When Elizabeth was in college she would often tell her friends there about the escapades of her younger siblings, leading many to believe that they were quite a wild bunch. On weekend she brought one of these friends home. Her little sisters, well aware of their reputation at the University, cooked up a little plan. On the evening of their arrival, the girls dressed up in their best clothes, hunted down the knitting kits, and rehearsed. When Elizabeth and her friend walked in the front door, the girls stepped forward one at a time and introduced themselves with the most affected refined manners they could muster. "Hello, I'm Grace, Elizabeth's eldest younger sister." "Hello, I'm Renee, the second eldest", and so on. After each introduced themselves they stepped to the side, still in their formation, and after the last had introduced herself, they curtsied and said in unison, "It's a pleasure to meet you!" They then filed into the "sitting room" and took up their knitting while one read a Psalm. Everyone found it very funny, although within two minutes, Anna was asking if she could change her clothes yet.

 I was just looking through my blog and realized that the last several posts have had rather drab looking pictures in them so I decided to do a post about something colorful. What was I to choose?  The choice was quite obvious!

Spring is coming everybody!!!! 

 Officially it's only 6 days away, but in reality she's a bit further away than that. Her brother, winter, is a bit temperamental, and keeps butting his way back. He's like a visitor that long over stays his welcome, and as the years go by, keeps trying to stay longer and longer. I just pray he hasn't killed all the flower buds like he did a couple of years ago. Unfortunately, government declarations have no power over the seasons.

 For me spring doesn't start until the temperature consistently hits at least 70 degrees everyday and the flowers start blooming. I love being able to have my windows open all the time and feel the warm breezes. When does spring start for you?

The family was hunting for a used minivan and both a young Elizabeth and an even younger Stephen had been carefully instructed by their dad not to show any pleasure or delight with the car, as that would only cause them to raise the price. As they were taking a car for a test drive, Elizabeth hit on the brilliant idea of taking it to the opposite end. She immediately began complaining about the car and enlisted Stephen's help.

"Daddy, this car is dirty! There are candy wrappers in the cup holders!"
 Poor embarrassed salesman-"Oh of course we will clean the car before it's sold."

"Daddy, the windows of this car are dirty!"
Salesman-"Oh, of course! I will see that the windows are washed today."

"Daddy, this car is so high up! It bothers me."
Salesman-"Everyone feels that way at first, but I'm sure that you'll get used to it."

They bought the car for a very good price.

Grace and Renee liked to play family, but were continually faced with the problem of what to do about the husband(s). They had no boys to play the part and neither relished doing it themselves. They found a solution in either killing him off or sending him on perpetual business trips. It was usually the former, only they had it in their innocent little heads that one could only die prematurely in war and they didn't quite understand how wars worked. One day they were playing grocery store. Renee was the checkout clerk and Grace was a customer with her baby (a doll). while "checking out" the "mother" said to the "clerk", "The baby's father is dead. He died in a war. The other team beat his team."

"The family was going on a military post to watch the Fourth of July fireworks, and because they were civilians they had to have their car checked. There were many others that had to be checked and the guards were not very thorough in their inspection. As they were leaving the check post, Stephen said with a middle eastern accent, "Praise Allah they did not look in the trunk!" He was joking of course and everyone found it very amusing. They were also quite glad that the guards didn't hear him."

I have decided to merge one of my other blogs with this one so at intervals I'm going to re-post the stories from there onto here.....

"When they were little, Grace and Renee found men with long hair quite novel, and would often inquire as to which gender these unusual specimens belonged. On one such occasion, Renee and her mother were checking out at the grocery store and the man in line behind them had particularly long locks. "Is that a man or a woman?" Renee asked loudly. The surprised and slightly embarrassed fellow asked her if he looked like a woman and she promptly responded to the affirmative."

Abigail is what I suppose you would call my pen name. My name isn't Abigail nor is my middle name, but I feel that it suits me so whenever I don't want to use my real name or just feel like using a different one I use Abigail. Oddly enough some time after I had chosen it some friends and I were sitting around waiting for something and we started trying to guess each others middle names. The boy trying to guess mine guessed Abigail because he said I seemed like an Abigail, so evidently I chose right. :)
I've found myself wondering recently whatever happened to Abigail from the Bible after she married David. She stopped him from killing her husband, her husband died, David married her, and so far as I can remember we never hear anything about her again. Did she have kids? Did David ever love her? Was she happy? What was her life like? I tried Wikipedia which indicated she might have given David a son, but that it was unclear. Beyond that she she seems to have been swallowed up by the past with her marriage. I suppose I'll never know the answer to those questions, because, of course, if Wikipedia doesn't know no one does.
Abigail means "Source of joy", "My father is joy", or "Father's joy". Different places say different things. I have decided that if I have a daughter I would want to name her Abigail. It would fit well with Margaret and Amy which mean "Pearl" and "Beloved" respectively. My Joy, My Treasure, and My Love. Now I want three girls with my three to five boys.....