Let’s Talk Tattoos! ~ By Gabby Angel

This is quite the subject,  and why I am writing about tattoos?  It was just a simple chat Autumn and I  recently had about tattoos. Who we knew that had gotten a new one, how unique and unusual some of them are. You know, that sort of thing. This is kind of strange, this tattoo stuff… Why, you ask? Because I don’t have any! Guess who does just happen to have 3 of them? Yes, that would happen to be Autumn…The twinnie has 3 very lovely and tasteful tattoos. With her permission, I will reveal what those said tattoos are…Ready?

I sure wish I could make a game of this and make everyone guess, then round up the winner! Well, the twinnie says only one post about her tattoos so I guess it’s time to give the news of what they are. No time for stalling, right? Sorry, I love the suspense of it all and can’t seem to help myself. Drag it out awhile, make you all wait…But that just isn’t very nice, is it? OK, here we go for real…I mean it this time!

Tattoo #1 A Sunshine on her left shoulder, Tattoo #2 Moon and Stars on the right shoulder and #3 Tattoo A rose on her right wrist. Would anyone have guessed those answers? If not, what would your guesses have been? Go ahead, you can tell us Autumn doesn’t mind!

Well, that leads me to myself…Why don’t I have any tattoos? This may sound mighty strange, but I will tell you all why. I am scared of the permanance of one, I tried the temporary ones and they were OK… Because I could remove them myself quite easily! I was tempted to get a henna one, they wear off… But I just couldn’t trust it. A real permanent one may just send me over the edge, so it’s best not to have one. After all, laser surgery is pretty pricey isn’t it? I wanted an angel on my shoulder, but I just couldn’t do it.

Now, it’s time for a question for all of you! Who among you kind readers has a tattoo or tattoos? Some of you may have more, of course. Who is willing to share? Autumn and I are curious, now that we’ve revealed what hers are. If you don’t have any tattoos and never would get one, would you like to share your answer why? It sounds like fun, but if it’s too personal we do understand. You know how we twinnies are, we go with the flow! 🙂 🙂

Christmas Cards… ~ by Gabby Angel

Upon checking my mail today, oh my goodness…Quite a few Christmas cards had rolled in! How is this possible? I know we are only about three weeks away from the big day, but I haven’t even started mine yet. Wow, some of my family and friends are quite the early birds or am I running late this year? Hmm…I it could be either way, I’m not sure.

November flew by and here we are on the very first week of December, how did that happen? I do feel somewhat hopelessly behind now, opening that mailbox caused just a tiny bit of panic. Sometimes it doesn’t take much with me! I do feel like I am perhaps slacking maybe a little, or am I?

The variety so far this year just amazed me. All so pretty and cheerful with lots of handwritten notes on most of them, I am blessed I know. Well, the relative who will remain nameless had the usual Family Christmas Letter. It was wild and hectic as ever, making me ponder. How in the world do two adults and two teenagers have time to do all that stuff over just one year’s time? I am not kidding, it was rather exhausting just reading it! All these busy people, already having the Christmas cards sent out…I will start mine later, or tomorrow, maybe.

How many of you kind readers already have your Christmas cards sent out? Is it a bit early do you think? I am wanting reassurance, Autumn is also wondering. The twinnie hasn’t touched her lovely boxes of cards yet either, by the way. We twinnies bought ours at the same time a couple weeks ago.Reassuring each other we would have them done early this year.

Let Autumn and I know…Are your Christmas cards sent out yet or are they patiently sitting in their boxes? No pressure, inquiring twinnies just want to know. 😉 🙂

The Year of the Hippie Snowman (and Woman) ~By Gabby Angel

There was a light dusting of snow this morning when I woke up. I have no idea what made this memory pop into my head. My mind is a mysterious place…I will be the first to admit it! Anyway, the year of the snowman  and woman we turned into hippies! It’s is a fun memory to tell, so I will get to it.

Back when you’re young, you just love looking forward to creating something out of snow. For some reason the cold doesn’t bother you in the slightest either. So this one morning, we woke up and had gotten a nice couple feet or more of snow. Autumn and I must have been 11 or 12 years old. Our friends and favorite neighbor boys came over to fetch us twinnies to get outside and create some special snowman.

