IT’S PAST  MIDNIGHT, AND YOU KNOW WHAT I’M DOING? Watching this:

THERE ARE THREE THINGS I’VE NEGLECTED TO TELL YOU: Ashley, Mom and Dale all have dogs now.

Meet Bennie:

Named after our favorite song, Bennie and the Jets, Bennie is a  four month old Jack Russel Terrier. He is Ashley and Niel’s dog (more Niel’s than Ashley’s most days I believe).

Here’s Bennie shortly after we arrived at Bryce Canyon – which I have neglected to blog about. I’ll get to that in five years I assume.

Here he is the next morning. Your eyes aren’t deceiving you. THE NEXT MORNING. Only in Utah can it be 90 degrees one day, and snow a foot deep the next.

I like to tell people that Bennie bugs me, but secretly, I love him.

Don’t tell.

He’s pretty much nuts, but loves to sit on the porch all day, play fetch, knock over aspen and steal Eddie’s toys.

Stay tuned. . .two adorable puppies coming up next!

I’VE BEEN HIDING in a world of juicy steaks. . .

Along with fresh pork chops and hamburgers. . .

Topped with plenty of seasoning. . .

And cooked on a brand spanking new grill.

With sweet summer corn as a side dish. . .

And ice cream for desert.

No pictures of the ice cream.

I ate that too fast.

Guest post from Kamie

You would think that writing a basic “I’m sorry” letter wouldn’t be a big deal, right?

After working as a substitute for the past couple of years I have found numerous examples of great and not so great letters. This bunch of letters are all from the same class that I subbed for a couple of weeks ago. I usually just trash them, but this time I had to share them with you, the readers of AubreyMo.com!

As a refresher, lets go over how to write an apology letter.

1. Use correct spelling. (including names)

2. Accept responsibility.

3. Don’t put yourself down.

4. Use metaphors.


5. Don’t kiss butt.

6. Don’t call others names.


7. Be sincere.

8. Don’t promise favors.

9. Don’t assume you aren’t part of the problem.

10. Don’t blame the recipient of the letter when you didn’t even ask for help.

11. Make a plan to correct the wrong doing.


12. Don’t use “quotes”.

13. Be thorough, but short and sweet.

14. Remember to sign your letter.

Following these few tips and examples, even you can write a successful apology letter. If you still need a little help, I know some students that might be able to help you.

Here is what we call A+ examples:

And that, my friends, is how you write an apology letter.

Thanks AubreyMo.com for letting me share my letters with you.

SEE THIS BEAUTIFUL GAL IN THE MIDDLE?

Her name is Kamie, and she’s going to be a very big part of AubreyMo.com in just a little while. I met her online and after a few months Kamie, Marci and I decided to all meet up and get together. It was great – but I’ll tell you about it later. Please ignore my devil eyes.

You see, Kamie has been gracious enough to agree to guest post here while I’m busy being a slacker somewhere else. She has an awesome website of her own:

http://dustandkam.blogspot.com/

where she talks about her totally rad husband Dustyn, her twin cousins that she babysits, and my favorite, her 250 pound St. Bernard dog, Bruce.

I have never met Bruce, but he’s roughly the size of a horse or a small house. When I was little, I always said  “Mommy, I want a pony!”. I’ve changed my mind – Internet, I want a Bruce. The URL on the back of their truck is no longer active, they have a better Adoption Profile available. Also, if you’d like to help them out, you can add a button!

Notice my sidebar? Did ya did ya? Yea. You should add a button, because they rule.

Word.

Anyway, welcome Kamie, to AubreyMo.com! I love you, and if my readers don’t, we’ll just have to go TP their houses. Everyone, play nice, and go over to Kam’s blog. She’s amazing and I love her to bits.

I LIKE PIE.

I also like funny pie charts. Ones that were made about me, for example.

I am notorious for losing things, say, the hairbrush, which leaves me running around the house like a chicken with it’s head cut off trying to find it, only to realize that it was in my hand the whole time.

What’s better than a pie with a little Twitter on the side?

I am unfortunately in the 19% that blog about their lunch. Maybe that’s because I have a Plurk, Twitter, and Facebook account that I’m on all day, every day. Add me! Or don’t. Just keep reading my blog, you mysterious non-commenter. I know you do, you bookmark my site and I’m sure you come here thinking, I wonder if that one weird chick has made fun of herself recently. Or you find me by searching things like:

Or you find me by searching things like:

• “front yard wishing wells” Don’t currently own one, but I’d rather that than a gnome. Or a pink flamingo.
• “how to take a really cute picture on photo booth” Sorry, I have no pointers on this.
• “i look ugly on photo booth” and proud of it!
• “where no animals were harmed”
• “blue mixing bowls got at dollar store about 6 years ago” Can’t help you there, I can’t remember what I bought there last week.
• “cheap” Hey now!
• “prison mess room pictures” I really wonder what page they got to.
• “do chihuahua daschund mix dogs make good pets?” I’ll answer this honestly – yes and no. If you want a real dog, get a real dog. If you want a cat that has a mind of its own, get a chaweenie.
• “twilight the movie what does mo be watching you mean?” It means AubMo will be watching you and everything you do. I don’t think Twilight’s Edward can save you on this one. *
• “aubrey hairy”
  
