The book that I’m writing is making me crazy. It’s by far the hardest one to research yet–and I thought the one where the cast went to Greece had been difficult. Believe me, it’s nothing compared to this one.

And the craziest part is, the bulk of this “Regency” takes place in America. Early America. 1815 America to be exact. You’d think that would be a lot easier to research what with me being an American and all, but this has been a nightmare. Everyone thinks they know the answer and I’ve been given lots of advice, all of which I know is unequivocally wrong based on what I’ve learned so far. Everyone is an expert who doesn’t know shit.

I don’t want to divulge the actual issue I’m dealing with–I’ll have it all worked out eventually (bah!!!!) and you can read it when it comes out–but it has to do with traveling. I’ve been all over the internet. I’ve read old books, read personal accounts, looked at maps on line till my eyes crossed. I’ve contacted the Missouri State Historical Society, who sent me to, of all places, The Arizona State Historical Society–more on that later. I’ve

can you even remember the last time you used one of these?

requested historical articles from the 1816 Missouri Gazette. Yet, I’m still floundering over a specific issue. I wish I could just change my plot and get rid of this nightmare, but that’s not going to work out either.

I started out today with a great deal of hope. I headed down to the AZ Historical Society library. I’ve never been in a historical reading room before. Not that I don’t have hopes of making it to the Vatican and poking around in their library some day. At least now I’ll be prepared. Did you know you can’t take anything in the room with you? ANYTHING. The librarian made me sign a huge form that promised a long and protracted death should I maim the books in any way such as marking in them, folding or tearing a page, or exhaling garlic breath on the bindings.  Then she gave me a quarter and told me to put EVERYTHING in a locker outside. No, I may not keep a notebook. No, not a pen either. I shoved my purse into the locker, but squirreled my cell phone in my jeans pocket, because really. After a stern look from the librarian, she gave me the book I needed.

It was in fabulous shape considering it was written in 1818. I suspect that’s because no one is

I don’t know what library they’re at but this would not have been allowed where I was

allowed to look at the books too sternly.

Don’t you know the minute I settled in with my official AZ Historical Society pencil and piece of blue paper parceled out for notes, my nose started running. I didn’t have any Kleenix since I didn’t have my purse. There was none in the library either. What the hell would they do to me if I got snot on their book? Holy shit. I was terrified. I sniffed and sniffed and sniffed until I started sounding like a cocaine addict.

At one point, I noticed someone–someone who was NOT me–had made “x’s” in the margin on pages 164 and 165. Do I narc them out? Do I erase them? What if the librarian noticed me erasing and assumed I wrote the “x’s” in the first place. She’d never believe the girl with the obvious cocaine addiction if I told them it wasn’t me. I quickly turned the page just in case. I have no idea what was on those pages. I’ll bet the exact information I needed was right there.  I’ll never know.

I left the library still frustrated, but not remanded to the library prison so I consider that a win. Still, I’m not accepting any calls that come from that number.

Half of my family is from Missouri and My Honey’s is from Arkansas and Oklahoma. Plus, we live in AZ so there’s always access to guns running in the background. As you can guess, there is a serious redneck gene running through my kids’ blood–something my husband is quite proud of, actually. I do my best to make my children speak proper English and urge them to have an expansive desire to fulfill their curiosity, thus not falling into the stereotypical redneck trap.

But then there’s my boy.

We’ve always had trouble with him and clothes. He had a real aversion to underwear when he was little. As a toddler, the day care asked me to make sure he was wearing some when I dropped him off. It got so that I would have to do a butt check at the front door and send him back in for drawers.

These days he’s embraced the concept of underwear. So much so in fact, that now I’ve had to enforce a rule that pants must be worn to the dinner table. The minute he gets home from school, off go his pants.

Then he requested white “wife-beater” tank tops from Walmart that he wears with his underwear to sleep in. And walk around the house in. And eat dinner in if his father and I allowed it. The two of us find this disconcerting.

