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?

Happy Thanksgiving to all our American readers! Have a great turkey day.

Christmas came a little early to the Sisters this year. Specifically, it arrived today, November 25th, a full month ahead of the usual schedule. Sarah MacLean’s new book – Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover – hit the shelves. Ava rushed off to BnN to purchase it. For those of you following our saga, Ava had to go alone because the cruel world has separated the Sisters for the time being, but I digress. She was fully prepared for another mishap like the one Amy experienced purchasing Jennifer Ashley’s new book last month.

Feeling no remorse, Ava mowed down all of the shoppers between her and the Romance section. She searched high and she searched low and then she did it again. But NO – no new Sarah book. Why can’t BnN just put the god damn books out on the shelves so they can oh – I don’t know, sell god books so they can stay in business?!

Ava headed for the customer service counter. Ava’s children ran and hid. Cowards.

“May I help you?” Ava was asked by “Bee”. Ava hoped she could, it would be sad to die right before Thanksgiving and at such a young age. After getting the name spelled correctly, which Ava spelled twice, Bee announced the book had arrived that day and should be in the back.

“Listen, Bee, don’t come out of the back until you find it. Seriously. I can’t be responsible for my actions if you do. Better you be the star of our blog tonight instead of a number in the emergency room waiting area.”

Mere minutes later, Bee triumphantly arrived from the back stock room – book in hand. Ava cried. Bee cried. Her relief must have been immense. Ava’s was.

Anyhoo, Ava made the boy drive home so she could sit in the back of the car and read. Who says the holidays aren’t the happiest time of the year?

Holy crap! Thanksgiving is this week! Did you people know this? How the hell did Thanksgiving just creep up on us like that? How? Our usual recollection is that November arrived all loud and ferocious, but maybe that’s December. Whatever it is, we think this whole thing is suspicious. You never want people to know they caught you unaware. It sets a bad precedent. We suggest you “look” prepared. Here’s an easy suggestion. We especially like his contemplative and careful application of the feathers.

Afterwards, have a margarita. It’s all going to be alright.

On Saturday my 11-year-old daughter sorta went skydiving.

Her brother, father and I went to a pawn shop to buy explosives. As far as you know, that’s totally legal. Gotta love Arizona.

So everything is normal here at the Bright Compound.

ALSO – we’re thrilled to offer you a free book! YES! FREE!

In conjunction with a bunch of fabulous historical romance writers we put together a wonderful free collection of excerpts to help you find your next favorite author.

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