NEW RELEASES
In Our Humble Opinion…everytime a bookstore closes down, a Quill Sister needs a drink. How convenient then that our Borders is being taken over by a Wine Warehouse!
No Frog Princes Here
Life’s funny. Amylynn showed me an ad in a magazine for a TV show about people who have made a fortune making duck calls. I kid you not – duck calls. I had no idea that enough people needed to call ducks that you could make a fortune selling them. Aside from all of the jokes I could make, let’s just say I had no intention of ever watching this show. I have standards, people, and the line gets drawn at the Preppers on the Discovery channel.
Last night, I’m mindlessly flipping through the channels looking for something funny to watch for a few minutes and I stumble across the aforementioned show.
I paused for a second because until that moment I wasn’t really sure the show was real. But I’m here to tell you it’s real.
I was instantly taken in by the interesting “look” of the duck calling clan. There were three men and two women. The two women looked fairly normal. The men looked just like you’d think duck calling manufacturers would look.
Red necks, lots of camo, hats, and lots of yukky hair – everywhere. Yuk.
Why did I pause you ask? Well, let me tell you, one of the ladies has signed up to write a cookbook. Yup, a cookbook from the wife of a man who makes duck calls for a living. Admit it; you would have been curious too. I’m thinking grits and biscuits with gravy – well, I’m thinking wrong.
It was late at night but she told Duck Boy #1 that she needed frogs – FROGS- for a recipe she was cooking in the morning 
and that he needed to take Duck Boys #2 & #3 out FROG hunting. I shit you not. Never in a million years could I, as creative and crazy as I am, come up with that to entertain you.
He made a pretense at being annoyed, it was the middle of the night and he did have his camo jammies on already. The other two also appeared to be in lounge wear. Luckily, it turns out that jammies and lounge wear are just perfect for frog hunting. So, without having to change, they were off into the swamp around their mansion (they live in a mansion, in a swamp, where they make duck calls, really) to collect the needed frogs.
Duck Boy #1 tells us how it takes a special skill to steer the boat while the skilled frog hunter catches the frogs in a net. After the skilled frog hunter scoops up a giant big fat frog, yuk, he flips the frog into the boat into an ice cooler. Now here’s the funny part – the ice cooler has to be manned by a human. He sits on the lid and at the exact right moment, jumps up, lifts the lids so the mighty frog hunter can drop the poor creature into the chest and then closes the lids and sits on it. That’s his job. 
Duck Boy #1 explains that the cooler job can be handled by “any human” since no real skill is required. He chuckled when he said “any human” because clearly it was an insult at Duck Boy #3. The camera pans to the human on the cooler and he smiles. He has just been severely insulted and he is, somehow, not upset. Perhaps that’s why he sits on the cooler? And just so you know, he had all of his teeth when he smiled.
I explained all of this to Amylynn today – that frog hunting is a metaphor for life – either you’re the frog hunter or “any human” sitting on the cooler. She suggested I go to bed earlier.
In Our Humble Opinion . . . the phrase “word” might be from the 80s but it still makes us laugh and we still use it. Word.
In Our Humble Opinion . . . it’s time to stop providing proof you’re crazy, we were convinced from the first time we met you.
She works super cheap and has very high standards
Sassy had been sick off and on for the past week or so, nothing really serious as far as I was concerned. I think I’ve mentioned this before that Sassy has Cry Wolf syndrome. She tells me every day before school that she’s sick. My policy is that a sick child must produce either a fever or some sort of fluid before they are allowed a sick day from school. In the real world, you have to soldier on, suck it up, and deal with it and my kids might as well learn that now.
Besides, if I have to keep using my sick days from Bank of No Forks for my kids to stay home when they have a sniffle, then I won’t have any days left to use when I need to play hookey.
Finally, Sassy was able to manage a fever and I let her stay home. The problem was, neither of her grandmothers were available to take care of her. I took her to work with me until her daddy could get off work.
She brought a book to read and I had my iPad to play games on and stuff, but still she wasnt kept occupied.
For the time she spent with me in my office, she:
- Helpfully informed me each and every time the phone on my desk rang. Like I wasn’t sitting less than a foot away from the thing.
- Gave by the minute updates for how late my clients were for their respective appointments.
- Interrogated me on why we had donuts in our kitchen. She wanted to know how often we had donuts (maybe once or twice a month), what bakery they came from (buyers choice), why there wasn’t any good ones (duh! they get eaten first) and could she have another one? (I think she ate two, possibly three)
- Informed me that the copier, which sits right outside my office, was very loud and she didn’t think that was right.
- She raised her eyebrows when Ava and I yelled to each other from our respective offices across the hall from each other.
- She thought my desk was a little messy – which it is not. My desk is very clean.
- She didn’t agree with the state of my pencils and helpfully sharpened all of them.
Mercifully, her father finally came and got her and eventually I got some work done that day.
Does anyone need an assistant for a day? I guarantee you she’ll be “sick” again soon and she can whip your office into shape in no time.
In Our Humble Opinion . . . you should wear your teeth to work, you should consider them to be a part of your outfit like your underwear.
In Our Humble Opinion . . . it’s really not about how smart and funny you think you are, it’s really about how smart and funny WE think you are.
Perhaps we should go old school and try straight baking powder?
The Bandit doesn’t want to brush his teeth. I suspect that’s nothing new for most mother’s of six-year olds. Mine throws an extra hitch into the deal because he hates the taste of mint. Perhaps the word “hate” isn’t strong enough. Abhors.
Despises. Detests.
Ick!
That leaves fruit and bubble flavored.
He hates bubble flavor. Deplores.
So we’re left with fruit flavored toothpaste.
I’ve purchased every single kind of flavored toothpaste. He used Colgate Watermelon until I couldn’t take it anymore. The packaging was awful and I was tired of cleaning up the
Yummy
piles and strings of green slime all over the bathroom sink and medicine cabinet.
Next I found Tom’s All Natural Strawberry. I thought for sure this would be a winner. The boy’s favorite food of all time is strawberries. We find dead strawberry heads all over the house.
This was a no.
Yeah, nope. He doesn’t like it.
So then I found Aim Fruit Bubble. It was 99 cents at the grocery store so, for a dollar, I figured we’d give it a shot.
Huh-uh. Negatory.
So were back to begging, wheedling and threatening.
In fact, that’s my primary form of exercise – holding him down and brushing his teeth.