Muffins?

Saturday morning dawned with all of the ingredients for a lovely day. My best friend Jordan had spent the night and we were getting ready for an exciting day with each other. We soon found ourselves hungry for breakfast, so we convinced my Mom to make the batter for muffins and I'd bake them. Things had gone well we had eaten, cleaned up and decided to curl my hair. So we went up stairs to do my hair. My hair is considered a miracle to many in my family for one simple reason, it is extremely thick. But because it is so thick it takes forever to do. We found ourselves in my bathroom two hours later laughing, applying the worst makeup known to womankind, and taking pictures of the epic process it is to curl my very wavy hair,
When Mom came home from her errands we heard my name being yelled from the kitchen, I figured that she just had something to tell me, she did but it wasn't what I expected. I opened the bathroom door and yelled down to her and asked her why she need me. It then became very apparent to my nose that something that wasn't quite right....the last tin of muffins had been forgotten in the oven for three hours! My embarrassment kept me from going to see what they looked like but from what I hear they resembled little black stones in the bottom of the tins. Wow, only I would forget about the muffins for three hours!

Here I am posting my second post! I'm so excited to share my summery of Louis L'Amour's book "The Man From the Broken Hills". I know at times I comes across rather strong in this summery but I truly couldn't help myself. Have fun! Love, Stephiphany......

The Man From the Broken Hills

The man from the broken hills is a western by Louis L’amour. And like most westerns there are hot babes that have all the talent (I’m not jealous). Robust men that have amazing aim, that always show up when the babes turn into damsels of distress. And of course there’s the wild untamed country.
Our robust muscle man in this book is Milo Talon. Milo is born with a wondering soul. But Milo has more going for him then muscles. He has a unmatched genealogy. His Talon side are of French descent, and have been known for their desire the settle the west. His mother is a Sackett, but the Sacketts are not delicate tea party lovers. They come from England and have the reputation of having more grit the hair on their heads, and a conquering attitude.
We first meet Milo on the range between babes and consequently jobs. He meets some men that hook him up with a job. But he soon finds out that his employer is and old enemy stole some cattle from his family!
But this man is a mere shell of his former self he is now “blind” (or at least thinks so). He being duty bound keeps the job and starts to work with a Mexican called Tony.
At once Milo finds a kindred spirit in Tony, but Tony knows that the best way to a mans heart is thru coffee and Mexican food. As they work together they talk about bodacious babes and missing cattle ( like babes and cattle are the same thing, these muscle men can be so insensitive)
But he does have a thing going with the cattle, all of the “young stuff” (that would be cattle under three years) are gone! Milo can’t figure it out. Could it be his so called blind employer? Tony the amazing cook? Any of the men he works with? Or could it be one of the other ranches? Especially the Balch’s who really do believe that muscle and babes are all that matter in life.
On the range Milo meets babe number one Ann Timberly (let me once again clarify that I’m not jealous. But I feel like I can relate to her a lot when it comes to attitude.) Ann like me is controlling, and stubborn, and tends to bring it all out when muscle men cross our paths. (but for me it’s a bit more lethal because it comes out for most guys not just muscle men.) She and Milo don’t have a romantic first meeting because Mils is a guy that doesn’t understand girls. After hot and rude words spew forth Ann rides off in a heated temper. (I know what’s going on in Milo’s mind he’s thinking dang she’s hot, and single!).
After many days of confusion and the being aches of love there is a box social. Milo is so excited that he even reads the book “how to win a babe in five easy ways” and he dresses up. There we meet China Ben that’s our second and final babe. The boxes went up for sale. Milo bids on Ann’s because that was tip number one in his book. He doesn’t win the box which burned his heart. But he wins another box and only a semi-cute girl. Glad for the non Mexican food he learns that the girl is of a shady history, and nobody knows her, but she knows him and tells him to watch out. He decides to keep going with the tips from his book, and uses tip number two “escort the girl home.” he doesn’t even make it to his horse before the has to fight his to take the girl home. (literally) she will let him take her only half way, but he finds tracks of young cattle on his way back. (once again I’m offended about this hole parallel of girls and cattle. I mean come on just because we sometimes eat salad means nothing.) he follow the tracks a little bit until he gets shot at. He flees from the scene.
He escapes from them and lives to tell about it. A few day latter he’s telling his tale of woe to the big bull of the ranch when he is shot in the head and knocked unconscious. At first he thinks it is love pains but soon discovers that no they are of a physical type. He lays there trying to walk but it hurts to much. After hours of marinating in blood and pain he is finally able to make it away to the cabin. When he gets there Ann is waiting for him because she thought some thing was wrong. As he is getting better the killer tries a couple of more time to kill him but Milo is a lucky duck and escapes all the attempts.
Time goes on and Ann has crush on him. He gets better and goes back to work. One of his co-workers gets lonely and decide there is more to life then sage brush. He barrows one of Milo’s shirt and set out for the mythical semi cute girl. After a few days people get concerned and tired of doing the branding alone. And so Milo sets out to find him. Milo finds him dead, Shot to death. Milo carries on to figure out why his friend was shoot at, and if it had any thing to deal with the missing cattle. He finds Ann’s horse and decides that the missing cattle is linked with Ann (thing number one cattle and girls are nothing alike. Number two just because she is a damsel doesn’t mean that she is evil).
He finds both Ann and the mysterious girl, he saves Ann and finds out that the cattle rustler, and kidnapper is mysterious girls brother (I don’t know about you but that seems evil.). After he saves Ann he goes after evil man and gets the cattle back.
After he finally wins the girl he decides that he needs to move on in life which means good-bye Ann. Even thou he brakes up with her she doesn’t hurt that much because one, half of this relationship is in his head and two, she isn’t carried off by muscles and guns. All in all it is a good book, but a little discriminating when he talks about girls as if they have no mind and they crawl on the floor eating salad as cattle do.