• “hairy chubs” Hey now. I’ll be the first to admit that I look like a female version of teen wolf. But chubs? Give me a few years and I’ll get back to you on that one.
• “rabbits mating stinky” Don’t go there. No really. Don’t. I’ve never bred rabbits and I don’t want to be afraid to do that now.
• “you didn’t realize you were eating dog food” Hmm no, I’m pretty sure I’d know if I started munching on some Kibbles and Bits.
• “nothing but rejection in my life” whoever searched that and found my blog deserves some ice cream.
• “daschund ollie” Congratulations. You just gained two brownie points with my dog for that.
• “blog stalker” You got it.

Anyway, comment, okay? Otherwise I’d never know if you’re laughing with me, or at me, and I wanna know.  I’ll enable anonymous comments, so you can rant about me without the fear that I’ll hunt you down and TP (code for toilet paper) your house.

*just for the people that find me by searching for Twilight (love you!), here is a pie chart that you can relate to.

All my love and secret wishes for comments from you,

AubMo

“I THINK I’M GOING TO PUKE,” Machelle mumbled sweetly in my ear. “I think I’m going to wake up and puke all over you.” She rubs her sleepy eyes and stretches, turning ever so slightly towards me.

“Do it and die.” I am now hugging the edge of the bed in horror. Praying please, for the love of all things good, do NOT let my little sister throw up on me. I’ll do anything – fess up to beating up Mitchel in third grade, stealing quarters out of mom’s purse for sodas, and willingly going down a closed, abandoned mine shaft where I climbed ladders, walked around the one foot wide ledge of a bottomless pit and then ran out of light and had to use the luminescent screen of a cell phone the rest of the way. Just please, no puke on me.

Eventually my choke hold of fear started wearing off, I stopped shivering and drifted to sleep in Sam and Marks trailer. I was uncomfortable enough as it is, still wearing knee high socks, jeans and a sweater underneath layer upon layer of blankets. If Machelle was going to lose it, I didn’t think she or I would be able to move fast enough to do anything about it.

Don’t get me wrong. I love camping, love being outdoors, and especially love the time warp you experience when you pull off onto that dirt road and switch off your phone. What I don’t love is when I forget to bring tennis shoes (good one, Aub!), it rains the whole time, and the campfire is only strong enough to permeate me with the smell of smoke. Add to that two big wet labradors and we have a beautiful mess.

The night was going well enough – we played Apples to Apples, told stories of vacations and roasted string cheese (does anyone else do that?) and made smores.

No. The problem began when Machelle subconsciously decided to sleep warn me of her vomitous nature. And then, out of the darkness when my eyes had finally closed and my brain had stopped functioning  – not that it functions already  – I hear what I was dreading. “Aubrey hurry get up!!” I fought through the fog in my head, not wanting to come awake but knowing it would be foolish not to get out of the way when warned. “I’m gonna puke, now MOVE!!”Panic ensues as she hurries to the door and fiddles with the latch, then runs into the bathroom and looks around in there, back to the door and finally she asks Sam, “Where can I throw up?!”

Sam, in her sleepy stupor gives the worst answer you can give someone with nausea. “Just throw up anywhere”. And throw up she did. The wet sound of fluids repeatedly hitting the bottom of the shower curdled my stomach, and I covered my mouth and ears to drown out the sound. Poor Shelly, I thought. Poor us, we’re all stuck in here now, with the smell (you know “the smell”) and nothing to clean it up with. Isn’t life wonderful?

We had hit a point where all five of us – Mark, Sam, their friend Mel, me and Machelle were all awake and gagging, longing for the taste of untainted air. It was that point that I decided I needed an escape option. No way could I go back to sleep in there, and it had nothing to do with vomit. No, I couldn’t sleep because of myself, and here is why. When I get uncomfortable, and I mean, really, really uncomfortable in a situation, it’s all I can do to keep from laughing. So I chuckled. I snorted. I whined and whimpered and bit my cheek but there was no helping any of that, especially when Machelle joined in and kept whispering words like “chunks” “so gross” “go in there” and by far the nastiest “It must’ve been the mushrooms I ate. I think there is one stuck in my nose right now. I can feel it”.

We had to go.

I drove the sixty miles home in the dark, and the clock on the dash read 4:02. Happy Memorial Day everyone! Hope yours was just as memorable as mine, but for happier, less gruesome reasons.

HAAAAAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU. . .

And to Machelle too. . .

You both smell like monkeys. . .

And you grin like one too!