Now his sister on the other hand, LOVES clothes. She wears approximately seventy-five outfits a day, all of which then end up on the floor of her room requiring laundering. Am I the only parent who has a conniption when they find folded clothes, married sock pairs, and clothes still on hangers in the dirty-clothes basket? Invariably they will be moldering under a wet towel thus requiring that they be washed AGAIN.

I’m like Sisyphus with the laundry. I’m always doing it – washing, folding, putting away. The very second it’s done, the laundry baskets are full again and no one has “anything to wear.”

Not that the boy cares. He’d be just as happy as a pig in mud to wear dirty underwear and a dingy t-shirt for the rest of his life.

You’ve probably seen this on television, but there’s a few more silly seconds at the end they’re not showing on the networks that are totally worth while.

You’re welcome.

You know what’s crazy? We always made fun of our retired friends and family because they were always so busy all the time. What could they possibly be doing every day? Why were they out driving? Where were they going? Did they really have that many doctors’ appointments? Turns out, now that we’re unemployed, we’re so damn busy we can’t believe it. People know we’re off work so they have a million things they need us to do. There hasn’t been one single day where we sat around and did nothing. We don’t like it. It’s darn inconvenient. We’d been looking forward to doing a whole lot of nothing. Yep, no. Nope. Never fear, though, we still have plenty of time to find funny stuff. Here you go.

1. Prep & Pastry. We’d heard about this place a while ago, but hadn’t made it in yet. We’re sorry we waited so long. We did what we always do – order two things and then split them both. As hearty connoisseurs of pancakes, we ordered the chef’s whim pancakes—strawberry infused plate sized cakes, nice and thin, crispy on the edges, and golden brown. Slices of strawberry were mixed throughout. The whole glorious stack was topped with slivers of toasted almonds, more strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate drizzle. Honest to Zeus, it was the best thing we’d had in our mouths in quite a while. We also got the Monte Cristo of which we are rabid fans. It was tasty, too, but it paled in comparison to the pancakes. If it sounds like we’re writing a love letter to those pancakes, we totally are. Also to the excellent service. Nathan the owner stopped by and we gushed. He seemed pleased to be listed as a favorite thing on our site. For the rest of our sojourn we were treated like minor celebrities. We totally are—in our own mind, of course.

2. Dear Amy. A letter in the advice column of the Picayune the other day was seeking advice on an issue with a family member. They were trying to decide if they needed to attempt a reconciliation with a cousin whose wife is a “mean-spirited drama queen.” Hey! Wait a minute, was this letter about us? We conferred with each other and determined that we are NOT mean-spirited. Most of the time. We read further. The advice included the following, “You can’t figure out what that message is because your special crazy cousin decoder ring is broken.” Whoa! There is totally a market for this. Someone needs to notify NASA or Bill Gates or that guy who invented the internet and get them on this right away. The applications are endless.

3. Using all the words. The Sisters talk, a lot. While doing so we like to use all the words available to us. As usual, we get some flak for this. The Girl Who Lives at Ava’s House has established a moratorium on words with more than two syllables. We ignore her. This week we got eyerolls and blank stares when we used the words “puerile” and “fortuitous”. We’ll be the first to admit we couldn’t spell puerile all by ourselves, but we could use it correctly in a sentence. We’re given so many opportunities with all those teenagers in our houses. Amylynn wished the cable repair guy “fortuitous shopping” on black Friday only to get a shake of the head and a furrowed brow in return. We can’t help ourselves. These things just come out of our mouths. We simply think people should play along.

4. Morons. Two teenagers in Houston, Texas tried to carjack someone only to discover the car was a stick shift. The idiots then held the driver at gunpoint and demanded that he teach them to drive it. Can you imagine how that went? The driver screaming, “More clutch! More clutch!” all the while the gears were grinding into dust. Ultimately, the driver was forced from the vehicle and a short police chase ensued. The teens “had issues operating the vehicle” and abandoned the car only to be caught when they fled on foot. No

This could solve everything.

information was given about what kind of car it was—Ford Pinto or Maserati. Ava has teenagers in her house and believes every word of this story is true. There’s a moral in this somewhere. We’re just not sure what it is.

