The Sisters have a yearning to travel. We want to see the world, see everywhere, touch all the things, and meet all the people. We’re nearly desperate to visit Italy. Also England/Ireland/Scotland/Wales. The whole of the British Empire really. Recently Iceland came on our radar. We know! Us – Iceland – who’d have thought? Still, once we found out they believe in little trolls we were totally in. Also, they have the highest literacy rate in the world. We can totally dig that.

Tonight I found out about something fascinating. Sweden has its own phone number. The whole country. Really. Anyone can call it and a random Swede will pick up and chat with you about anything you want.

Meatballs? Certainly.

Pickled herring and why? Probably.

Northern Lights? Absolutely.

ABBA and what they were thinking about that? More than likely and they might have the answers we’ve been looking for.

The gorgeousness of Alexander Skarsgard. Hopefully!

Vikings? Assuredly.

The whole thing was set up by the Swedish Tourist Association because they want everyone to know they have the coolest country ever. It seems most Swedes speak English and rather well, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Here’s the thing – I’m really dying to call, but I’m totally intimidated. Isn’t that ridiculous? What if they don’t get my sense of humor? I can’t control it and, if I’m nervous – which I most assuredly will be – I’ll be joking it up. I don’t want to give Americans a bad name. We have Donald Trump for that and, I think we can all agree, he doesn’t need any help in that respect.

I’ll get with Ava and we’ll call together. Then at least I won’t be an idiot alone. We’ll report back.

If you get brave enough to call please tell us how it goes. We think the whole thing sounds amazing.

Apparently, this is an old commercial, but I don’t remember it. This dog is my spirit animal.

You know what we don’t recommend, getting the stomach flu. It’s AWFUL. Patient Zero had it at Amylynn’s house and then two and three days later Amylynn and Sassy got it. So far, Amy’s Honey hasn’t got it, but we’ve been keeping an eye on him. Ava didn’t appreciate Amylynn getting sick and staying home from work. Amy didn’t appreciate throwing up for 12 straight hours. We have a lot of give and take in our relationship. There were a few fun things we found to amuse us this week and we’re always happy to share.

1. The only reason. We have a real love/ hate relationship with Australia. We’ve never been there so we’re clearly talking out our asses, but we read an awful lot. We’ve not met an Australian person we don’t like and, no surprise, we adore kangaroos and koalas. We’d dig seeing the Great Barrier Reef but then there’s the box jelly fish. The thing that really cinches it for us is the spiders. Sweet Hades, have you seen the freaking spiders? Like something out of Lord of the Rings. But then WHOOPS! We found out about Derek. He’s a wee orphaned wombat who needs A LOT of love and attention. There’s currently an essay contest to win the right to be the Chief Wombat Cuddler and we’re certain we could win. Sadly, it’s only open to Australian residents. Derek or spiders? You know what spiders look like (picture the size of a hairy rhinoceros), here’s a video of Derek.

2. A wee bit behind, but we could catch up quickly in this. We finally got around to watching Spectre, the latest James Bond movie. We love JB and we especially love Daniel Craig as our favorite spy. We’re also pretty fond of Aston Martin’s. They’re really beautiful cars and just unusual enough to be exotic. We’d really like to own this particular one, but alas, they only made 10 and they were strictly for use on the film. We watched with horror as James drown one of them in the Tiber River in Rome. If we had a fairy godmother, we’d want it in silver just like this ’cause it looks like a bullet.

3. Because of Miss Bridgerton. The Quill Sisters patron saint of Romance had a new book out last week. We’ve both read it and it was adorable as usual. Ms. Quinn really is the queen of witty banter. Amylynn studies her pages like a text-book, hoping to glean from them some brilliant epiphany on making the whole thing easier. It isn’t working so far, but we’ll study on. Thank you, Miss Julia, for another lovely installment.

4. Audio. Traffic sucks. Cooking sucks. Laundry sucks. Washing dishes sucks. All house work sucks. You know what makes it way better. Audio books. Audible from Amazon is the preferred way the Sisters choose to hear our books. Recently, we’ve heard Gone Girl, All the Light We Cannot See, The Girl on the Train, and The Life We Bury to name but a few. It’s so awesome to use the wasted time to catch up on our literature. Our busy lives mean we never have enough time as we wish we did to read and this is a blessing. Lately, Amylynn has been re-reading (so to speak) the Harry Potter series. She’s on book 4 now and she’s loving it every bit as much as she did the first time around.

5. Brilliant. The Sisters are on a crusade. We think it should be unlawful to have a license plate on a vehicle that brands the vehicle. For example, the penalty for putting a license plate on a Volkswagen that says Bug should be caning. We know it’s a Bug. You’re an idiot. We think those people should be forced to put their cell number on the plate so we can call them and give them some life advice. Then every once in a while we find an outstanding license plate. One like this one. This motorist should get an award of some sort. And a nice cake with a card.

