren’t affirming and loving; Mom and Dad were both. But we grew up poor (we even had an outhouse once), my clothes were conservative and unstylish, and I didn’t fit in well at school. When we went through the grocery line and my mom pulled out the food stamps, I always looked around for anyone from school who might notice. It wasn’t cool to be poor. I remember small things from those days. Mom making powdered milk and then pouring it into a milk container from the store, trying to trick us kids. (We always knew.) Overhearing my parents discussing that we didn’t have enough money for an expense and sneaking into Mom’s purse to get a five-dollar bill. I cut it in half and proudly presented it to them, saying. “Look, I made extra money for you!” (In my defense, I was about five.) Remembering my mom adding water to the ketchup bottle and shaking it around to make it go just a little further to feed a family of eight. Because of her creative abilities to stretch a […]

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The Thing Post (October, 2026)

Becky Smith — Mon, 05 Oct 2026 11:45:57 +0000

THING ONE After a recent family gathering, I went into one of our guest bedrooms and found this sweet note on the desk. You can bet it brightened up my day! THING TWO I was cutting a red pepper and saw a tiny green pepper growing inside. To be honest, it sort of alarmed me for a moment until I Googled it and found out it was perfectly normal. I asked a couple of people if they had seen that before, and they had. It took me until the age of sixty-four to finally see my first baby pepper inside a big pepper; I feel like it’s a rite of passage, or something. (One of my friends is curious as to whether or not you could grow a new pepper from a baby pepper; if you have the answer, let us know in the comments.) THING THREE I would just like to announce that I am available for free wardrobe consultations because, quite obviously, I have reached the pinnacle of knowledge in this area. Friday morning at work, my earrings were bothering my ears a little, so I reached up to take them out. And you’ll never guess what I […]

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Wisconsin, 2026 (Part 2)

Becky Smith — Mon, 28 Sep 2026 11:59:54 +0000

My sister, Debbie, sat in her recliner last Tuesday morning with a blanket over her legs, a cozy sweater over her shoulders, and a steaming cup of coffee in hand, ready for her first sip. I could almost see the waves of contentment emanating from her being. But not for long. Our sister, Ruth (who had stayed overnight), glanced outside and shouted, “Look at what the sky is doing!” Debbie yelled back, “What? What guy. What is what guy doing?” Ruth said, “No, the sky. The sky. There’s a beautiful sunrise. We have to go out and chase it!” I could see Debbie hesitate for the tiniest second as the waves of contentment hovered and then evaporated. But she wasn’t going to pass up a sunrise chase with her sisters. She threw off her blanket, grabbed her coffee cup, and the three of us flung ourselves into the car and drove off to admire the sunrise. (Debbie later dubbed us the Spontaneous Surprise Sunrise Spies.) Our compliments to the Creator. Although our Sister Visit this time around was not as crazy as the one we had last year (read this if you haven’t yet), we did get to spend some […]

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Wisconsin, 2026 (Part 1)

Becky Smith — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 13:15:53 +0000

Friday afternoon, we left for Wisconsin, leaving Tinker and Belle in Sarah and Gage’s capable hands. The night before we left, Sarah made us a delicious meal of stuffed peppers; they were both beautiful and delicious. Sarah is a wonderful cook. On our flight, I saw an unusual sight–a guy who wasn’t looking at a phone or tablet. Can you imagine? Not only was he reading a book, but he was reading a textbook and was taking notes. He was an older gentleman, using a cane and not seeming to be in the best of health. It was inspiring to see him still stretching his mind and learning. Randy and Debbie picked us up at the Appleton airport in the pouring rain. Randy and Steve chatted away in the front seat while Deb and I caught up in the back. On the way home, we stopped at a restaurant in Waupaca named Woods. It was such a Wisconsin-y restaurant. If you had set me down in there with no knowledge of where I was, I would have looked around and said, “Wisconsin.” I loved it. After a delicious meal, the server came by with an enormous cinnamon roll and said […]

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The Thing Post (September, 2026)

Becky Smith — Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:36:22 +0000

THING ONE So here’s something I feel strongly about. Umbrellas should not be black. Umbrellas should only be purchased in the brightest colors possible. On an already gloomy, gray day, would you rather see a yellow umbrella bobbing across the parking lot toward you or a black one? I rest my case. 🙂 THING TWO My sister, Ruth, was feeding her youngest grandson and found a perfect serving bowl for a banana — a banana peel. Good ol’ grandma creativity. THING THREE I recently got a little tired of my longish hair because it just hung out around my face and I couldn’t do much with it. Ten pounds down and a new haircut later. I feel a little more like me. THING FOUR I was at a thrift store recently and had no idea what this was. I Googled it and it seems it is not something for the kitchen, which would have been my first thought. THING FIVE The past two Saturdays, Steve and I got up our courage and trundled on down to the basement. If you’ve been reading here long, you know that the basement has been the bugaboo we’ve been battling since we moved in […]

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Band-Aids, Chicken Bowls, and Kibble Nibbles.

Becky Smith — Mon, 07 Sep 2026 12:38:36 +0000

Our friend, Greta, was scheduled to pick up a friend from the Charlotte airport on Saturday; she came a day early so she could spend a night at the Smith Airbnb. On the menu for Friday’s dinner was a build-your-own chicken bowl: rice, chicken, carrots, corn, cucumbers, onion, and a homemade yum-yum sauce. We invited Greta to go through the line first, and she posed with her repast as though she were a spokesperson in a TV commercial. As she and I sat down with our chicken bowls, we were alarmed to see what Steve was planning to eat. He has been cutting back on his caloric intake some, but consuming dog food? That’s a bit drastic. I told Greta that Steve’s never been in the doghouse, so I’m not sure why he was suddenly eating dog food. (Try not to be too impressed by the perfectly placed flatware.) As it turns out, the food was for Belle, and Steve was going to put it on the floor after he sat down to be sure Tinker didn’t eat it. Bottom line? He was not, in fact, going to nibble on kibble. Unfortunately, we had a bit of pre-dinner drama. (Not […]

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The Unsung (Revisited)

Becky Smith — Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:55:32 +0000

The headlines we read on news channels and social media aren’t exactly encouraging or inspiring; in fact, they can be downright depressing. But I am reminded of something Mr. Rogers is famous for saying: “When I was a boy, and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.'” And being reminded of Mr. Rogers’ quote reminded me of something I wrote in 2018. I want to re-post it for everyone who has ever been a helper or been helped by a helper. The Unsung April 16, 2018 The funeral was nearing the end when I noticed four women get up from their pews and disappear through the side door of the sanctuary. To the uninitiated, it may have seemed like they had all heard the call of nature at precisely the same time; however, as a veteran church-goer, I knew the real scoop. I knew that these four were The Funeral Ladies. These were the ladies who had inventoried the third shelf of the storage room to make sure there were enough plastic forks. They had brewed the sweet tea, bought […]

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