We stepped cautiously, hoping to avoid premature dives into the wet grass. Of course the names would be in the giant fish… but which one?

 

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We heard loud commands in German and vicious barking coming from the deep woods. Unfortunately it was also coming from right next to the treasure.

 

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I posted about this on Twitter as well and my lovely wife saw the Tweet and found out where the tag came from and got it for me as a surprise :).

(the one that Jennifer got me)

Turns out that it actually is in fact marketed as a luggage tag by OfTheFountain on Etsy who makes all sorts of hand stamped leather tags.

In person the tag looks a little more durable than in the original picture I saw so I guess it could be used as a luggage tag and be okay. Though I’d recommend switching out the leather strap for something more durable first if you want to be sure that your tag won’t break off during transit and end up doing it’s own sort of wandering.

That said I definitely like this a lot, it’s a really cool item for someone who loves stories like I do. Thanks Honey!

The Jack In The Box sat in the middle of the woods, waiting for any who might brave the mosquito armada and complete the mission.

 

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Notice something different around here lately? This blog recently underwent a change: the name went from Beginning (beginning.anitawirawan.com) to Anita’s Notebook (anitasnotebook.com).

Beginning.anitawirawan.com was fine when there weren’t that many people reading the blog but as more and more people came by it became increasingly obvious that a change was needed to keep things comfortable for everyone.

Not only was the url long and complicated it was just plain hard for people to remember. People who were wanting to do something as simple as checking to see what was posted here that week were having a hard time remembering what url to go to and/or how to spell anitawirawan (and who could blame them lol).

Even the name Beginning was a problem, seeming to slip people’s minds easily and in many cases when talking about this blog people just resorted to calling it things like The Anita Blog :D.


AT THE BEGINNING

So where did the name Beginning even come from? I had first started this blog in 2008 sort of out of desperation to try and get things together after my brother Jody died, to somehow wake up my mind from the shock of it all by doing some writing. The name Beginning was perfect for that time because I was starting at square one in many aspects of my life and had to re-learn how to do a lot of basic things that we all usually just take for granted.

But over the years this blog has evolved and now the name just doesn’t fit because, well, thankfully I’m not at the beginning anymore. I wanted to change the name and url to something that would be easy to remember yet reflected the core of what this blog is about, the love of interesting stories.

I racked my brain trying to think of something that would be good and came up with a few ideas, but nothing seemed to fit quite right. Then one night as Jennifer and I were chatting like we usually do as we drift off to sleep we got into a conversation about how it was really starting to bother me that I couldn’t think of a new name for the blog.

We started to brainstorm possible names on the off chance that something would turn up. And anyway it was a lot of fun. We rattled off possible blog names one after the other, some were ok and some just plain off the wall causing us to go into uncontrollable fits of giggling. After a little while of throwing random stuff out there I suddenly said ‘Notebook something …something notebook …um Anita’s Notebook?’


NOTEBOOK SNIPPETS

Jennifer froze for a sec and then said ‘I really like that!’. She felt very positively about it and thought it was a perfect name because my blog is based a lot on a little Moleskine notebook that I carry in my pocket with me everywhere. I love stories (have you noticed lol) and use this book to jot down snippets of all sorts of interesting or unusual ones that I come across during the day.

A couple snippets from my notebook:



This is the story that originally inspired me to start writing hint memoirs almost a year ago. I decided to challenge myself to write one hint memoir a day for a year.


Some quickly written notes on stories that happened one day while Jennifer and I were travelling, there was no need to write the whole story down because I knew I’d remember them all once I saw the notes (especially Bluetooth Escalade guy who was too busy concentrating on being a douche to notice he hadn’t taken the gas pump out of the car before driving off).

COMFY

The more I thought about it the more I realized that yes it was the perfect name for the blog (I only had one reservation about it, how would I refer to the blog when talking about it myself? As in it would be really odd to refer to myself in third person all the time).

It wasn’t long before we were both wide awake and had broken out a laptop to buy the domain name. It was obvious that neither of us would be able to sleep until the url was bought and I figured that was a good sign. Either that or we’d wake up the next morning and be the not-so proud owners of a random domain name chosen hastily while dozing off lol.

Turns out that we liked it even more the next day :).

The process of switching over the entire blog to the new url was a tad bit more difficult of a process than brainstorming for the actual name itself, but once everything was done it felt really good and much more comfortable.

Anyway I hope that you like the new name and that the url will make things easier. Already I’ve noticed a lot more people coming in on the direct url instead of having to search Google for some weird combination of terms just to get back here again. This is the start of many improvements to come, which as mentioned in the comfy couches post aim to make this a nicer home for people who love stories. And of course as always if you have any requests feel free to email me.

It’s a phone. It’s a couch. It’s a …phone couch?

 

What is a hint memoir?

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Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).
 

 

As the police car zoomed towards us it suddenly dawned on me that the nerdy game had transformed into suspected robbery of a gun store.

 

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They hated Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and would stand in the shelter of their doorway to glare at the blur of happy people on four-wheelers.

 

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The pioneers slogging it out during the Gold Rush in Alaska said that the summers here would be a golden paradise…except for the mosquitoes.

The swarms of mosquitoes. The giant armadas of devil vampires hell-bent on sucking the life blood out of you pinprick by tiny pinprick.

This is what I thought of while in the middle of the woods on the way to a cache the other day. I was being endlessly besieged by a cloud of the Alaska State Bird and it was so unbearable that I was reduced to silly desperate tactics just to try to keep even a few of them off of me at a time.

Blades of tall grass in hand I waved both of my arms around in front of me in a wax on wax off sort of move as I walked. Yes it’s okay to laugh, really. It’s funny now.

What I really needed was one of those suits that the beekeepers wear which would have even been more of a spectacle but at least would have saved me a pint of two of blood.

When we got back to the cache it turned out to be a jack in the box that played a song and popped up with the log, which was pretty cool and creative actually but hard to appreciate fully because of the oh I don’t know thousand living darts that were throwing themselves at us at any given time.

I feel sorry for the pioneers who had to work out in these kinds of conditions all the time, I wonder how many of them went insane from dealing with swarms of mosquitoes day after day in the pursuit of gold. Hell, it almost drove me crazy in just one hour of geocaching know what I mean?

In one swift move the cat leaped from the floor and vaulted off of his tongue as he spoke. We all sat frozen in horror.

 

What is a hint memoir?

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Feel free to post your own hint memoirs in the comments too if you want I’d love to read em :).