You hear all the time how raising boy is very different from raising girls. In the beginning days of parenthood you think, “Yeah, sure. Whatever.” But then, slowly, differences begin to assert themselves.

Perhaps your boy decides he wants to poop in the yard like the dogs.

Maybe he eats all the egg-dying pellets the Easter he’s five and you have to explain to the daycare ladies why he’s pooping rainbows.

Then perhaps you wonder why so much stuff about the boy revolves around pooping.

Whatever it is that gets you there, pretty quickly you realize that boys are DEFINITELY different than girls. Mostly – with The Bandit – this is manifested by his father and I looking at each other with puzzled expressions. I feel like his dad should be able to explain this stuff, after all, he was a boy once too.

Things like this.

Last week I went to wake up the boy for school and this is what I found. He was asleep in his bottom dresser drawer. Said drawer was still connected to the dresser. He’d lined it with pillows and, as you can see, used his Star Wars blanket to make the whole thing cozy.

His father can shed no light on what the hell was going on at 3am when this plan was conceived.

The boy simply could not explain to me why he’d done it. He just kept shrugging. “I don’t know. I just wanted to see what it was like.”

I’ll tell you what it’s like. It’s weird. I honestly feel like at some point in the future, his father and I will be watching him on some stage where he’s being lauded at the next Andy Kaufman and we’re going to be like, “Yeah, we’ve known since the dresser.”

I have a sick kid – we call these episodes pukapalooza. Daddy pulling room clean up duty while I’m doing laundry. We’ve already mopped the hall from – you guessed it. Poor little dude.

These are some things I’ve considered over the course of the day.

One must take considerable care when opening  pack of steak knives. I’ll just leave you with that info.

Vince Neil was in the audience at the Country Music Awards. Do you think he’s so hard up that he needs to take a job as a seat filler now that Motley Crue has wrapped things up?

I’m disturbed by these calls to action that use ridiculously soft language. In this particular instance some country dude was extolling us to care about Americans who are “Food Insecure”. WTF? People are freaking hungry. Say that. Say people are starving and they don’t know where their next meal is coming from or how they’re going to feed their kids. If you want people to care, then make them care with real language. “Food Insecure” is just ridiculous.

You know what else is ridiculous – the CMAs doing an in memoriam piece for Scott Weiland (Stone Temple Pilots), David Bowie, and Lemmy. Glen Frey I can sorta see, but sitting there nodding their heads to the beat of a Moterhead song while wearing sequined gowns? I’m offended on his behalf.

Here’s a life lesson I’m giving you that I can never seem to remember. Always, ALWAYS, get a beverage before you go into the bowels of Costco. Sometimes the samples are YUCKY and you’re going to need to wash that taste out of your mouth.

I hate getting my car washed. Unlike Ava who gets her car washed nearly every day. Even if it’s raining. Seriously. She bought unlimited washes and she’s taking advantage. I sorta feel like the dirt is helping to hold Dave Durango together.

Laundry never, ever ends.

Here we are at the beginning of April. Another quarter down. That much closer to the end of our books. This has been a very exciting week. The latest Julia Quinn book came out! That’s super exciting. Here’s some of the super-duper wondrous stuff that happened to us this week.

1. Here we come! Our applications to join the manned mission to Mars came through. No one could possibly be more excited and surprised than us about this development. So shocked were we that we didn’t even answer the phone when the call came in. Who would have believed NASA would accept us to be the first fluffy astronauts. Who? We fly to Houston next week to be fitted for space suits. We’re asking that Michael Kors be consulted. We’d like a nice sportswear feel. Think of all the outstanding blogs we’re going to write from space!

2. Puppy! We got a new puppy. Can you believe it? We hardly can either! Oh my, but he’s the sweetest little thing. All fuzzy and sweet. He eats a lot cause he’s on a special diet, but we’re learning how to grow everything we need. We had to travel really far to pick him up from the “breeder”, but we couldn’t be happier. Here’s to sweet little Rupert, oh how we adore thee.

3. Our dreams came true. Well after a particularly  stressful day at work, Amylynn lost it and clobbered someone with a ream of copier paper. They totally deserved it; we assure you. We’re sure you can imagine that the owner of the company didn’t really like that much, but things didn’t really get dicey until someone forgot for the 7,000 time to fill the Keurig with water. Ava lost it and chased that person down the hall with the industrial stapler. There’s only so much we can be expected to put up with. The Sisters were summarily fired and it was the best day of our lives.

4. Talk about phone calls! If we were shocked to hear from NASA on Tuesday, imagine how shocked we were to pick up the phone on Thursday to find Jared Leto and Tom Hardy were calling. We didn’t believe it was them so we made them quote movie lines from Batman and Mr. Nobody until we were convinced. Tom indulged us the whole time using a gorgeous British accent. We’d have asked Tom to quote from our favorite movie of his, Warrior, except we’re not sure if he actually said any words in that movie. We took the opportunity to inquire of Jared why he can’t be in a nice romantic comedy for a change. It was a super afternoon.

