Where we’ve been …

We have been away from blogging over three and a half months this time around. Little did either of us know what these three months would hold, it has been scary, sad and life changing. Lessons learned and circumstances we are choosing not to share at this time. Please, understand this is not meant to be rude, uncaring or unfeeling to any of you still reading. Life is precious and short and health, family and love are definitely first…Always. We both want to say we have missed you kind readers and friends and truly appreciate you all and how we were welcomed in this blogging world. With all that has gone on and is still happening, we both have agreed that we are very uncertain about returning to Word Press. All we as “Twins Forever” want you all to know that if we are unable to return is… Thank You to each and every one of you for taking the time to read our words and get to know us. God Bless you all…

Hugs from Autumn and Gabby

What Would You Do? by Gabby

It’s another one of my list of endless questions it seems, and never do they ever stop! 🙂 Anyway, here’s the question…If you had one day, all to yourself what would you do for fun? It has to be something fun, the only drawback you are stuck at home. So, the answer has to be something you do at home. Just pretend, it either snowed a whole lot, you were feeling not quite up to par and took a sick day off work. In case you live where it doesn’t snow, again just pretend you have a day off…BUT you can’t leave the house! Just think about it, you can’t do work from the office you brought home either! It has to be just for fun, no working allowed and I mean it. 😉

Your kids are in school or your nice spouse took them somewhere for the day. Your spouse is busy with the kids, or off working, so you will be all alone. One other rule, no you can’t chat with friends or anyone on the phone. No texting allowed either! Why? Well, it is strictly your day! Do you cringe at the idea? Does it make you feel happy? The other rule, no housecleaning and that sort of thing either…After all, it has to be fun!

Can you entertain yourself for 8 hours or so without being bored? What would you be eating…Again, hopefully it’s something fun like takeout or ice cream! Why make it something healthy, it’s your free to indulge in any food whatever your little heart desires. What would I do? Well, probably read for awhile, maybe some computer time, no emailing people allowed during this time by the way. If texting is out so is emailing.

I might pop a DVD I’d been wanting to watch in. After I did reading, computer time and the movie, I would be listening to music. I would get old pictures out and have a stroll down memory lane. I would maybe do my nails and paint those fingernails and toenails some outrageous fun colors, too. For my food… I would order in some Pizza and also have some other snacks and ice cream. Maybe I would make a sundae out of the ice cream to liven it up while I was at it. See, my day is involving no people, no healthy food…Sounds like it was a relaxing day for me! No exercising? Well, maybe a 30 minute pilates, maybe a spin on my exercise bike…Because it’s very relaxing. That’s the exercise limit of the day only 30 minutes, if you hate exercising…You get to skip it all together! Yay for you! That was my whole day off to myself…What are Autumn’s day off plans you may be wondering?

Here’s what the Twinnie would plan for day all to herself. She would read some or most of that book she hasn’t had time for. She says she would be listening to music, too. She says her food to order in would be takeout Chinese! Mix herself up a milkshake, have some snacks at hand, too. Other than that…the Twinnie says she would go with the flow and make that day to herself count! What about you kind readers? What are you going to do with that day off all to yourself? Please do share, it will be fun to see what you all have planned! 🙂 🙂

What’s on your Refrigerator Door? ~ by Gabby Angel

OK, so it’s a rather unusual question! I agree, but these thoughts pop in my head…Like I always say, my mind is a mystery even to me. I just go with the thoughts and write, it needs to be done! 😉 That means more questions for you kind readers of course, hope nobody minds.

What is on your refrigerator door? If you all tell me, it would make my day and the twinnie’s, too. Autumn laughed at first about this particular subject, thinking I was kidding! Imagine, the twinnie thought I was joking around with her. When she finished laughing, she said…What a fun idea! Go figure, first she laughs, then she agrees…Was the twinnie humoring me? 😉 Of course not, Autumn never humors me, well very rarely. We’ll go with that…I digress so easily, don’t I?

I do believe it’s a twin thing…We are talking sometimes and nobody can keep track of our conversations. We skip around, finish each others sentences and it can be a real wild ride listening to us. Back to our refrigerator doors! I have such a variety of things, but it’s organized chaos.