5. You’ll burn your eyes out. An arrest was made in Salt Lake City, Utah for a 77-year-old man for sun bathing in the nude back in March. He has a fence around his yard, but it’s chain-link with no privacy slats. We have many concerns here, as we’re sure you can imagine. We’re not even going to touch the man’s age. That’s too easy; the jokes write themselves on that one. Let’s start with what the hell took them so long to issue the arrest warrant? It’s been NINE months. What the hell are they doing in Salt Lake City that’s so damn important that this atrocity hasn’t been stopped? Also, in MARCH? Isn’t it still pretty darn cold in Utah in March? Exactly how tan does this man need to be? He contends he’s allowed to do what he wants in his own yard, but the members of the church next door disagree and would like him to put his junk away. We’re going to start a Kickstarter fund for a Speedo for the guy. Or fence slats. Or a tanning bed.

So, I’ve been trying to figure out what to blog about tonight and was drawing a blank. I was chatting with Kurt in Alaska. He’s still working that move to New Zealand angle from a couple of months ago. He’s always proposing ideas for how we can get there. They’re always a little bit insane. This particular one involved him selling his right kidney. Very specifically his right one. I have been charged with staying in the operating room to make sure they leave the left one the hell alone. He’s very, very specific about this.

While I was having this text conversation, My Honey was rummaging around in the fridge for a snack.

He came out with summer sausage which he shared with Winnie the Wonder Mutt and Jojo (and HE’s the one who’s always calling my perfect cat fat). When he went back to the kitchen, I heard the distinct sound of the spray of whipped cream.

Winnie was curious about what that was all about. So he fed some to the dog. Yep. She sat down in the floor, he opened her mouth and filled it up with whipped cream. She couldn’t decide what she thought of that. She looked a bit rabid, actually, with “foam” all over her mouth and her tongue working furiously. Finally a slow wag increased to a fast one. Winnie will wag over anything. She’s stupid like that.

So of course, that made Roscoe the Bloodhound wander over to find out what all the excitement was about. So My Honey made him sit down and have a snort of whipped cream. He enjoyed it considerably less.

Winnie took a second dose and then they both fled to sit with me on the couch and stare at their father warily.

He offered some to Jojo Kitty, but he was having none of that crap. I actually think Joe would have killed him if he tried to fill his mouth with whipped cream.

“The kitty was not amused” is what I’d put on his headstone.

Something SUPER exciting happened to the Sisters today. We’re not going to tell you what it is yet. Thursday. That’s the day. Tune in on Thursday for the big reveal.

As for now, Amylynn read an article that gave her a good snort. A company called School Stickers tracked 60,000 children and has released a list of the top ten names of most often poorly-behaved kids.

See if your kid’s on here. Here you go:

Top 10 Worst-Behaved Girl Names:

1. Ella
2. Bethany
3. Eleanor
4. Olivia
5. Laura
6. Holly
7. Courtney
8. Amber
9. Caitlin
10. Jade

Top 10 Worst-Behaved Boy Names:

1. Joseph
2. Cameron
3. William
4. Jake
5. Joshua
6. Jamie
7. Lewis
8. Benjamin
9. Ethan
10. Luke

We know we don’t mention our kid’s actual names on this site, but we want to assure you that none of our kids are on this list. Clearly there has been some holes in their research.

The list of top ten names of the most often well-behaved kids is equally interesting.

Top 10 Best-Behaved Girl Names:

1. Amy
2. Georgia
3. Emma
4. Charlotte
5. Grace
6. Sophie
7. Abigail
8. Hannah
9. Emily
10. Alice

Top 10 Best-Behaved Boy Names:

1. Jacob
2. Daniel
3. Thomas
4. James
5. Adam
6. Harry
7. Samuel
8. Jack
9. Oliver
10. Ryan

One of the Sister’s kids is on these lists.

Most importantly, we like you to note the name in the #1 position of the Girls list. I have bolded and italicized it for your convenience.