Alex and Tim were just always the greatest with their imaginations, so this was going to be awesome fun. We all headed to our backyard, playing around and throwing a few snowballs first. Tim and Autumn started this, so we had a small snow battle but got down to business. We all decided to have the coolest and best snowman on our block. How lofty that sounds, but we all were competitors in our own fashion. The snowman came together so nicely, it was so big! At least it seemed like it was, but we were young. Autumn insisted we make a Mrs. Snowman, Tim agreeing as always with his buddy. OK, it seemed like a fine idea we all though…Let’s really go for it! On we worked, before long Mrs Snowman joined Mr. How to decorate them? We talked among ourselves and hit on a fine idea, too I must say.

We twinnies raced inside our house to gather a few things, the boys took off for theirs to do the same. Gaining our parents permission, who got into the spirit of things…What a fun set of parents we had. Soon, the twinnies and the boys were out in the backyard. The Mrs. Snowman had a floppy hat for her head, we had used some yarn for hair, button eyes in place.  Mom had donated a flowery old blanket for her fashion attire. Autumn and I fashioned her a nice getup, slipped the Peace sign in her hand and she was all done. Yes, she was a knockout!

On to the Mr. Snowman, he got a nice pair of sunglasses and a colorful headband. Adding button eyes, he also got draped in an old blanket. We fancied it was a fetching looking poncho and added his sign that said Love. They were all complete, we stepped back to admire our handiwork. By now both sets of parents, our sibilings, too had gathered to congratulate us on a job well done!

Yay, they all loved Mr and Mrs. Hippie Snowman and his Woman! Both Dads took pictures, one of them ended up hitting our very small town newspaper. Thrilling the twinnies and boys beyond reason! We ended up the talk on not only the neighborhood, but also of our little town. That makes me laugh out loud, thinking back to that year…Smalltown celebs we were for just a short while anyway! 😉 🙂

The Magic of Christmas Lights ~ Gabby Angel

There really is something so magical about Christmas lights, it makes you smile. What am I talking about? Guess it would be good to explain…Here goes.

Last night Autumn and I decided to take a little cruise around our home town, where she lives. As kids we always took rides around town to look at Christams lights, such magic and so awesome.There used to be one street where the whole entire street was decked out, every house coordinated. Lights were strung all over, I have to say that street takes the prize for pure magic. They even changed the street name during the Christmas holidays to Candy Cane Lane, for real they did!

I am only 3 miles away from Autumn and our home town, but we do live in separate towns. I know, go figure? My little town has some nice lights and all…But it really is a very small town. One main road through town and no traffic lights, what does that tell you?

Does anyone remember as kids, even as grownups driving around looking at the Christmas lights? All the houses glowing brightly. Decorations and almost every house all decked out…It is just plain magic! We really did have a wonderful time, it was relaxing and uplifting. It seems more houses were light up this year…Some very unusual and quite lovely. So, we twinnies cruised around just having a good old time of it.

We laughed about the most decked house with millions of lights and also those huge blow up lawn globes. It was just a tad overdone, but everyone does it their way right? What memories does anyone care to share…We twinnies would love to know!

The one bright moment was Autumn and I didn’t have the GPS system on and we didn’t get lost! That’s where everyone needs to laugh…It would be quite pitiful getting lost in our own hometown wouldn’t it? 😉 🙂

Angel ornaments and Dave… ~Gabby Angel

I got out my ornaments today, in hopes of getting my Christmas tree decorated. Doing kind of OK until I opened one box. There they were, the lovely silver angel ornaments my husband Dave had gotten for me. It was in 2001, he died May 30th of 2003.

There are a half dozen beauful angels, very unusal and I loved them upon first sight. He got to enjoy them with me for two Christmases…That’s a happy memory. Big mistake on trying for the tree being decorated today, it’s exactly 8 & 1/2 years to the day I lost him to that evil beast cancer.

I try not to pay attention to the 30th of every month, but I usually fail. That may sound rather strange to some people. It’s just the way I am, I make no apologizes for my feelings about Dave to anyone. Anyway, these angel ornaments…Just looking at them reduced me to tears again. The tears dripped onto the angels making me feel even worse. Such a beautiful and loving gift, I feel guilty because Dave doesn’t want me to be sad. I miss him… he was my husband, soulmate and to be taken so young.

