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November 1

5-things12Wow! This week has really worn us out. Monday was a NIGHTMARE. We’re actually thinking some legislation needs to be passed restricting insane people’s access to email. Haven’t you received mail from someone that made your hair set on fire and it really would have been better for everyone involved if the sender wasn’t allowed to use email. Then Tuesday something SUPER EXCITING happened. You will be filled in at length in the coming week. Wednesday, Amylynn’s dog tried to commit suicide. Thursday something even more exciting mowinghappened that related to the wonderment of Tuesday. Friday came along and we’re emotionally drained. DRAINED. Still, funny things happened around the world and we found some of them.

1. Secret Mowers. The world has completely gone to hell. Criminal activity is out of control. Citizens of the world are running amok. If you were in doubt, we present this latest evidence. Someone in Liebenfels, Austria is running around mowing people’s grass. Really, what is the world coming to? How are we supposed to rest easy at night knowing that people are indiscriminately mowing fields? Why can’t people just leave other people’s grass lavender fieldalone? Why? Oh,the humanity.

2. Happiness and Health. A professor at the University of Arizona has stated, “We can design places for happiness and health.” We were pretty sure that’s exactly what Starbucks was, but we’re always up for an education so we read further. The good professor suggests that places that smell of lavender improve our mood. Also, seeing the trees outside will make you feel better. We are pretty secure in saying that there could be twelve-foot lavender bushes outside Bank of No Forks and that wouldn’t make us happy. We’re wondering how we’d feel if we just shoved a shish kaboblavender twig up our nose. If nothing else, that might get us a leave of absence from work. That would make us happy, just sayin’.

3. Good restaurants. Amylynn had a hankering for a gyro this week so she took Ava over to a place she used to go – The Shish Kabob House. It was every bit as good as she remembered. Even better was the waiter. We informed him that the restaurant was going to be featured in Our Favorite Things and he was suitably impressed. ian 1Terrence expressed pleasure at the idea, stating, “I haven’t been anyone’s favorite thing in a really long time.” He was as awesome as the potato chip/french fries hybrid next to our gyro. Honest to Zeus, best potato option since the French invented the pommes frites .

4. The Vampire Diaries. Generally, the Sisters don’t watch the CW – too much drama. But, they’ve tyler 1made an exception for the Vampire Diaries. Look at the photo right here to see why. This show is supposed to be about teenagers for teenagers. That is clearly not the case with all of the sex and drinking going on. fantasy braYou’ll love it too. Look here to see why. See?

5. Our cup runneth over. Every year the Sisters wait for Victoria’s Secret to present its bejeweled fantasy bra. We truly believe that one of our spouses will buy it for us for the holidays. We believe it, don’t judge. Every year that dream is dashed by the ridiculously small cup size of the bra. For some unknown reason, it’s always an A. Do the folks at VS think only tiny chest-free woman want a bra covered in gems? This year’s model has a 52-carat ruby dangling from the center the size of someone’s head. Rubies are one of our favorites. We also favor the 4200 additional rubies, blue and yellow sapphires and diamonds handset in the 18K gold. Sadly, we’re not getting the bra again this year. As hard as we tried, we weren’t able to diet down from our Ds to an A. Deep sigh.

Real world advice from the people who say it like it is

I present to you the Amylynn and Ava read aloud from Dear Abby portion of our morning ritual.

This is the letter in question

Dear Abby,
My fiancée, “Tina” and I made a resolution to lose weight for our wedding. Everything has been going great except for one thing. (Here’s where we roll our eyes in anticipation of the “THING”) because men lose weight faster than women, I know weigh less at 6 foot 1 than she does at 5 feet 4.
Tina already has self-esteem issues. I want to look good for our wedding, but not at the cost of my fiancée’s hurt feelings. What can I do?
-At A Loss In Michigan

Abby suggested nice pop-psychology answers that are very newspaper friendly. We’d like to offer AALIM some real world brideadvice. He’s gonna need it.

Dear At A Loss,
Go get some beer and some lovely carbs and start bulking up. Right now. Get in the car. There is nothing that pisses women off more than men losing weight faster and easier than women. There is no solution other than putting on some weight as fast as you can. We also suggest you do this in the closet because if she catches you eating cake when she’s had nothing but miserable meat and water for the last three months you’re going to die. Slowly.