The latest pictures the cute little nephews draw me, inspirational words and quotes. Angels, most are magnets and a few are pictures.One of the angels is the front of a card, that simply says Peace, very unusual. I have the cutest pictue I just found, clipped out of a newspaper. It’s a bunny and a deer touching foreheads surrounded by snow…It is adorable! I have a cross that says “I’m on a mission from God“, I have had that a long time. A lamenated picture of my Dad fishing, it was snapped by a photographer in the ’90’s. It was in the newspaper and I love it, Dad so loved his fishing.

Oh my goodness, that is quite the list! I swear it does not look overloaded, really it doesn’t. Besides that would be rather tacky. Anyway, somebody would have told me… My family and friends are not shy in the slightest!

What does Autumn have on her refrigerator door? Well, her list sounds rather tame and much smaller, but here goes! She has the same lamenated picture of our Dad, a large peace symbol, some very cool magnets of the sun, stars and moon. Oh yeah, a lovely picture of her and her darling man…quite tasteful. The latest little nephew drawings, of course and last but certainly not least a picture of Ozzie Osbourne, ask the twinnie about that one is all I have to say!

OK, now that I have told you all what is residing on the twinnies refrigerator doors, please share! What is on yours? We would love to hear…You do have something hanging on your refrigerator doors, right? Hmm…Well, maybe not! Either way, please do let us know. If you think us terribly tacky…Please say nothing! 😉 I am kidding, as always we twinnies will not be offended…Promise! Now share you kind readers, please share! 🙂 🙂

Who was That Santa? ~ by Gabby Angel

This is a happy, but now mysterious memory…But I feel compelled to write about it. As the title states Who was that Santa? Indeed, and I still haven’t uncovered the answer! Boy oh boy, does that ever bug me. I was chatting and remembering with Autumn about Christmas memories of our youth.

We had a good few laughs over some of them…Mostly involving our four younger sisters. Not to pick on them, honest…They all just had some amusing things about them I need to share. Perhaps I will need to share some of those at another time with the nice people who read our blog.

This one is about the mystery Santa’s real and true identity who paid us a visit when we were close to six years old. Autumn seriously thought I had the answer, but I didn’t. I just love how that twinnie assumes I can remember things from the past when she can’t! That is the case at times, but this wasn’t one of them.

Anyway, this Santa Claus showed up at our very own home at that young age. Of course Autumn and I were beyond thrilled. It was all very nice, a pleasant surprise and he came bearing gifts! Of course we weren’t shy, so we had a fine chat with Santa assuring him we had been good all year long.;) I know, you are no doubt chuckling now. It’s the line all kids use, I know. Soon he was on his way…He supposedly had other kids to visit. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t we were young twinnies.Autumn and I still believed in Santa Claus, so we were easy to fool.

It wasn’t our Dad, he was with us, Mom and the baby sister who was sleeping. I asked our Mom about the identity of the Santa after Autumn and I had the chat…She says she doesn’t remember! I had to tease her about protecting the fake Santa’s identity as to not disillusion me…By chance I still believed. 😉 So the mystery remains, Dad is now in Heaven so I can’t ask him. The now grown up baby sister was sleeping…She is of no help to solve this one.

Well, Autumn and I are left pondering this one…The case of “Who was That Santa?” It will have to remain an unsolved mystery I hate to say!

Christmas Cookies… ~ by Gabby Angel

I was looking at my cookie recipes last night.My recipe box is pretty well organized…So looking under the Christmas cookies section is easy. I realized how recipes I have and how many I haven’t made for years. It got me thinking of everyone liking a different sort of Christmas cookie. There are so many to choose from, also being half Italian we make different types of Italian cookies. I wonder how many people reading this do some Christmas cookie baking. I actually do know some people who buy all their Christmas cookies, they don’t want to be bothered. For real, that’s what they do.

Doesn’t that take some of the fun out of the holidays? Well, maybe it takes some of the stress away from the holidays for them. Some people honestly don’t like to bake. Far be it from me to be judgemental, honest. Everyone has to do it their own way.

To be honest I don’t do as much baking for the holidays as I did while my husband Dave was still alive. His favorite cookies were ones with anything chocolate and peanut butter, also sugar cookies. Almost anything I baked! He was tall and thin he could pack those cookies away, too. I know my favorites are the Italian cookies and of course anything made with chocolate!

Sugar cookies, the cookie cutter kind are so much fun when you decorate them any way you choose. Back when Autumn and I were young, the younger sisters, too…We could get real wild and crazy with our decorating. Those were fun times, good memories and those innocent and simple days.