It is more difficult at the holidays…It always is, sadly I never quite get used to that. I ended up putting all my ornaments away, maybe tomorrow I will be able to decorate the tree. Maybe tomorrow…I will feel stronger. Maybe tomorrow I won’t cry. Maybe the angel ornaments will work their magic and I can smile. Some days are just more difficult than others. Anyone reading Autumn’s and my blog, you must realize I am an optimistic person.I strive to somehow reach for the upside, the positive. To find a degree of happiness and joy every single day I am alive.Unless you have felt my loss, which I wish on nobody…I suppose it’s hard to understand.

I will round up my twinnie to help me decorate the tree. Autumn will help me make it more joyful, perhaps we will find things to laugh about. We can hang those angel ornaments up together. She is my twin sister, I am blessed…I never take that for granted, never. She knows how I am feeling and helps me as she has been doing since Dave was diagnosed in 1998. Thank you twinnie, for always being there for me…I love you, TF <3=Twins Forever.

Twin Rockers BY Gabby Angel

I was dusting and rearranging some things today and focused on my little rocking chair. Again, as so often happens more memories and such loving thoughts came rushing through my mind. A little rocking chair from childhood, so loved and well used! Autumn and I each have one of our own. Loving to have and share memories is so special to me.

It may perhaps touch others reading this and bring back somebody else’s loving memories. We received our little twin rockers when we were between 2-3 years old from our parents. I have a special teddy bear given to me by my husband Dave setting on my little chair. I lost Dave to cancer 8 years ago, so it’s quite a special teddy bear. My little rocking chair just fits so well in my bedroom and makes me smile for both memories. Autumn has hers in her bedroom, too at her own house.

These little rocking chairs gave us so much happiness and many hours of pure joy and fun. We would sit in them as kids, rocking our dolls. Maybe we felt like we were being like Mom in the large rocking chair she used to rock the little sisters as she had done us before them.

It was just sometimes so silly how we attached ourselves to our rocking chairs, pretending all kinds of wild adventures we were rocking off to! These memories are also caught on many home movies and photos. Along with each little sister that came along who received their own little rocking chair, too. Autumn and I being twins and the oldest started out the rocking chair adventures with quite a bang.

Dad, I recall used to get quite the laugh out of us and the pretending. Also, many a time telling us to behave ourselves and tone down the wild rocking. A few times he would take them away for their own time out, as we had our own. One time and I do remember this one clearly. Autumn and I got it in our heads to take our blankets and drape them over the rockers we had turned upside down. We thought it just great fun to create our own secret hideout, Mom and Dad thought otherwise of course. We certainly did keep our parents busy. What one of us didn’t dream up, the other one would. We did proceed to be more careful as time when by, being safe and behaved with those little rocking chairs. After all, parents were usually quite often right!

So many hats were also worn by us twinnies as we rocked. Each hat took us off to another exotic location…We just had a blast rocking ourselves all over the world. I was pondering this thought and wondering if any one else reading this might have their own childhood rockers.

How about it…Anyone care to share? If for no other reason Autumn and I would like reassuring we weren’t the only wild and crazy rocking chair kids! Feel free to leave a comment, please…We twinnies are waiting to hear from you! 🙂

The Twins Are Stirring Up Things at Girl Scouts~ BY Gabby Angel

The Twins Stir Things Up….Oh no, they are at it again! This time it’s with belonging to the Girl Scouts…Read on and get ready for a laugh!!

It’s Gabby once again with yet one more “Twin Memory”. Warning to all who love the Girl Scouts please don’t feel insulted, we were very young! It all started out so innocently, we were asked by a couple friends to join the Girl Scouts and it all sounded fun, after all our Mom had been a Girl Scout herself when she was young.

First meeting…Well, it was going to be  fun we were being told by the Girl Scout Leader. She proceeded to tell us how we would be earning badges, doing good deeds, singing, hiking and day camps, etc. She was a very nice lady and actually a friend our Moms, 20 minutes into our very first meeting Autumn and I started chatting among ourselves, quietly honest!

We will call the Scout leader Mrs E for the sake of those innocent people we will respect their identity in this story. OK, so Mrs E starts by “Oh, you twins will just have to stay quiet and listen please”, which made us both smirk between us and giggle softly, we couldn’t look at each other again or we would start doing some serious laughing. We were fine for another 15-20 minutes, but it was somewhat boring. So, yes again we found ourselves chatting with exchanges of…”Gabs this is just not for us, what does she mean we have to conduct ourselves like ladies, we are still just girls”. I replied “I know after all it’s The “Girl Scouts” and on we went…starting to chuckle between ourselves. Maybe it’s a twin thing? Again poor Mrs. E had to try and regain some order…” Let’s try and stay quiet  twins, this is a meeting”.