This is actually a great test to see if you can become a successful husband. Women know they’re crazy. We’ve all embraced it. However, losing weight faster than her for your FREAKING WEDDING is the worst possible thing you could do. She’d probably take cheating on her at the bachelor party easier than you weighing less than her.

This is a problem. No kidding around.

Actually, we think your fiancée should reconsider this whole thing. No woman needs this kind of nonsense.

We don’t understand why people get so bent out of shape over kidnapping.

Sarah Wendell of SmartBitchesTrashyBooks came to our writing group this weekend to discuss critiques and clichés. She was super-duper fabulous! Her information was spot on and she is a hilarious speaker – one of the best I’ve ever seen. Amy and I discussed keeping her at one point, kind of like a pound puppy, but then we found out she had children . . . We could have listened to her for hours more.

This actually may be the same jacket.

This actually may be the same jacket.

The venue that the meeting was held at was new to our club and there really wasn’t enough space to hold us all and Sarah (although she’s a tiny little thing) and our annual giant fund raising raffle. While everyone else was appreciating Sarah’s talk – I was appreciating Sarah’s clothing choices. Being stuck in the corner of the room, with no direct line of site to the projector screen, I fixated on her outfit. Sarah wore the ultimate “I’m going to Tucson in Oct to Speak to a RWA Group” ensemble. She was chicly attired in a dusty pink jacket with chiffon ruffles peeking out from the hem and sleeves. She smartly paired the pink jacket with the perfect color mid-grey low pumps BUT the “pièce de résistance” was that the pumps had a ruffle along the top there-by echoing the ruffles on the jacket. She finished it off with black slacks and a grey lace top. Lovely.

Here are the pound puppies we want since we can't keep Sarah.

Here are the pound puppies we want since we can’t keep Sarah.

The only mistake she made was mixing her metals. I am totally opposed to mixed metals. You should never wear silver, gold, rose gold, etc. together unless you really work it into the theme of the outfit – no matter what those crazy designers that send unwearable clothes down the runways say, don’t do it. Sarah had on lovely silver hoops which gracefully supported the grey top and shoes BUT she had a gold watch. Yellow Gold. I know you’re all thinking – “Maybe she only has one watch, Ava! Cut her some slack!” Nope. No slack on this. If the watch doesn’t work, leave it off and consult one of the 900 electronic items we all carry these days for the time. The gold was totally wrong with the gray and dusty pink. Wrong. And that is what earned Sarah an A instead of the ever elusive A+. (Amylynn here – Ava is a bit militant about this. I mix metals all the time just to watch her grimace. Hey, a girl has to have a hobby.)

Just so you all know, I wasn’t the only crazy person in the room reviewing Sarah’s attire instead of giving my full attention to the lecture – someone else was doing it as well. I won’t give her name away (Amanda) but this person asked Sarah if she could take a picture of her shoes. Sarah didn’t bat an eyelash and readily agreed. She lives in Jersey and I’m sure she’s been asked by other strangers to take photos of far stranger personal items than her nattily attired feet . . .

October 25

5-things12We all got a new boss today at Bank of No Forks. Ava is always excited about that, certain that this new person will be the one to help us. “I like him,” she’ll say. Amylynn, on the other hand, will give Ava that look and say for the umpteenth time, “Ava, you’re so pretty.” As the realist, Amylynn reserves judgment. She’s more of a let’s-wait-and-see kind of a person. She gets less disappointed that way. Still, we got a free lunch out of the deal. Free lunch is good. Especially when it’s egg salad sandwiches with mayo,

Borrowed from the Witty people at Daily Finance

Borrowed from the Witty people at Daily Finance

cream cheese and bacon. God’s honest truth, bacon makes everything better. This week there was all kinds of funny stuff going on in the world. This is what we chose for you.

1. Dollar Menu. The McDonalds corporation is introducing some higher priced options in their dollar menu. That’s not funny, just stupid. What is funny is that they’re calling it “Dollar Menu and More”. Don’t you think it’s insane how stupid corporations think we are. It’s not “Dollar and More”, it’s just Menu at this point. So we think we’re going to change us to Quill Sisters and More. The More will be more snark, more sarcasm, and more Yosemite Sam 2absurdist articles about animals our husbands, and sometimes the government, won’t let us have.