Happy birthday to two of the best sisters in the world. Now let me rephrase this song for you both:

Ash -You’re HOLDING a monkey. . .

Machelle – You pull faces like a babooooon. . .(this is a valid comparison)

But I love you both too!

“AUBREY, DON’T BREED THAT RABBIT. I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD BE RAISING RABBITS IN THE BACKYARD” click.

Grams, the one and only Grams, had went from being the first to say, “catch it and breed it” to something along the lines of  “I’ll take you off the will if you do”. There are ups and downs to living with someone that I believe to be bipolar my friends, ups and downs (did I just crack a joke? I think I did. . .)

I felt heartbroken with my desire for tiny, soft cuddly baby rabbits, also called “kits”, and I began to question my desire to even catch the female in the first place. Let the dang thing eat my tomatoes. I hope it goes back home, so I don’t have to chose between dumping it on mom, or the humane society. Either way, Nameless is my responsibility now.

One and a half tomato plants down, six more to go. I was running out of time and options. So far, Nameless had resisted arrest, defiled AubMo property, and stolen the heart of my main man – in rabbit form that is. She had to be dealt with. I found a fishing net at my parents house and set up my strategy. It might take a day or two, but Nameless was not going to win this one.My lucky break was after work, when I was able to sidle up close, corral her into a pen and drop the net on her. I was so excited that I almost let her get away.

On first glance, Nameless appeared to be a mottled black and gray Netherland Dwarf mix breed. A little on the thin side, but not unhealthy. First thing I did was a thorough inspection. (Random fact: Have you ever flipped a rabbit on it’s back? Did you know they go into a trance? Try it sometime. Just remember to cover their eyes first. Chickens do this same thing.) She was definitely a female, but it was hard to tell her true health from under all that fur. The children that had owned her before (using that term very loosely) had placed a tiny red cat collar around her neck. Pet Owning Mistake Number 1 – you never collar any pet that you let wander outside, especially a rabbit. They are children, so they are forgiven.

After taking that off, I started combing her. It was a slow process, because the brush was only getting little tufts here, a wisp of fur there. Not very effective. After a few good tussles with the comb I realize  – she’s not gray at all. She’s coal black. Black as pitch. Black as the night without the city lights and the stars. The gray was all the dead, clumped fur that she wasn’t able to reach and pull off, so I had to give her a hand. Want to know what “a lot of hair” off of a rabbit looks like?

That’s what a lot of fur looks like – of the fur I could manage to keep from sticking to my pant leg, my shirts and even my face anyway.

Here is the comb for a comparison. Still don’t believe how massive this pile of fur is?

That is my foot – size 8 1/2 and not at all dainty or little. Please don’t mind the absence of nail polish. I had the polish in my hand earlier, cap undone and ready to paint,  and I got lazy and changed my mind. It’s an Aubrey thing.

To recap, the before:

After a mani/pedi, wet hand bath, and serious plucking of the fur:

See? Black. Blackity black black black.

Shiny little blacky. As dark as the bottom of my heart. Okay, I think you get it. Seriously. Don’t listen to me.

And just for your amusement. . .I apparently own deamons. I honestly don’t know what that blob of light is. A ghost? An apparition? Wayward streetlight? Help me here. Apologies for the drab and dreariness of this photo – apparently the rabbit didn’t get the memo that she needed to be caught, cleaned and in her cage by curfew in order for me to get pictures in good lighting.

Rabbits. They never learn, do they?

I KNOW YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING THIS IS A LOVE POST. You’re right. It is a love post, but not in the sense that you’re expecting. It is about my love and undying affection for animals.

Do you remember this fur face?

She’s the neighbor kids’ pet rabbit. I know where she lives, and that answer is now my house. In sticking to the old wives tale, I haven’t named her yet, because that would mean I’d have to keep it. And if I kept it, then I’d have to breed it, it would have plenty of rabbit babies, and I’d keep them too, winding up as some crazy rabbit lady for the rest of my life.

So this nameless rabbit wanders into our yard everyday. No big deal. She goes and sits faithfully by Houdini’s cage and they have discussions over rabbit subjects such as the proper way to clean a paw, pull fur, and how to scratch that pesky spot behind the ears.

Their lives are so hard.

I didn’t give a hoot that I had another addition to the AubreyMo zoo. I left some food and water out for her, petted her and essentially carried on this way for a month. But the time came when the skies cleared, the sun shined and I got the urge to plant tomatoes and other such stuff (random fact for you: Did you know I don’t eat tomatoes, yet I’ll have them coming out of my ears this summer? I am weird).

It just turns out that Nameless loves eating tomato plants.

Nameless also liked being loose so much, she’s decided to evade capture and slip under the fence right before I can grab her.

Nameless is frustrating.

I’ve changed my mind. When you love something, don’t set it free – snatch it up so fast it doesn’t have time to get away, or eat your plants. Amen.

To be continued. . .