Generic Photo #1.

Don't you wish you were here instead of on this blog?

Wait. We will replace these pics with something good.

These pictures are beautiful, aren't they? They mean nothing as of yet.

I have to think of something earthshattering to include right here.

Enjoy these lovely generic photos until they are replaced with something more humorous and fitting.

Something important will happen here.

These are not photos of my last family vacation.

Default slides are boring.

I think I'll replace these photos with pictures of llamas and geese. Or something.

Friday, May 3, 2013

A Page from an Amish Girl’s Diary


So, I’m totally chilling out by the chicken coop, right? And my mom hands me this dumb journal with a picture on the front of it with two little kids sitting by a stream, except the kids don’t have faces. ‘Cause I’m, like, Amish. And she tells me that if I don’t “straighten out my attitude right now, young lady,” and “think very, very hard about thine actions of late,” she’s gonna ground me until I get married, which is, like, three whole years away because I’m only 15, which really isn’t that young if you think about it ‘cause I already have responsibilities and everything, like taking care of my three brothers and six sisters, four of which are twin parts. And that is so totally unfair because I haven’t been able to go out with my friends after I gather eggs in forever!

And since I have this journal and I have to write in it anyway, like, right now, because she’s watching me this very second to see if I’m doing it, the old hag, I might as well tell you that she already punished me once today, unless you count this stupid journal which I would, so that’s punishment number two. But the first time was when she told me no more messaging my friends so she took away my homing pigeon. The joke is on her, because she thought she took my homing pigeon, but it was really Bethany’s, right? Which is totally hilarious because I’d already tied a note to its foot, so when my mom threw the pigeon out the window, it took my note with it so Bethany will be all, “Oh, look, it’s my pigeon and here’s a note from Hester,” and my mom’s back at the barn tee-heeing and stuff, saying, “Oh, look, I got rid of my daughter’s only contact with the outside world, aren’t I evil.” But really, I just wanted to tell Bethany that Matthew Yoder is all into her and wants to be her special friend and she doesn’t even know it, and that she’d better drop her hankie or something soon, because Judith so has her cap set for him, I can tell you. I saw the way she was looking at him last Saturday during the barn raising, all, “He’s sooo cute and he knows how to swing that hammer, and look at how he dovetails.” Which is totally cool, I get it, really I do, but Bethany would look so much cuter with Matthew, I can just see their twelve kids now, all Yoderish and stuff.

And here’s another thing, my mom gets her apron in a bunch just because I like to hang with Rachel Stoltzfus after council service, and who wouldn’t? I have to sit behind her for three hours during service, so by then we’ve passed, like, a gazillion notes and we know each other super, super well. My mom, she’s all, like, “Why don’t you hang out with Ruthie Hershberger, and I’m, like, “Duh, her brother’s a sheep’s bladder and he smells like blutwurst.” Plus, he hangs out by us all the time and spies on us when we’re trying to make pie, which I hate to do but Ruthie has to do every single day because her family runs a pie stand. And the English tourists are at her house all the time, just standing there staring and trying to take pictures of us when they think we don’t notice, which is so totally rude to try and steal our souls and everything, because, like, what are you going to do with an Amish soul back in Chicago? Pluck a chicken?

Besides, I can see it written all over Ruthie’s face that she’s gonna go all Rumshpringa any minute now, doing her teenage wild oat sewing off in Indianapolis or some such, and I’m telling you, she won’t come back. She’s so grossfeilich. She keeps talking about some place called Chuck E. Cheese she heard some tourist kids talking about; that and something called “Wee” or maybe it’s “Us,” I don’t remember; some stupid game that sounds so lame but she totally wants to do it, and everything she says just gets me all ferhoodled. And I’m so not going on Rumshpringa because it is so lame unless you’re into, like, shopping and driving in cars. I can’t imagine leaving my horse! I mean, I have my own pony named Muslin and she’s so sweet! I couldn’t leave her, not for some stinky old Buick or a dirty apartment that I’d be crammed into with three other Amish girls anyway, no thanks. I already know how that is because I have to share a loft with my little sisters and they’re total slobs. So I’ll stay here with Muslin, thank you very much. Although, I so wouldn’t mind it if Ruthie brought me back maybe a yellow bonnet with a little bee motif on it. That and some glittery shoe buckles. But don’t count on it because once she sees the big city, she’ll be gone, I’m telling you. She’s trouble with a capital T and no one ever takes her homing pigeon away.