You all just keep that in mind when we report on our latest shenanigans.

Ava here – I do find this amusing AND unbelievable. At least Amy could have inserted her name forth or fifth to make it more believable – but first? FIRST? I call shenanigans, Amy!!!! Shenanigans!

Ho ho ho! I’m here to tell you Jojo Kitty would slay that thing in a heartbeat.

Prepare yourself for a Mother of the Year blog post.

So I just spent five straight days with my children since I’m unemployed and they were on Thanksgiving break.

Those people are loud. Really loud. All the time. I think the girl even sleeps noisy when she actually sleeps. When they’re not goofing around loudly, then they’re fighting loudly. This scenario can change at the wink of an eye. They’re messy and they’re always hungry.

I was trying desperately to get some writing done. I was behind in my word count but those people follow me from room to room.

I actually started to panic a bit. What the hell am I going to do when we have fourteen straight days together over Christmas?

Then it came to me.

My Honey and I are always saying these kids are soft. Compared to what we had to endure–we were both indentured servants for self-employed fathers, there were CHORES, and our parents (at least the dads) were hard assed–our kids are living in Beverly Hills-like bliss.

I’m going to hire them out as migrant workers for that two weeks. Let them pick grapes or oranges or lettuce for two weeks, that’ll teach them to appreciate what they have at home, and they’ll learn what hard work is like. Also, being that we live in the South West, maybe they’ll get a leg up on becoming bilingual with that sort of immersion. And they’re not even going to miss any school. And you know what else? They’ll have a great topic for the obligatory What I Did Over Christmas Vacation essay when they get back.

Oh yeah. I’m loving this idea. Let me know if you want me to find a position for your kids, too.

It was 85 degrees here on Thanksgiving. Even we think it was a bit warm for this time of year. Still, we did enjoy watching the snowy Thanksgiving Day Parade from New York, in our beds, with the ceiling fan on. And playing football in the grass while wearing shorts is pretty nifty. Even factoring in the gorgeous weather, our favorite thing about Thanksgiving is eating pie for breakfast on Friday. A little sliver of chocolate, a hunk of pumpkin and a slice of berry–the breakfast of champion Quill Sisters. As we head into the shopping season, we’d like to share just one of the brilliant ideas we have on a regular basis. We keep many of these to ourselves, but this one is perfect for today. It’s Black Friday – Get a Black Kitten! We think this is a marketing idea we could really get behind. Here, laugh at this stuff while we make up some posters.

1. The plague. It’s back. Every year we find a news clipping that brings up the plague. Maybe we’re stupid but we’re not exactly sure which plague they’re talking about. The Black Plague? The Bubonic Plague? When we looked it up, it seems that The Black Plague IS the Bubonic Plague. Shows what we know. What we did learn is that there are a whole bunch of plagues we didn’t even know about. Now we’re all freaked out. When we put in our symptoms into WebMD, turns out we might have all of them. That, ladies and gentlemen, is why the internet is bad. Anyway, the

We don’t know if this was THE horse, but still. Why?

World Heath Organization reports that 40 people have died from “the plague” and 119 have been diagnosed since August of this year in Madagascar. Turns out we’re not getting a lemur this year.

2. Brotherly love. The police arrested some goofball for punching a police horse. That alone is awful, and we think there should be a creative punishment for him. That’s not the funny part of the story because that’s not funny. Here we go. During his arrest, the police found marijuana and drug paraphernalia in his pockets. The moron in question stated that the pants belonged to his brother.

Oh, come on!

Nice. We hope his brother kicked his ass. But still, as Amylynn’s husband noted when she read him the story, “Weren’t his pants with him all day?” Dear god, we hope so.

