From My PURSE-sonal Collections

"Some days I'm ready for weird, some days I'm not."
-Val, on 4/11/08 at the now defunct coffee shop out in the boonies

"Every damn thing is your own fault if you're any good."
-Ernest Hemingway, GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA

"I'm talking, and I'm ticked!"
-my Sarah, on 11/7/07 after a particularly trying evening

"One can never consent to creep when one feels the impulse to soar."
-Helen Keller, from THE CONFESSION Part One (opening quote)

"You're a thinker . . . thinkin' and submittin' to the Old Ways don't mix."
-author Beverly Lewis, THE SHUNNING pg. 192

"Might would be . . ."
-Gayla, said 6/10/08, but just one of numerous times

"I don't like to have my thighs encased!"
-Gloria, me, on 7/2/08, informing Melissa C.

"Kids have a unique ability to figure out how to make things their fault."
-Dr. Phil, to Oprah on 9/16/09, concerning painful events in a child's life

"The words are too small for what you feel inside."
-Mother on EXTREME HOME MAKEOVER per gratitude over her new home

"You boys go out in the street and blow 'em!"
-Aunt Donna, 4th of July 2009, to all boys with firecrackers

"A teeny tart: a tartini."
-Musing of Miss Melba on 8/8/07

"Remember those who are in prison as though in prison with them."
-Hebrews 13:3, ESV New Testament

"People that aren't convicts are intimidating."
-Brother Gary in letter dated 12/26/06

"It was the best frickin' fried chicken I'd ever had!"
-Librarian at Linebaugh on 2/13/07, relaying personal food story to me and the kids

"Do ya'll sinners have your Bibles?"
-Ashley, my eldest, on 2/17/07 to her friends, Mallory and Patrick

"I notice cooks on TV whose upper lips raise to one side when they talk. Paula Deen, Giada DiLaurentis, Rachel Ray. Jimmy teases me about my lip. Perhaps it is the sign of a good cook!"
-Me, self-musing 1/21/07

"Having resentment is like taking poison and hoping the other guy dies."
-Susan St. James, 12/3/04, on the sorrow of losing her 14-year old son in plane crash

". . . anytime I've stepped in my own footprints again, I haven't felt renewed."
-UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN pg. 15, read on 9/7/02

" 'You think too much,' said Paul simply. . . 'Talk a lot too . . . ' "
-FIVE QUARTERS OF THE ORANGE pg. 303, read in 2002

"Time flaps on the mast."
-Virginia Woolf, MRS. DALLOWAY pg. 37, read 1/22/03

"Yes! Thank you, Lord."
-My husband, on 7/24/08 as he pointed up above in victory, after hearing the news about a house for Gary

"My life is shitty."
-scribbled on a public restroom wall painted the color of Pepto-Bismal, read 8/23/03, Colorado

"NOTICE! Communicating or attempting to communicate with inmates is prohibited.
C.R.S. 18-9-117 P.C.S.O."
-sign on railing in Lamar Courtroom, 8:30AM on 11/29/04, court hearing for Sister Rebekah

"I'm in the froze."
-Ashley, my oldest child, defining her physical chill back in 2002'ish

"You have this freak flag. You just don't fly it."
-THE FAMILY STONE, brother character to SJP's character, at theater 6/2/06

"Focus this month on BACON! We lost over 1,000 pieces last month!"
-bulletin board at Church St. Mickey D's, summer of 2006, seen while cruising the drive-thru

"There's more to you than there is of you."
-from the movie THE PRODUCERS

"I threw a ball and hit a baby."
-Tim Baker, preaching at CP on 9/3/06, after tossing out a foam ball to the congregation

"Lost in thought. Send a search party."
-a t-shirt slogan seen on 9/11/06

"That scared me bad! . . . I've lost visual of the road."
-Melissa C. on 9/16/09, maneuvering a winding, narrow, 2-lane road with four passengers

"Shake it off, big boy! Get out there and knock him down!"
-Grandpa-fan to hurt lineman-boy during Zachary's football game, 10-12 year-olds, 10/23/06

"I do because I'm a worm keeper."
-Little Izzy, our one-time neighbor girl, on a Sunday morning, 8/21/05

"I got pretty fingers."
-Brother John, said 6/19/05, upon the successful cessation of his habitual nail-biting

And, finally:
"If there's an author of my life, I wish they'd [he'd] get to the feel-good part."
-Brother Gary, quote from letter dated 4/24/07