So, we calmed ourselves down knowing we had maybe 15 minutes or so left and we would stay quiet, then we could escape! We made it by the skin of our teeth, without looking at each other to crack up laughing, you have to understand twins do tend to just “have” to talk and chat between each other. OK, first meeting over….But we were seriously not liking this whole Girl Scout thing. We tried for several meeting to try, but yes you guessed… Autumn and I kept failing to be quiet and on it went for maybe a month or so. We disrupted one meeting with taking to braiding each other’s hair, offering hair style advice to some other girls. Well, they asked and it would have been rude not to answer, right? We twinnies also had to disagree with some song choices at one meeting. Saying the songs were just not quite our style and did we really have to sing them?

Much to our poor Mom’s embarassment she received a call from the Girl Scout leader, her friend. The conversation went like this, Mrs E was ever so sorry but didn’t think the twins  were quite  Girl Scout material and we were a bit disruptive and stirring up the other girls, etc. I am not kidding folks…Yes indeed, we twinnies got kicked right out of Girl Scouts! Probably the first for poor Mrs E, well rumor has it…OK, I confess we were the Only Girls to be kicked out of the Girl Scouts in our small town. It all turned out for the best for real…Gabby and Autumn would have made the Girl Scouts a free for all of our own brand of fun and excitement.

The Girl Scouts would have been forever changed as we know it! 😉 So again, all’s well that ends well, right? 😉 🙂

Her Christmas Shopping is Done!~Written by Gabrielle Angel

I had run in for a few items I needed into my little neighborhood store a bit earlier today. It really is the coolest store, family owned and they carry mostly grocery items. Not everything I use of course, but it saves the three mile trip to the other two larger grocery stores. Quite handy when I only need a few minor things.

They also have a nice selection of special little space for seasonal things for sale, too. These are made by the owner’s wife. Well, I just love going into “The Hometown Market” it’s just homey and friendly. 🙂 After greeting the owner and having a short chat, I started walking around ready to pick up my few items. Reaching for my last item, those much needed bread crumbs, I glanced to my left and saw a nice lady I knew. We had a good and fun chat, then she said something about what a relief it was she was to be ready for the holidays.

Thinking she meant Halloween,  which was first holiday in my mind I smiled. I  laughed saying I can’t buy candy that far ahead. The Trick or Treaters may not get any, I may be tempted to eat it,( I was kidding of course). 😉 Imagine my surprise when she said, no she had meant her Christmas shopping! I know it’s less than three months away now, but Wow!

Working in retail for many years I know I usually had Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving. For the day after Thanksgiving is the retailers nightmare, Black Friday. After then, I would just get too busy and stressed to think about doing any shopping at all. We chatted a little more and I headed to the checkout spot. Oh my goodness, in the back of my mind I kept thinking how cool it would be to have Christmas shopping done. I think I was obsessing a bit, I tend to do that some times. Come on, doesn’t everyone? 😉

It seems summer was just over and fall has just started, how in the world can Christmas be less than three months away? Time really does seem to fly, doesn’t it? Then I got to thinking about the snow and freezing weather we have here in PA, now it didn’t seem so far away! 😦

I mentioned this to Autumn in a phone conversation and she laughed at me. Not in a mean way, but she pointed out how I still had plenty of time for the Christmas shopping. Then she went on to remind me how we would still be having Indian Summer and it wasn’t going to snow anytime soon. OK, by the end of our chat I was calmed down.

It’s so comforting to have a twinnie, she will be my voice of reason when I start to freak out. I told her so and she laughed saying, that’s good since I was hers, too. Yay! TF <3=Twins Forever really is a blessing! 🙂 🙂

The Twins Become Teenage Groupies~by Gabby Angel :)

Becoming teenage groupies how exciting does that sound?

We’re with the Band

Autumn and I were over the moon when our cousin announced to us he was forming a band with 3 of his friends. We were 141/2 years old & this was going to be ever so awesome!  We had our own tambourines and of course loved to sing, alas the guys wouldn’t let us be IN the band with them. The hanging out at practice and some gigs was making us dance with joy as it was. So, no complaints from us!