3. We need a koala. The G20 Summit was held this month in Brisbane, Australia. All the leaders of the world show up to discuss important things like ending the Ebola epidemic (see plague above – we’re just sayin’) and fixing the economy. This is important stuff, we think we’ll all agree. But the most important thing happened when the koalas showed up. It seems the Sisters are never in the

Oh yeah, this looks delightful

right place at the right time. You can’t believe how envious we are that they got to actually HOLD A KOALA. No one will even let us touch one. Damn it! The Sisters are considering running for president. Two women are better than whatever else they can come up with. We don’t really want the job, but the perks are outrageous.

4. Sleeping in on Black Friday. Usually Amylynn is one of those crazies who gets up in the middle of the night (or more likely, just stays up. It’s easier in the long run) to go shopping on Black Friday. Not this year. Nothing in the ads really struck her fancy. We can’t tell you how much better it is sleeping in with Jojo the Cat than getting sweaty and annoyed in Target at that ridiculous hour in the morning. Besides, that whole being unemployed thing is really going to give us extra time to shop for Christmas anyway. Maybe it’s a new tradition.

5. Best pretzel rolls ever! Ava doesn’t really care for the part of Thanksgiving that includes turkey and the trimmings. We know, odd right? Maybe even unAmerican. In her defense, her family used to eat Chinese food for Thanksgiving so it’s not really her fault she doesn’t like turkey. Before you march to her house with pitch forks, she does like pumpkin pie so simmer down. Now to the pretzel rolls. For some unknown reason, Ava’s family got pretzel rolls for Thanksgiving dinner. At first, Ava was disgruntled. She might not like Thanksgiving dinner but if she’s forced to have it, she wants it traditional all the way. Crazy, right? After sharing one with the girl who lives at her house, she had to rescind her disgust – they were freakin’ fabulous!!! But here’s the best part – she perfectly toasted and buttered one up for breakfast today and it was the freakin’ best toasted buttered pretzel roll EVER. They came from Costco just so you know where to get yours.

And just to solidify why we need a koala, here you go. The answer is obvious.

Thanks to the most conscientious (that word is hard to spell!) produce fellow at the grocery store of all time, my pies came out wonderfully. That’s my responsibility on Thanksgiving. I’m good with that assignment since I love dessert. I’m getting pretty damn good at making pie.

The boy requested chocolate.

Of course there’d be pumpkin. What’s Thanksgiving without pumpkin? I think it’s a law.

My Honey asked for “berry”. Berry? I’d never made berry pie before. I’ve made lemon and rhubarb and apple and pumpkin and chocolate and probably some others, but never berry.

This was my finished gorgeous blueberry/raspberry/blackberry/ strawberry pie. YUM! It was perfect.

I found a simple recipe for one and added it to the list of veggies we needed for a relish tray. Then Sassy and I headed to our huge neighborhood grocery store on Tuesday evening. The place looked desiccated, like we’d received an emergency alert weather forecast or something. The dairy section echoed. We grabbed the last two containers of whipped cream. I used to make my whipped cream from scratch. It was super yummy, but then I decided I didn’t want to be whipping for twenty minutes and just wanted some damned pie, so now I buy the spray cans. Besides, you’ll probably all agree that spraying it directing into your mouth at three in the morning is totally worth the price of the can.

When we got to the produce department I was sincerely concerned that I’d missed some announcement about a blizzard (no possible way – it was 84 degrees here today), or maybe a blackout that would trap us all in our homes and we had been wasting our time sleeping when we should have been stocking up on emergency supplies. There were no strawberries for the pie, only a vacant spot and a sign advertising strawberries. I found a produce guy and asked him.

“I think we have some in the back.” Off he went and returned with a whole crate of strawberries.

“How about celery?” I asked holding up the very last celery bunch in the store. It was limp and on the verge of disgusting.

“Let me check.” Off he went again, at a jog this time. He came back with a giant box of celery.

“Don’t go anywhere, I’m sure there’s more I need,” I told him. Seconds later I requested green onions.

“Whoop!” I cried when he came back with handfuls of green onions. “You are the best produce man in the history of produce men,” I told him.

His name is Shefii – I swear. I memorized his name tag.

His customer service was so awesome I decided not to press my luck. No Black Friday shopping for me. It can only go downhill from there, right?