Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I close the bedroom door behind me, sighing with relief that he didn’t wake up, then hit the bathroom. When I come out, I’ve got my boots in my hand and I take them over to the front door and put them in their cubby.
My foyer is a testament to order. Every pair of boots, sneakers, and flip-flops has their place in a cubby. Every coat has a hook to hang on. Every pair of gloves, every scarf, every hat has a basket to live in on the long maple bench and there are two cupboards on either side that hold anything that is too ugly to display.
I’m a freak about organization and presentation. It’s everything. Having an ordered home with pretty things on display just makes me feel good even when my head is pounding with a Day After hangover.
I hit the kitchen for vitamin C and coffee. Orange juice first, then a steaming cup of Sexy Cinnamon with a splash of cinnamon-vanilla creamer.
I take that first sip leaning against the counter and sigh as I stare up at my disgustingly cheerful kitchen.
My cabinets are old—like pretty much everything in this house—but they have been brought back to life with lots of sanding, and paint, and love. My favorite color is sea-foam green, so that’s the color I painted the cabinets. There is a splash of tangerine orange here and there—curtains, dishtowels, bowls—to make it all pop and all of this looks pretty fun contrasted with the dark walnut butcher block counters. The floor is also walnut, wide planks that were harvested a hundred years ago. I salvaged them from a house three hours away in Kentucky and since my house is modest in size, I was able to do the entire first floor with that wood.
I love this place. It’s not the biggest house in Disciple, but it’s definitely the most loved, at least in my opinion. Our town is cute. The homes in Disciple were all built right around the same time about a hundred years ago. They all started out pretty much the same—Craftsman-style—but over the years people have customized them. Most have two floors, but some have three now. The paint colors change every once in a while. My house is not sea-foam green on the outside, but it’s as close as you can get without being obnoxious. More of a sage, I guess. The porch is the best thing about this house. It’s all cobblestone with cedar trusses and beams. In fact, all the trim and accents on the outside of the house are cedar and cobblestone. It looks like something out of a woodland fairytale and it’s all just so lovely, I sigh every night when I get home.
To say that I am a vintage girl would be an understatement. It’s literally my life because I own McBooms, a retro antique shop that was made world famous when Jet Shadows, host of Jet’s Junk on that one cable channel we all love, came to my store and did a whole episode. Then he came back! Three times over the next two years.
One of those years—mmm. I take a sip of coffee and chuckle—he was my one-night stand for the Day. That was fun.
I look over at my bedroom door and wonder if that’s Jet in there. But no. Jet doesn’t have tattoos. Plus, we haven’t talked in a couple years now. He got engaged, then broke it off, then married the woman in Vegas. He called me that night to tell me goodbye and his life was over and that he secretly loved me. He’s kind of a dramatic guy.
I haven’t heard from him since.
It’s not Jet and it’s not Grimm. So who cares? I’ll wake him up in a few minutes and kick him out and then get on with my life.
I look out my window as I sip the coffee. It’s a nice spring day. The leaves started coming back on the trees a couple weeks ago and even though there are still a few gaps on the hills, they will be an almost impenetrable cover of green in just another week or two. April in West Virginia is extraordinary.
When evaluating one’s life, and looking down at a diagram where chaos lives on one side of the line and perfection lives on the other, I’m solidly in perfection territory. Business owner, homeowner, same friends since childhood. It’s all pretty nice, and organized, and in order. But becoming an adult started off kinda rough in my case.
Losing our mama was an unexpected blow and it completely derailed my college career and dreams of being a veterinarian. I came home from West Virginia University to take care of Bryn—who isn’t the kind of girl who normally needs taking care of—and, well, I never left Disciple again. Not in the literal sense, of course. I leave town all the time for my picking adventures. I do that one week a month. This week, in fact.