I know Autumn and I will be getting together to do some baking, hopefully Mom and some of our sisters. I need to ask you all a special favor, do any of you kind readers care to share what your favorite Christmas cookie is? Come on everyone, it will be fun don’t you think?

Just leave a comment with your favorite Christmas cookie, but only if you feel so compelled to do so. I don’t want to seem pushy at all, since that isn’t my nature. It would be interesting to see the results, thank you for taking the time to read this. 🙂

Twinnies Love the Snow ~ By Gabby Angel

Another fun and happy “Twin Memory”. This memory keeps fluttering about in my mind. Just begging to be written and told! I can’t resist, so here we go it’s really almost winter after all, right?

Autumn and I were about 10 years old and this is one of my fondest memories of snow and winter fun. We were in school, 5th grade as I recall. My, we sure cherished those days when it snowed heaps and heaps. This meant school was cancelled and we had a snow day at home, Yay! By now there was 3 little sisters in our household, youngest little sister only 1 year old. Well, she woudn’t be playing in the snow that was certain. The other 2 little sisters aged 5 and 61/2 were jumping with joy to accompy us!

Dad had taken the day off work, too. Autumn and I knew we would have some serious snow creations with Dad’s help. 🙂 Also, knowing he would keep those little sisters in check and not wrecking our things. 😉 We loved them both, but we had some grand ideas brewing! Mom helped bundle up the 2 little sisters, we got ourselves ready and Dad called out “Ready for some snow fun?” Out the door we went, we were blessed with a very huge backyard. So much snow awaited us, where would be begin?

Dad got the little sisters started on “baby snowmen” and Autumn and I started our own. We were going to make a “snow people family”! We all were finishing up when, oh no youngest little sister got a shove and landed face first in a snow pile! 😦 Oops, and it wasn’t a twinnie that did it either. Yes, I know what you all were thinking! It was the other little sis, how refreshing to see them in trouble for a change and not us. 😉 Off they got sent back to the house with Mom, to dry off and get warm.

Yay! We had Dad to ourselves and now, some snow fort building could happen, too! We all worked together and quickly had our fort built. Dad was simply awesome at this snow and helping Autumn and I create! 🙂 Everyone was all smiles, admiring our hard work and ever so cool snow fort. Autumn and I were prancing in and out of it, pretending it was our secret getaway.

Then Oops again, I was out of the fort first, Autumn after me. Well, that bold twinnie slide snow down my collar and nailed me with a snowball! I just had to retailate and off we were, with things getting just a bit out of hand. By then, we were tired, cold, wet and getting huffy at each other. Poor Dad to the rescue, what fun for him breaking up that twinnie snow battle. I have to add neither of us were injured, but Dad had really had enough! He herded us out of the yard and back to the house in no time flat. Once inside another lecture for the twinnies, “I’m sorrys” and big hugs for each other. We never, ever could stay made with one another for long! 🙂

Mom shook her head smiling and sent us too ur room to change into dry clothes with a promise of hot cocoa with marshmallows. 🙂 We were back in no time flat, happily chatting and sipping hot cocoa with the 2 little sisters and our parents. Snow adventure for the day over and looking forward for the next one! 🙂 🙂

Take the Time to Laugh …By Gabby Angel

It is the music of the soul. Think about that one…Take the time to laugh, it is the music of the soul. It really and truly is! Laughter is one of the best and most uplifting things we can do for ourselves. I have been a firm believer in this one all of my life. How healing laughter can be!

I actually own a pewter plaque with this saying engraved on it. I have it hanging in a spot where I can see it often. Just a gentle reminder to myself. It was a special gift to myself just a few years ago. I found it in a craft shop and just knew I needed it as my own. It just seemed one of those things that speak to you and you just need to own it! Of course growing up in the family I did there was always a lot of laughing.

My Dad, who we lost to cancer eight years ago. Well, this one one of his favorite sayings also, so it reminded me so much of Dad. My Dad’s laugh was so magical and so very contageous and just somehow just very joyful. I can close my eyes and just hear his laugh and picture his face, what a happy guy he was!