2. Crotchety old men. We have a lot of retirement communities out here. Usually they’re very quiet and you don’t hear anything about them except for maybe a string of burglaries once in a while. There was some excitement this week, though. A 68-year-old gentleman woke up and his wife wasn’t in bed, so he went out to the guest house and found his 63-year-old wife in bed with a 22-year-old man. The old gent poked the kid with his cane – we love that part – to wake him up and tell him to get out. We hope he poked him REALLY hard. We can’t wait till we can start poking people with canes. The kid got all belligerent and cursed the old man out, which prompted the old man to go get

Oh MY!

Oh MY!

his gun. The kid ended up getting shot in the hand by what seemed to be a ricochet. We didn’t learn the wife’s response to all this. And once again we have more questions than answers. The police did say it was really rather exciting since it happened in a senior community. We’ll bet this will be BBQ fodder for months.

3.British Tushies. The British Rowing Team does a calendar every year in an effort to fight homophobia. Naked. Yes indeed. Naked as the day they were born. Each and every one of these boys has a perfect body from all that…rowing. And being young. The calendar is a thing of beauty, we’ll tell you. There are pictures of naked rowing. And naked swimming. And naked shaving. And chasing puppies around in a field. Naked. With strategically placed weeds and such. Follow the jump and you’ll

We always ask for crazy shit really nicely

We always ask for crazy shit really nicely

get to where you need to order the calendar. Get one for your mother and sister and gay friend George. Or anyone else naked in your life. Down with homophobia. And strategically placed weeds.

4.Hall of Frames. We showed up at this business this week with an insane request. We realized it was outrageous, but nevertheless, we had every intention of making it. We needed some things framed for an event and we needed them in record time. AND we didn’t want to pay very much for it. We went to Hall of Frames because they guy who runs the place is really nice. He’s also a little odd, which we find appealing. We were waiting outside the store before it opened. To begin the schmoozing process we held his coffee while he opened the door. Then the man with the stars tattooed on his face proceeded to TOTALLY HELP US. Surely you know from our blog, that never actually happens.kleancolor No one really helps us. Ever. So, Jeff from Hall of Frames, you are officially the most talented, nicest guy to put up with our crazy whims since our grandfather died. Good work. We’re going to keep you – you will be the only person we ever ask to do our framing. We’ll bet your sorry now.

5. Keancolor Nail Polish. Amylynn found this stuff on the internet and we’re officially in love. The colors are outstanding – especially the Holo colors. The sparkle is mesmerizing. Never in a million years did we ever think we’d consider wearing green nail polish, but there it is, on our toes. We can’t stop looking at it, which is a serious problem, especially when we’re driving or on the stairs. The best part? We’ll be able to compliment our full-body casts nicely when we’re released from the hospital.

The answer is not Amazon

A woman had a baby in a Barnes & Noble this past week. She went in there to buy a book. The stupid news article

This is way too boring for this scenario

This is way too boring for this scenario

didn’t say what book. Good Night, Moon? What Do Labor Pains Feel Like? How to Deliver a Baby in the Self-Help Section?

Damn it, it just kills me when they don’t answer any questions.

Also, what the heck was she doing there anyway? Where were her people? Was this her first kid or her seventh?

Clearly this woman needs assistance.

October 18

5-things12We don’t know what’s going on here, but we’re having a hell of a time concentrating on anything. We’ve flit from one thing to another all day. It’s taken hours to write the Five Things and a ridiculous time trying to get our Bank of No Forks work done. We’ve wandered over to the jigsaw puzzle, touched all the pieces, and then wandered away again. We keep opening our writing projects but there has been no new words added there either. We’re fairly certain we haven’t finished a single conversation all day. Before you suggest that Chipoltewe’ve had too much caffeine we’ll tell you that we didn’t even finish that today. Hopefully we make it through the funny things…

1. People making stuff up. The Sisters drug themselves over to the neighborhood Chipolte for lunch this week. This sign greeted us at the counter. Go ahead and read it (click for a bigger pic). We’ll wait here and munch on some bacon while we wait. So now we ask you, who the hell is “bacon-averse”? What does that even mean? Amylynn accused the kid behind the counter of making that up. No one is “bacon-averse”. At first we thought we didn’t even want to know anyone who was averse to bacon, assuming that they’d be so philosophically far from our point of view that they wouldn’t be worth knowing. On second thought, wouldn’t that just mean more bacon for us? We’re color chickenoff for BLTs for lunch.

