athesaurus.com

…breathe deeply and often…

  • Today is the Day

    Today is the day I say goodbye to Thanksgiving break. Anxiety and depression levels are rising, tonight is a school night after all. No more messing around with cats, movies, music, and road trips. House cleaning and laundry will become more of the chore they were before, and less of a leisure activity, they were

    Read more

  • Pastry Time

    I am tempted to begin making my rough puff pastry for Christmas. It’s fully delicious and cheap to make. Yet it is  the most labor intensive of all the Christmas delicacies I create, It’s worth every moment it takes for its creation. Butter and flour, rolled, folded, refrigerated and repeated at least five times, it

    Read more

  • The Beaded Purse

    Sherri had her daughter’s heart’s desire. Annie needed a beaded clutch purse to go with her formal dress for the prom, just big enough to hold her lipstick and her glasses. Styles go round and round, and she sure enough saved the pocket book she’d taken to her formal dance years ago. Truth be told,

    Read more

  • Lightning Temper

    I wouldn’t have been in the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning if I didn’t need to take some dog food and a loaf of bread to my elderly aunt. That’s all she said she needed when I talked to her last night, after I baked her casserole. I would have been at home, binging on

    Read more

  • Bright and Dark

    He’d been here before and wanted to show her something magnificent.

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  • The Tempest

    “I felt my pulse quicken when lightning lit the sky again, it was far away and showed the line of floating houses”

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  • Tuesdays

    I didn’t need to read the headline, “Teacher arrested for Drunk Driving.” 

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  • What’s Your Best Trick?

    John noticed the barrier she’d put between them.

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  • Hotline

    Lucinda called the suicide hotline.. The counselor’s parting words were to cook something delicious just for herself. The counselor began with, “too hard to be alone, too hard to have a job you hate, too hard to be a senior citizen so far into debt the only way your life insurance would pay off would

    Read more

  • One of the “Thou shall nots” said not to kill; they decided they might as well do it anyway, but Moses, that wild man, parted a sea and took off like a shot

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  • Garden Luncheon

    Margaret took off her gardening gloves and surveyed her garden. The flowers were perfect. Never had her blooms been bigger or brighter than they were this summer. She took out her phone to take a picture. The blues, oranges, and reds were just phenomenal. She picked a blue one and took it into the house Read more

  • Barefoot Drama

    Image generated with AI. May first is Legal Barefoot Day. The day that my sister and brother and I were allowed to go outside without shoes and not get in trouble for it. Grass stains and bee stings were the worst that could happen to us. Mom would scrub our feet raw every night in Read more

  • Janet and Miranda Have Lunch

    Artist unknown. “Everything on this menu must have at least ten thousand calories,” Miranda said as she picked up her Chardonnay. Janet thought by the looks of her, she could use ten thousand calories. She could get a salad or a steak anywhere. But they were in an exquisite Indian restaurant that served the best Read more

  • Climbing the Rope

    Image generated with AI. Emmy fumed. She’d been struggling to climb that rope for three weeks and still hadn’t made it two feet off the ground. Her face was red, her hands burned, her thighs chafed. She headed to the dreaded locker room to change, so she could hear more jeers from the cheer leaders Read more

  • The Odd

    Sometimes, the odd is a catalyst for transcendence. Incessant noise and chatter become too much in everyday life and I want to lash out and run into a meadow of wildflowers and ferns, seek shelter in an old shed and call it a day. Call it a life.  The closer I get to reality, the Read more

  • Relaxation Prison

    One could call my home a relaxation prison. I don’t go anywhere or do anything of consequence to anyone but me. I plant and water flowers and watch them flourish along forest paths. I write in solitude. I prepare and eat my meals in solitude. I do everything alone. My warden, Norris, demands his cream. Read more

  • Today is the Day

    Today is the day I say goodbye to Thanksgiving break. Anxiety and depression levels are rising, tonight is a school night after all. No more messing around with cats, movies, music, and road trips. House cleaning and laundry will become more of the chore they were before, and less of a leisure activity, they were

    Read more

  • Pastry Time

    I am tempted to begin making my rough puff pastry for Christmas. It’s fully delicious and cheap to make. Yet it is  the most labor intensive of all the Christmas delicacies I create, It’s worth every moment it takes for its creation. Butter and flour, rolled, folded, refrigerated and repeated at least five times, it

    Read more

  • The Beaded Purse

    Sherri had her daughter’s heart’s desire. Annie needed a beaded clutch purse to go with her formal dress for the prom, just big enough to hold her lipstick and her glasses. Styles go round and round, and she sure enough saved the pocket book she’d taken to her formal dance years ago. Truth be told,

    Read more

  • Lightning Temper

    I wouldn’t have been in the grocery store on Thanksgiving morning if I didn’t need to take some dog food and a loaf of bread to my elderly aunt. That’s all she said she needed when I talked to her last night, after I baked her casserole. I would have been at home, binging on

    Read more

  • Bright and Dark

    He’d been here before and wanted to show her something magnificent.

    Read more

  • The Tempest

    “I felt my pulse quicken when lightning lit the sky again, it was far away and showed the line of floating houses”

    Read more

  • Tuesdays

    I didn’t need to read the headline, “Teacher arrested for Drunk Driving.” 

    Read more

  • What’s Your Best Trick?

    John noticed the barrier she’d put between them.

    Read more

  • Hotline

    Lucinda called the suicide hotline.. The counselor’s parting words were to cook something delicious just for herself. The counselor began with, “too hard to be alone, too hard to have a job you hate, too hard to be a senior citizen so far into debt the only way your life insurance would pay off would

    Read more

  • One of the “Thou shall nots” said not to kill; they decided they might as well do it anyway, but Moses, that wild man, parted a sea and took off like a shot

    Read more