Autumn and I were talking about this just last night. It was after we recovered from a wild bout of laughter shared between us. Oh my, the twinnies that we are, we can crack each other up quite easily. Most times in an appropriate place and sometimes not. When we settled down from the laughing jag, we talked about how Dad’s laugh was a guarenteed smile, a wonderful memory, too. It was his thinking, why waste time crying when you can laugh instead. Having six daughters, I bet Dad must have said this every single day if not more. Well, we did grow up laughing quite a lot. We were very blessed, we got an early start to a positive look at life. Of course there were tears, we are only human after all.

In my travels through this life I have noticed so many people do not, just will not smile and laughing…Well, forget about it! They are the people I feel the most sorry for. How sad and empty their lives must be. I believe working with the public for so many years really showed me the many faces of happy vs. unhappy. Smiles vs. frowns. Being the type of person I am, it was always a quest of mine to get those with frowns or unhappy expressions to smile. Not necessarily to make them laugh, but just to smile…Sometimes it worked but the majority of time it didn’t.

Managing a small store together, Autumn and I once spent one entire day taking our silent survey for ourselves.The pitiful percentage was there were honestly more of those unhappy expressions than there were of the happy ones. Even trying our best, we just couldn’t get a smile out out of those frowners. That bothered both of us so much. I know we are kind of strange perhaps. I just hope those reading this will think about it. Please everyone, try to laugh more! You will be so much happier and healthier, I just know it. Give it a try, what have you got to lose? 🙂

* PS I need to add this tidbit of information,too. I typed the words “Take the time to laugh” into my favorite search engine. I discovered an interesting fact indeed. The words “Take the Time to Laugh, It is the Music of the Soul” were written on the wall of Missionaries of Charity Children’s home. Calcutta, India

There Are Two of You! ~ By Gabby Angel

I was pulling into Autumn’s driveway earlier today. Nothing new, we see each other quite often since we only live a few miles apart. We were heading out for an early dinner and some time together.

I noticed the little next door neighbor boy in his front yard and I waved. He is a nice little boy about 7 or 8 years old and is always friendly and ready for a chat. His name is Garrett, and he had a friend with him who I had never seen before. Politely as could be Garrett introduced his friend Sam, telling me that Sam was a new school friend. The boys and I chatted for a few minutes, Autumn had must have seen me pull up because she came out of the house. Sam’s eyes got very big, looking back and forth between Autumn and me several times. He finally stammered out “There are two of you!”

Autumn and I both started laughing, we had heard this often throughout our lives. Too many times to count to be quite honest! Garrett piped up and was laughing, He told his friend with a big smile “Cause they’re twins Sam!” That kind of made poor little Sam speechless, he was too busy still looking at the both of us. Autumn feeling sorry for the poor kid, explained we were twin sisters and the whole concept. That seemed to satisfy Sam, who then shared with us all a funny little story.

It seems Sam had an older sister who was fond of telling him he always was imagining things. That made us all smile kindly, the poor child must have a real peach for a big sister. Who would pick on a little brother with such statements? Yeah, I know it happens…But it struck me as rather mean. Autumn and I chatted a little longer with the boys and then bid them goodbye.

Once we were settled in the car and I had pulled out of her driveway we both burst out laughing again. We took a stroll down memory lane of the reaction we have gotten with the “twin thing” over our dinner. It used to be more of a novelty when we were those boys age, being twins I mean. I thought there were more sets of twins, even triplets and mulitples floating around these days.

Well, we do live in a small town so there are a few sets of twins around, but not many. Throughout our school days, we were the only identical twins in existance…We got many looks, questions and some down right heavy duty staring.It seems we still do! Anyway, it really is fun and very much a blessing for us to be twins and always have our best buddy never too far away. We will always probably attract attention of some nature, but for Autumn’s and my sake I hope it is in a good way!

How many of you readers know twins, are twins or have any twin tidbits to share? Autumn and I would love to hear them, we really would! 🙂

The Twins Run Away From Home~ By Gabby Angel

The twins at 5 years old took a bold and gutsy move. We ran away from home!Thinking of this still makes me laugh at our silly selves…We up and ran away clear down the block to our Nana’s house. Yes, I know but when you are 5 years old and pouting at your parents you just throw caution to the wind! 😉 Why were we pouting? Well, if you are following my twin memories…You will remember Autumn and I got a new baby sister just the year before. We loved her, thought she was cute and all..But she took up a lot of Mom’s time.