2. Poulet – part deux. We read an article about how many more colors chickens can see than humans. We didn’t learn an actual number but it amounts to a crap-load. They can see totally different rainbows than we can since they can see infrared and scads of other colors. Now don’t you somehow feel cheated on an evolutionary scale? We do, still we’re not keen on laying eggs in exchange for more colors. And we don’t like exercise so we’re not going to start crossing a homerbunch of roads for no damn reason.

3. Naps. A new study about sleep suggests that your brain uses its down time to clean up in there. The scientists described it as a cleaning spree, saying that it “flushes out gunk that builds up while we’re awake.” We resent that we’re always working. Jeez now we can’t even enjoy a nap knowing that our brains are in there Lysoling everything down. It’s ridiculous. The other thing that disturbed us about the article was that it stated, “despite decades of research, scientists can’t agree on the basic purpose of sleep.” Seriously? If we don’t get sleep some of us are excessively cranky. Have they never met a three-year-old? The only thing we learned from this was

Pancake & Sugar Tree

Pancake & Sugar Tree

that we need to start applying for more scientific study grants. Just as soon as we take this na….zzzzzzzzz.

4. Pancake and Sugar Tree. Sounds yummy, right? Totally not. If you put these in your mouth you’re going to be very sorry when you come away with a bunch of pet hair in your pie hole. Pancake is a kitty who just won her mother $10,000 from the Friskies Awards people who award prize money for kitty videos on the internet. Sugar Tree is her Doberman best friend and they both live right near us. We found the video and were not especially impressed, but then we may be jaded because Jojo Kitty is the best kitty EVER. You can go decide for yourself (follow the jump above). Also, we learned that Pancake’s Mom also owns camels, emus, sheep and ostriches. Why the hell do all these people get all these animals and

We don't think babies should have beards

We don’t think babies should have beards

we can’t have anything? So un-freaking-fair.

5. Reasons to celebrate. Today is National No Beard Day. Look if you need a reason to drink – or shave – then here you go. We’d like it noted that we don’t have beards. Never have. Not really looking into acquiring one. Nobody said anything about leg hair, which we have because regardless of what it says on our dashboard thermometer, the calendar says it’s winter. Surprisingly, we don’t have a very strong opinion about beards. Crazy, huh? We have strong opinions about EVERYTHING. Beards are alright by us so long as you don’t have owls living in there. Especially when they’re worn by Robert Downey, Jr.

Today’s humiliation is brought to you by the number seven

My dad had a stroke several years ago. I mention this so when I tell you this story it will have context and you won’t think my dad is as crazy as I am.

I took him out to lunch on one of my days off this week. Lunch out always runs into a bunch of errands that he needs to run. We went to the library and to get his glasses fixed.

“Stop by the bank,” he said. “I need some cash.”

No problem. I found a bank branch along our errand route and pulled into the parking lot.

“Give me your ATM card and I’ll get it for you.” I extended my hand for the rectangle of plastic. “How much do you want? Twenty dollars?”

“Oh, no. I don’t need that much,” he said.

“Well that’s the smallest denomination the ATM has.” seven

“I only want seven dollars.”

SEVEN DOLLARS.

I held back my whimpers as I held the door open for him to shuffle inside.

When I saw the line, the line we were about to get in for seven freakin’ dollars, I said “I’ll give you seven dollars. In fact, I’ll give you ten. Three extra for agreeing to leave.” I knew this wouldn’t work but I gave it a shot because hope springs eternal and all.

I already knew what he was going to say – “I don’t want your seven dollars, I want my seven dollars. I have my own money.”

We waited for over twenty minutes to get two singles and a five-dollar bill.

I’m always afraid when I take him into the bank and take over the transaction for him that the teller will be certain that I’m coercing him into giving me his money. You hear these stories all the time – unscrupulous children and confused parents.

Not this time. When I told her he wanted to withdraw seven dollars her look definitely wasn’t suspicious.

I appreciate her waiting to laugh until we left the window.

