Well, here we go

Hi! My name is Erin, but I'm known to some as Echo. It's one of the many various and varied nicknames I've picked up over the years. I kinda like it. So, from here on out, I am Echo. Welcome to my world. Hang on tight, it gets a little bumpy sometimes!

When I was in fifth grade, I had to turn in a poetry notebook for a language arts assignment. One of the poems I wrote was:

My brother ---- is a nerd
He belongs in a cow herd

I accompanied that lovely little ditty with my borther's third grade class picture cut out and pasted on the body of a cow I had drawn on construction paper. Apparently the rest of the poetry in my notebook was better than that particular poem because my teacher decided to save the notebook as a 'good example' to show to future classes. Two years later, my bro who was now in fifth grade, comes home in tears. All of his friends were making fun of him- something to do with cows, huh, who'd've though that would come back to haunt me? The point to my story is, Dad made me promise not to write about my family anymore. But I'm going to anyway because family is a huge part of me life- and my bro is my roommate. So to keep my promise, I'm just not going to use their real names. Sounds like a pretty good compromise to me, right?

So my bro, who eventually got over the whole cow poem thing, told me about this awesome website stumbleupon.com. You sign up (it's free!) check off things that interest you and hit 'stumble.' The site generates other websites that you should be interested in based off your, well, interests. So after stumbling around for a few weeks, falling more and more in love with this amazing new time waster with every site I'm led to, I found The Pioneer Woman. www.thepioneerwoman.com Pioneer Woman is a racher's wife, homeschooling, mother of four who blogs about her life in such a unique and hilarious way, she completely inspired me to start this, my own blog. So here it is, love it or leave it, my attempt at blogging. WARNING- I will misuse commas, this dashy thing - and definetly the ever lovin dot dot dot... and I will probably end sentences with prepositions. And not use apostrophe's correctly. Don't judge me. I had the chicken pox in fourth grade, so I was out of school for two weeks. Then I got pneumonia and was out for another two weeks. Four weeks out in fourth grade means I'm not good with apostrophe's. And I don't really know the difference between adverbs and adjectives. And let's just forget about my 6, 7 & 8 times tables. But anyway, back to my blog, I'm calling my blog The Pit Girl because I'm from a pit, live in, on and around a pit and most importantly- I love a pit.

What exactly is a pit? you may ask. A pit is short for a sand and gravel pit, or aggregate mine. Stones in your driveway? Came from a pit. Concrete sidewalk? The sand in the cement came from a pit- maybe even the one my family owns. My grandpa bought the pit back in the 70's and my dad worked there until he bought it in 2000 or 2001. It's a family business- from my grandpa and dad to my aunt, uncle, mom, brother and I- we've all punched the time clock at the pit. Even my mom's brother and his sons have worked there just to make it even more confusing and that much more of a family affair. So to say I come from a pit is honest, it's part of my heritage. As far as the living In, On and Around a pit- well Grandpa bought all the land around the pit except for a few acres with a farm house on it. When he finally acquired that as well, one of the pit employees (Mom and I lovingly call them Pit People) rented the house. When he moved out, Bro moved in. A few months later, his highschool buddy moved in with him. Then in July of 2008, I moved in with the boys. Some of the Pit People call our house the 'Frat House,' I have no idea why. Maybe, because on any given weekend night the first summer we all lived together, you would find people in various stages of intoxication in various ares of the house, the porch, the yard, the driveway, the field... but then that's just a guess. Random passed out bodies on the porch or not, we just call it Home. And while we clean up nice, we are not naturally neat freaks- we will never win awards for our housekeeping- hence the live 'In' a pit. Since it's pit property that's the 'On.' And literally, you can see three gravel pits if you stand on my front porch- that's the 'Around.' I know what you're thinking- that you've never even heard of a pit, let alone know what one is and here's this girl with three of em? It's all in location, location, location. There are a TON of pits in this county, apparently there was a huge glacier deposit way back when that left all the aggregate in this area. If you're curious, or a nerd like me, check out this website www.ohiohistorycentral.org.

As for me loving a pit, it's absolutely true. I love the pit, I mean it has supported my family, essentially put my tail through college and is the source of my favorite part of summer- floating in the clear waters of the pond. But my other pit love is Floyd, our pitbull. So while my blog is mostly going to be a journal of my day to day life- funny stories, memories, rants, raves, you name it... I'll also write about Floyd and how much fun he is, how my friends are getting married and how not fun that is for the terminally single, and just for more fun I'll throw in what it's like living in a podunk town that's a mix between Hicktown and Margaritaville.

If nothing else, this ought to be interesting.

Echo