5. We’re opening a shop! Yep. With all that free time we’re opening a lovely new store! We’re calling it the CakePieIceCreamBooksJewleryShoesPet Store. There will be huge couches to sit on, several animals to pet, and treats to enjoy. We won’t open until noon and close around nine. You should start sucking up to us now as there’ll be heavy discounts for our friends.

Happy April Fools Day!

This Sisters have a friend who has a relative in prison. We’ve all been there, right?

We were talking with this friend about how his nephew was doing and we learned several definitive things – beyond the usual – reasons why we can never go to prison.

Wait – would I get my own room?

It’s not the orange jumpsuits. Or the soap situation in the shower. Or any other horrifying things you can think of from B movies.

These reasons are very serious.

#1.  Carbs. We thought we’d at least lose weight if we went to prison. Turns out no. The food is horrible and all carbs. Think white bread and potatoes. That will not do. No one looks good in an orange jumpsuit when fat.

#2. Budgeting. Here’s the problem. You beg and plead and finally get your family to put money in your commissary account. Then you find out you’re only allowed to spend so much per month. What we’re telling you is that you have to budget your meager funds. Like prison isn’t bad enough. Jeez.

#3. Camp. It seems this nephew is in a white-collar prison. He describes it as a cross between kindergarten and summer camp. That’s cinches it. We don’t camp. Especially on a budget.

By the way, this white-collar prison doesn’t have a tennis court. They have a softball league. Sigh. Our visions are shattered. It’s like everything we ever knew was a lie.

It’s Good Friday which is really, really good. Because So-so Thursday was a bit of a let down and Wahoo Wednesday was crap. We have high hopes for the entire weekend. The weather will be fine for hunting eggs and any weekend rife with jelly beans has got to be good. We decided not to set a trap for the bunny this year. In the past, we figure he’d be too tired to be at the top of his game by the time he got to our house. This year we’re gonna cut him a break. Or maybe it’s that we’re just too tired to plan anything. Either way, hop on over dude. The coast is clear.

1. EEK! We’ve all had bad dining experiences. Perhaps it was the food. Maybe the waiter. It could be that the other diners were obnoxious. We’re willing to bet that you never had fellow diners this obnoxious though. A guy in Los Angeles felt the need to spend $200 on sushi before showing people his snake. This is not a euphemism for something sexual. It was an actual snake. Understandably the other diners didn’t appreciate it (probably wouldn’t have appreciated the OTHER kind of snake either) and the manager made the man and his reptile leave. He came back a few minutes later, shouted obscenities at the patrons, then threw a 13 foot python on the floor and stalked out. The police collected the snakes and arrested the man but not until after a full-blown panic engulfed the place. This is why we don’t eat sushi.

2. Next stop, Iowa. We never in a million years thought we’d be saying that we were moving to Iowa, but we’re putting it in the running. Why? you ask. Because it turns out you can own a tame, pet kangaroo if you live in Norwalk, Iowa. This all came about because the police were looking for a 3-foot-tall kangaroo that was wandering around town. The guy who owned it didn’t get in any trouble. Turns out the Roo is tame and friendly. It’s also noted the kangaroo is for sale. No news on what his name is. We like Phillip or Bosco. Now we’re just looking for a nice farmhouse in Norwalk.

3. Square donuts. It turns out that square donuts are a thing and they look especially yummy. There is a war going on in the usually peaceful donut metropolis of Indiana over these delicacies. The Square Donut bakery has been making their donuts since the 60’s. They even trademarked the name in 2013. Along comes johnny come lately in the form of Family Express who started in with the square donuts in 2005. The original company sent a cease and desist, and apparently they haven’t. Now they’re all going to court. We don’t pretend to know anything about the law, but we do know all about donuts. We’d be happy to render an opinion – using lots of adjectives and gerunds – to whichever company sends us some free donuts. Ready…Go!

4. Blue Bunny. Have you seen these commercials? They’re for Blue Bunny Ice Cream. So they made a blue bunny. Seems appropriate, right? That’s not exactly correct. They made the cutest blue bunny EVER! Look at this adorable little dude. We think it’s stunning how much this adorable bunny looks like the Girl-Who-Lives-At-Ava’s-House. Remarkable. Suspiciously accurate even. We’ll consider not suing if the Blue Bunny people send over some ice cream. You should coordinate with the Square Donut people above.

5. Another Blue Favorite. We’re big fans of Apple and Siri by default. We’re also fans of Cookie Monster and HUGE fans of cookies. This commercial is so great, it’s practically a documentary. We’ve felt like Cookie so many, many times. Hang in there, blue friend. They’ll get done eventually.