September 27

5-things12Do you realize there are less than 90 shopping days until Christmas? 69 days until Ava’s birthday. Sooner, but no less important, it’s only 4 days till the start of hockey season. Can you believe how time just FLIES by? Remember when you were a kid, adults were always trying to tell you that time passed so quickly and you didn’t believe them. Wow, it’s so true. We don’t really like it. Sadly, no amount of complaining makes time slow down. Unless you working at Bank of No Forks. Then, for at least nine hours a day, time moves at the

We do like fat birds

We do like fat birds

speed of a tired sloth. Good thing we have all this time to screw around and find funny things. Things like these.

1. Kiwis to the Antarctic. We learned that a New Zealand airline is planning regular flights to the Antarctic. When we heard this we thought, well that will be an opportunity lost. The Sisters have no plans to go to the Antarctic because it’s very, very cold there, and we don’t do the cold. Once the temp outside hits 70 we’re complaining about the bitter weather and digging out the fur coats. Then we read further in the article and discovered it’s only for scientists and their support crews. Now we’re disappointed we won’t be allowed go. That’s discrimination and now we feel like complaining about it. We don’t like being told no. We’re smart enough to be scientists, we just chose to write a snarky blog instead. Still, we probably wouldn’t be scientists that study “cold” anyway. We have no idea why

All that fish makes you thirsty

All that fish makes you thirsty

any of this upsets us. We only include it to show you that we are very self-aware of our craziness.

2. Mindful bears. Did you know that if a bear wanders into your bar in Juneau, Alaska all you have to do is yell, “No bear! Get out! No! You can’t be in here!” and said bear will go back outside? Who would have thought that wild bears can mind better than children? We’ve tried yelling that exact same thing (substituting “kid” for “bear”) and nothing

Litsemba with her son

Litsemba with her son

happens. Because we wanted to go about this scientifically (see #1) we tried calling the kids “bear” but that didn’t work either. Really, we’re so confused.

3. Cruelty to elephants. The 24-year-old elephant in the zoo is pregnant. We are beyond delighted by that news. At least we were until we read that the zoo keepers have every intention of making certain Litsemba gets plenty of exercise during the pregnancy. Did you know the gestational period for elephants is 24 months. TWO YEARS! They’re 100 billgoing to make that poor girl exercise after she’s been carrying an ELEPHANT around in her stomach for TWO YEARS? Jeeez, and they wonder why pregnant women are so nasty.

4. New money! They’ve redesigned the $100 dollar bill. They’re describing it as “glitzier”. Oooooh. What’s not enticing about glitzy money? There is part of the Declaration of Independence and a quill and ink well that changes color. To commemorate the occasion, we’ve called our local Federal Reserve bank and ordered up a sheet of uncut bills. We requested one suitable for framing. They asked what credit card we wanted to use. Well, none of course. We’re the Quill Sisters. It has our name right there on the bill. They hung up on us. What the hell is that all about? They’re printing 2.5 billion new bills and they can’t spare one sheet of them for the namesake? All that complaining and now that black car is sitting in the driveway again. ted cruz AP

5. Faux Filibusters. We’re always thinking of new careers. Bank of No Forks will do that to you. This latest opportunity was one we’d never even considered. Honestly, we didn’t know it was even a thing, but now that we do know, we’re getting business cards made up. Filibusters R Us. So you know how we prattle on here at the blog? We can do that in person too. Our husbands are always asking what we could possibly have to talk about since we spend nine hours a day together and then still manage to have things to say via text all evening. Don’t you run out of things to say? No, indeed. We do not. Trust us when we say we could stand in front of Congress and talk for twenty hours. We wouldn’t even have to read Dr. Suess.

The meaning of life as told by a pop star

Many years ago, no longer being a teenager and all, I came to the realization that I know very little about anything. And each and every day that goes by contains further proof that I know even less than nothing about everything.

Sometimes, I learn new stuff from a surprising source. No, not the Bank of No Forks – seriously, I know what a small dessert is. A small dessert is an item that makes me extremely unhappy.

But I digress. I learned something from Justin Timberlake. No need to run for your glasses, you read that right.

J U S T I N T I M B E R L A K E.