Well here it is my very first post! I'm excited to see the things that will happen on this blog. Deciding what to post first has been hard but I've (finally) made up my mind. I wrote this piece of short fiction last spring when I was give an assignment to write on the color red. Enjoy!

Certainly red

The poppies were beautiful. The same big bush grew in front of grandmas house every year. But some how they always seemed to be more beautiful than the year last, but this year was different.
The red poppies had always inspired me as a child. I knew if I smelled them I would be happy and then I’d pick some and take them to mama, because I knew that they were her favorite to wear in her hair when she attended church. I remember looking at the poppies in her hair and thinking how especially beautiful they looked on the day that our pastor gave his soon to be famous sermon on the atonement.
Then, years later, I thought that they whispered to me secrets. Secrets of happiness and ideas to spread the happiness I felt. Now the poppies seemed dead, drenched in a scarlet blood that was shed by people that thrived in taking life, people like my ma‘s murderer. I decided that the poppies were dead when the they no longer spoke to me, just like mama. They failed to make me happy, and now I wanted no part of them or what they use to offer, if they were dead what could they have to offer? But I guess that they were just false ideas of happiness and joy that only the simple minded would believe, I thought as I lay on the cement soaking in the sun.
We as a community have a tradition, we lower the casket into the ground and as a part of the ceremony we drop fistfuls of dirt on it. This symbolizes rebirth or at least that is what Joe Porter says, he’s kind of a patriarch in our community, and every body believes what Joe Porter says.
As I watched fistful after fistful drop on my ma I began to feel as though I was in there with her. When I could no longer see her casket because of the dirt I felt like I had to struggle to breath so I could stay alive. I knew I had been buried alive with mama. Before we left grandma sprinkled poppy seeds on the freshly tossed dirt, she said that by the time they bloomed I would also be blooming in my new life. But I knew it was a lie, all adults tell faults hoods so “kids” are happy.
After the death of mama nothing was the same. I no longer smiled. I hated happy people. And I never knew what to think. It was as if I was no longer an independent thinker of ideas, but an independent feeler of emotions. Grandma told me that this was to be expected. She told me that I was suffering from the shock of mama’s death. But it felt deeper then shock, it was more like the paralyzed feeling that you get when you belly flop into water. Your skin tingles from the slap of the water. And you feel like your lungs have collapsed. But for me I also felt like my hands were tied behind my back. I was doomed to drowned. Every thing was numb around me. It had to be inside of me in order for it to register, but even then there was no promise of me noticing it.
I soon found that my eye’s seemed to search for the color red in objects but when I found it I immediately looked away as though it hurt my eyes because I wasn’t ready for what I had seen.
Red, it was so noticeable and blunt that there was no mistaking it. I had to act immediately or else something would happen which meant uncertainty. The reality of red was to hard to accept, it was so strong and powerful, I guess that I didn’t like it. Grandma some how noticed my fascination with the color red, then she remembered that I had only one dress to go to church in. With money that she couldn’t spare she bought red fabric for a dress to sew for me.
When she presented it to me I was at first enthralled, the simple yet becoming style was one that would really make me feel comfortable when I wore it. But then the red hit my eyes with a powerful blow it felt as though my spirit had to stagger to regain its footing, so the little order of my feelings didn’t fall apart. After the initial shock a deep revolt set it in. In seconds it had hardened and lodged it’s self like a rock in my throat choking me. I felt that I needed to sputter and struggle for breath, but I couldn’t tell if it was the physical or spiritual side of me that was reacting to the red. I just knew then at that moment that I couldn’t accept yet it, the redness of it. No I couldn’t.

Stephanie