We had met the guys before and knew them somewhat, they were all a few years older than us. Rock stars already in our teenage minds! Our cousin David was and still is an extremely talented singer, songwriter and guitarist; he was so humble and also still is about his talent. He’s a cousin on the Italian side and he’s like a brother to us; luckily also very patient then and now with us. First practice was coming up and would be at the drummer’s house in his parents garage. OK Autumn and I were excited to be going for the music, but honestly also we were busy deciding what to wear, how to do our hair and all that girly sort of thing.

Crushes

Randy was Autumn’s crush and took her hand at one point, dancing her around. She is my twin sister and I do swear the girl was swooning, I kid you not!  In my mind Randy really kicked off her love of the “Hair Bands”.  It was her David Coverdale clone in person!  Anyway she is a bit more outgoing than me, so she was in her element. I myself almost passed out when Mike handed me his drumsticks and our hands touched … heaven knows what I would have done if he had taken my hand and danced me around!  Oh my, the silliness of young girls is something else as I reflect back to that day.

Practice was coming to an end and Randy was already inviting Autumn along for next week, I was chatting to David, Mike and Rob (Oops, didn’t mean to leave him out). To clarify Rob’s instrument was the key boards and he was also a nice guy. They welcomed us all of them, of course loving the idea of this whole groupie thing. We ended up being a big draw for them at later gigs, the groupie twins who also sang and just simply loved shaking our tambourines.

How it all ends
Did any of us end up hitting the big time, sadly no we didn’t but they did have a local following that wasn’t too shabby  Did Autumn or I end up with our crushes, no again but we all remained friends. Ironically enough I married my very own drummer Dave and his voice rocked my world, sadly he passed away 8 years ago with evil cancer and my soulmate awaits me in Heaven. Autumn’s best guy her late fiance Craig was also a very gifted bass player and a wonderful singer. The guys were in a band together for quite some time though, I would say we were Dave and Craig’s best groupies.  After all we had lots of practice as teenagers, didn’t we?

A Bicycle Ride to Remember~Written by Gabby Angel

I was watching a couple kids in my neighborhood riding around on their bikes. Oh my, but these kids were having so much fun! It reminded me of Autumn and I when we were their age. They were about 8-9 years old and just having a good time of it, just like we used to. Well, those were the days, childhood memories rushing in and overtaking me. A story to be told and tell it I will, here we go on another twin adventure! 🙂

Autumn and I had been riding very well since we were about 6 years old, those training wheels didn’t last long on our first bikes. We were ready to roll, literally and in no time flat and giving our parents all kinds of headaches. Pretty soon they were OK with us and they gave us certain boundries, how far and where we could and couldn’t ride. We did listen very well, who wanted to cause our parents more worries.

This one special day, we took off on what would beome a bike ride we would remember. It was a Saturday in early fall, about this time of year as a matter of fact. We were given about an hour, so Autumn and I were going to make the most of our time. Off we pedaled, side by side and smiling happily.

We were having a nice ride, a few neighborhoods or so away from home. When a pile of leaves moving about in an empty lot caught our attention. Of course we stopped and went to investigate, what did we find? It was a puppy, but where did it come from, whose was it, where did it belong? It was a cute little black and white puppy, very friendly and seemed so happy to see us, too. It was happily thumping it’s little tail and licking our hands, loving the pats and petting from us twinnies.

Autumn and I sure wanted to take it home, but we knew better. It was clearly somebody’s lost little puppy and Autumn and I checked the collar, there was the owner’s name and the puppy’s name! The people who owned “Sparkles”, (that was the puppy’s name) lived only a block over from where we were now. Oh Yay, we said it was going to be a happy ending! We had to push our bikes and take turns holding the puppy, it seemed to like both of us so much. 🙂

Autumn and I  finally arrived at the lost puppy’s home & knocked on the door. A lady answered and started smiling so big when she saw us with her puppy. You found her, Sparkles and I were playing in the backyard when she was chasing her ball, then noticed a squirrel and just kept running! Turns out she had only been gone a short time, well all’s well that ends well. Autumn and I said our goodbyes to nice Mrs D. who ended up of course knowing our parents and gave them a phone call to tell them where we were. We gave Sparkles hugs and told Mrs D. goodbye, telling her we would be back to visit. Off we pedaled on our bikes, getting back home in no time. It was such a fun ride and what a joy it had been to find Sparkles and return her to Mrs D.! 🙂

Happy endings are so nice, aren’t they? 🙂