The children who live at my house love, love, love him. They think he’s a great singer, actor, and comedian. They have no idea that he used to be a geeky 11-year-old Mouseketeer. Apparently, neither does JayZ.

There was an interview with him in the New York Times. In it he says and I quote “Y’know, life doesn’t happen in

This would be the "Demin area" - so you're not confused.

This would be the “Demin area” – so you’re not confused.

black and white’ The gray area is where you become an adult . . .” How profound is that?

WTF? He couldn’t have come up with that on his own. Who has he been talking to? It can’t be JayZ, that crazy named his baby “Blue Ivy” for crying out loud!

If anyone had ever told me I’d learn a usable quote from Justin Timberlake I would have laughed myself silly. But there you have it; I’ve used it twice already. Now if he could just figure out the instructions for that gray area, we’d be all set.

You work on that Justin Freud. Thanks.

September 20

5-things12It’s Friday! The day after Thursday! The high holy day at Bank of No Forks. We’re doing a special edition of The Five Things this week. We stumbled on it entirely by accident and then were inspired. You know we pride ourselves in keeping you abreast of all the stupid stuff you need to know. It’s a tough job. Think of all the stupid stuff we have to sift through before we find just the right stupid stuff. Sit back

Scott from his Town & Country shoot

Scott from his Town & Country shoot

and enjoy the following – Four Pretty Boys and the Purse We’re Going to Shove Them In. You’re welcome.

1. Scott Eastwood. Son of Clint. That alone should be sufficient, but we’ll continue. Wow. What a lucky winner of the DNA lottery, huh? He looks remarkably like his father here. Of course, he spouts that nonsense about wanting to earn his celebrity, that he’s not cashing in on his father’s notoriety, so he’s waiting to pay his dues to be a huge star. What the hell ever. He’s 27, what is he waiting for? This is like those lottery winners who

David violining it up

David violining it up

say they’re going to keep working. If we had a famous father you can rest assured that the Sisters would cash in as many times as we could take that check to the bank.

2. David Garrett. David is a German virtuoso violinist who started playing at the age of four. He’s studied everywhere and under all the influential teachers. We haven’t heard him, but we assume the critics know what they’re talking about. When Ava first brought this boy to our attention, Amylynn’s initial reaction was that he seemed arrogant. A big ego turns her off. Ava rightly pointed out that was a stupid thing to say as we had no intention of actually talking to him. Ava is very wise. Probably because she’s five years older than Amylynn. Five whole years. That means she’s way

Prince Carl of the unpronouncable.

Prince Carl of the unpronouncable.

too old for this boy anyway.

3. Prince Carl Phillip, Duke of Varmland. We don’t have any idea where Varmland is. We think they made it up. One of his sisters has an equally hinky name: Princess Madeleine, Duchess of Hälsingland and Gästrikland. What? We’d call shenanigans except they’ve got that prince/princess business in front of their names. And, more importantly, he’s adorable. We’ve long acted like we’re royalty already so hooking up with a

Well, then.

Well, then.

pretty prince or duke or whatever suits our temperament just fine. They’re from Sweden. We LOVE Sweden. We’ve never actually been there, but it sounds very appealing so long as ABBA keeps to themselves while we’re there.

4. Martin Sensmeier. We don’t want you to think we’re not equal opportunity lovers of pretty boys. Or that we are only drawn to Europeans. That is so not true. We present this beautiful American Indian. Honest to whatever God is in charge of hair – have you ever seen anything like it? Nary a split end in sight. Yowza. We’d also like to point out that there aren’t very many people who can pull off the double denim phenomenon without looking like

BIRKIN!! by Hermes

BIRKIN!! by Hermes

an unimaginative bozo. Not Martin. He’s like a walking billboard for Panteen and Levi.

5. Hermes Birkin bag. If you happen to be a heterosexual of the male persuasion OR any other person who knows nothing about what’s important, the Birkin bag is a uber-ritzy purse originally made by Hermes for model/singer Jane Birkin in the early 1980’s. Now it’s become iconic and the style is produced by many others. An “Exceptional Collection Shiny Rouge H Porosus Crocodile 30 cm Birkin Bag with Solid 18K White Gold & Diamond Hardware” just sold at auction in Dallas for $203,150, making it the world’s most expensive purse. Birkin is a large purse – just right for toting little boys around in.

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