OK, I admit we were good and huffy, just stomping our feet (literally) mad at Mom and needing attention! How embarassing to think of it now, we had Dad but he was at work this fine early summer day. Autumn and I just got it into our heads we would just take ourselves on our own little jaunt. Right straight to our beloved Nana. This gets dramatic, we packed our smallest little girl suitcases with an odd assortment of clothes and of course our favorite treasures. Mom was of course listening in andhearing our every complaint. “Mom will miss us when we’re gone”, “We won’t come back until we are good and ready” Ha, we’ll show her”. On it went with each complaint accompanied with a stomp, I have to state here that stomping was not encouraged at our house either!

Autumn and I gathered our belongings, dramatically making our exit. We were thought we were quite slick, but Mom was watching our every move. Watching us as we trotted off hand in hand to our Nana’s, Mom was on the telephone with our Nana the whole time! Nana hung up when we amid a flurry of drama waltzed our sorry little selves through the door. She greeted us with hugs and smiles like always, saying “what a nice surprise girls!”

She was behaving like nothing was wrong, so of course we pipe up with our complaints! Nana proceeded to distract us with baking cookies, playing with her kitty Pearlie and later hanging out under our favorite spot the willow tree. After all was said and done she had us forgetting all about our huff at Mom!:) Our beloved and special Nana, well she fixed our sad little day and reminded us we were loved by many and jealousy was not attractive. We promised to be good big sisters and she walked us back home. Hugs for Mom and Dad who was home from work now, all was fine in our little worlds once again! We promised not to run away again without permission ;), laughable because we saw our Nana almost everyday.

! I have to add, it was of course a blessing to have our Nana and the parents we had because patience goes a long way when it come to us twinnies! 😉

My Dandelion Memories ~ by Gabby Angel

As very young girls Autumn and I would pick dandelions to be used in making wine. As we were young, it was just fun because we were helping and we did love to help! We learned you picked the dandelions in late morning to early afternoon when the flowers would be fully opened. *No, I won’t be boring and tell the whole process, you all can look it up if you feel compelled to get the recipe! 😉 Autumn and I watched all the time, love and patience put into making this wine and how it all was finally put into bottles to set for months.

I do need to say, while in that crock while brewing those dandelion heads and orange slices looked harmless dancing about together! What is truly the key to how stong the wine gets is “the longer it sits, the stronger it gets”, well here I am rhyming without intent! Watching the grownups drinking this (not to excess) and enoying it just seemed so elegant in those pretty wine glasses.

When you are a young child, you listen when they say “this drink is not for children”. Well, as you get a bit older and hit about 15 years old, you just get more curious…At least that was the case for Autumn and me. Those bottles on the shelf seemed to be calling our names! So one fine Friday night, after everyone else was off to bed while Autumn and I were still awake chatting and listening to our music. When we clearly heard those wine bottles calling…”Gabby, Autumn come have a taste!” We got out those pretty wineglasses and felt ever so grown up and adult, filling those glasses full. I will confess I was pouring for us, Autumn was being far too giggly and dancing around over the new experience and adventure we were embarking on. We proceeded to down a few glasses, still chatting, laughing (everything seemes so funny!) and dancing …Just having a good old time of it. Before long, we were both feeling a bit tipsy, of course getting louder and Autumn was posing with her wineglass saying, “I look at least 18 now, don’t I?” Which cracked me up, giggling so hard and loud as guess who cranked up the music? 😉 Naturally it woke up our parents after awhile…We were being so quiet and careful just how did it happen that our Dad suddenly appeared? Much to our surprise Dad was kind of funny and said “Enough girls, you aren’t in trouble now but you will be in the morning” as he herded us off our beds.

. Leave it to bold Autumn, after Dad closed our door to say giggly and proudly…”I just knew it, see Gabs we aren’t even in trouble!” What a true joke that turned out to be, for real. Saturday morning rolled around and Dad rolled in waking us both up Very Loudly, singing a tune and saying “Come on girls, let’s rise and shine!” We both were awake by then, feeling lousy, headaches and just plain miserable.

Whining (No pun intended) ;), both of us carried on to Dad to let us sleep, we feel sick! “Of course you do, this is your lesson”, said Dad…”You found your own trouble, your punishment is one you brought on yourselves and now time to get around and get to your Saturday morning chores”. Dad was a wise one all right…Mom and him knew we wouldn’t need grounded or in any big trouble. Instead we got to haul those hangovers along with us as we did our chores! Yuck, it was a miserable day to say the least and these type of lessons learned sure do stay with you, trust me! 😉 🙂