Questions

The other day I was at the pool waiting for my kids to get done with swim team practice and I was answering some emails.  A friend looked over my shoulder and said, "Wow, that is a lot of emails".  Then she asked me what kinds of things people say and what was the number one question asked of me.

The number one question asked of me is why I carry the gun I carry. To long to answer in this post.  I wrote a post on it before, but can't find it.  I guess I need to start organizing this thing better.

The second question asked is how do I get my wife, mother, whoever to move on past their bad guy experience. The answer usually depends on what other information they choose to include, but most of the time I refrain from advice giving and just offer an ear and encouragement.

I recently got an email from a person asking me if there is anything I don't share on the blog and what might surprise people to know about me.

I have written about it before, but, yes of course there are tons of things I don't share on the blog.  This blog is a snippet of my life and it is easy to think because I primarily write about gun/self defense things that is my entire life.  It isn't.  I would say that is probably the thing that would surprise people the most, my life isn't all guns all the time.

If you come to my house you might not even know we own guns.  We don't have a deer head hanging on the wall(although I really hope to someday)  We only have one decoration related to guns and it is the sign that you see on the side bar.  90% of my day is talking about swim team, volleyball, teenage girls and teenage boys.  Answering questions like mom can you take me here.  Mom can I do this or that.  Mom, why can't I do this or that?

Last night's dinner conversation revolved around our daughter's upcoming birthday and her plans to go to Disneyland where all the princesses will shower her with gifts.  It is worth noting we are not going to Disneyland for her birthday and we have been telling her that for a month, but the girl is relentless in her efforts to change our minds.  Stubborn and tenacious, that one.  She gets it from her dad.

Having said that, if I read a book it is in fact going to be about guns, self defense, military that kind of thing, but I rarely get a chance to read. I am currently hopping back and forth between 3 books that I desperately want to finish. If I watch a movie it will be some kind of historical war movie or something else action packed, but again, that doesn't happen often. Still not finished watching Band Of Brothers. If I have a free afternoon it will be spent shooting or the like.  If I have a choice about how to spend my time it will be in the gun/self defense realm because it is what I do now as a job and it is where my interests lie, but my kids, house, etc decide how I spend the majority of my time.

What else about me might surprise people...probably nothing. Would have to think about that a bit longer.

The other question/s I get fairly often, and this surprises me, is why doesn't John or my husband have a nickname on the blog like Arete and do I call Arete, Arete in real life.  First, no I have never called him Arete except on the blog and once in a text message as a joke. I call him by his name.

Generally, I only give people a nickname if they do not want to be identified on the blog.  Mr. & Mrs. Awesome are the exception. They didn't mind being identified, but they are too awesome and really needed to be referred to as such.  Interesting enough, both John and I do refer to them as that in real life.  I know their names, but anytime I talk about them or to them, I say something like "Oh, hey the Awesome's are here". The other day my husband said, "Babe, can you contact Mrs. Awesome and ask her a questions about blah, blah, blah.  John will also say, "Had dinner with Mr. & Mrs. Awesome"(I am still waiting for an invite)  Some things just stick.

As for John,  I first started writing about him almost as soon as I started writing the blog.  I wrote a post about my training and how incredible it was, so I used his name which is all over the internet anyway.  I wasn't trying to promote his company(like I am now:), but it made sense to tell people who I took the course from.  When I first started writing about Arete, I asked him can I say this, can I say that. He told me, I could say he was a sniper, a Marine, an MMA fighter, but nothing else and that included his name.  I had to call him something other than, that sniper/Marine/MMA fighter guy.  Arete was the most fitting name I could think of for him, although a few others come to mind since. My husband does not have a nickname because I am proud that he is my husband and I like calling him that.  I love being married to him and in real life I often call him Mr. insert-our-last-name.  Lets say our last name is Smith.  I might say something like "Good morning, Mr. Smith."  or "Thank you so much Mr. Smith"  I can't do that here, so I say my husband instead cuz you know, he is mine:).  A tid bit of info for ya, outside of the blog no one calls me AGirl, but I do have a nickname that all of my family and friends call me except John and Arete.  They both call me by my actual given name, which isn't my given name at all.

Interesting stuff, huh...