This message was posted on Facebook, by Ce’s mom…

“Just talked to Ce. They are on the way to meet xxx. It appears to have been an electrical short. She said she could use clothing for herself, esp. tenny shoes size 8 1/2. Also any dog supplies, medications, kennels, etc. Both of their dogs are older Boston Terriers. They need to wait and see what they will do about living quarters before getting anything else. Thank you all so much for your love and friendship. Those are worth more in this world than anything money can buy.”

So clothes, animal supplies and gift cards are the most helpful right now. I do believe that both her and her husband were able to get out their personal carry pieces, but all the ammo went up.

Thank you all so very, very much for your help, thoughts and prayers!!!

UPDATE…here is the best address to use for sending your generous donations..

.P.O. Box 609 Greenville TX 75403

I have seen the house…speechless at the total devastation.

Here is a message left by Ce in the comments. I wanted to post it here for those that might not read them…

Hi everyone
First I want to thank everyone for the outpouring of prayers and support. I feel so very blessed that my family was able to get out of the house with no injuries. We did loose the fish  but my husband (evcrawfish aka Mark), my boys Walt, Jake, and Zac were able to get out along with our two Boston Terriers Maggie and Anna.
I have provided AGirl my PO Box and she will be providing it shortly I’m sure. I’ve already revived clothes for myself and the boys and I purchased a few necessities for the hubby today (against his will! He wanted only stuff for me and the boys).

I think what breaks my heart the most of things we lost was the wedding band my husband received from his grandpa as a heirloom, my diamond, and our firearms. I won’t go into our list but it was a nice collection we had hoped to pass to our sons.
We did make it out with a few , my Kahr PM 9 my Kahr P380, my beloved XD9, my husbands Kahr PM 9, one of our XD45′s and one XDs. My Springfield 1911 was down at a friends house so it was saved- but my hubby’s was not. We had matching pistols of all the above miraculously my husbands grandpa’s single shot 12 gauges came out unscathed!
Of course all the ammo except what we had in the mags with us was lost.
It was quite the fireworks.

Thank you again for the love and support you have shown. You will never know what it means to us.

I have friend who is a gunnie and first rate Patriot who just hours ago lost her entire home to a fire.

The details are sketchy as they were told to me by her mom, but my friend, Ce, smelled something burning, went outside to explore and found her roof on fire. She and her husband were able to get their 3 kids and animals out of the house safely. They lives so far out that help was not possible and they lost everything!

I do not know all their needs, but they have 3 small boys who probably could use some clothes and maybe a toy or two. If anyone is willing to donate old clothes or other items laying around the house please leave a message here or email me.

The boys sizes are 5T, 3T and 18-24 months.

I would greatly, greatly appreciate any help you might be able to provide!

Update: If you would like to mail stuff to her send it to:

P.O Box 609 Greenville TX 75403

A few weeks ago I decided to purchase a back-up battery for my cell phone. I am pretty obsessive about keeping my gas tank full(actually my husband is) and keeping my cell phone charged, but there are times when the phone has been roaming and has used up way more battery than I had planned. For that reason I felt a back up plan was a good idea.

I purchased a Halo Pocket Power with flashlight. The company claims that once the Halo charger is charged, if not used, it will hold a charge for up to a year. I have had mine a few weeks, so gonna have to get back to you on that.

Here is what you get for $29.97 plus shipping(mine is from QVC)…

A small carry case, two adapters to fit either an iphone or android type device, and a connector piece to charge Halo from a computer.

The first thing I did was plug the Halo into my computer and charge it. To charge it the first time it took about an hour. Then I left my cell phone run almost all the down to zero and used the Halo to charge it back up. To charge my cell phone to capacity it took 40 minutes, but I was able to use all the features on my phone immediately as it was charging and after the phone was fully charged, the Halo still had charge left.

The device is small, fairly inexpensive, handy and I think I very good fit to my everyday carry bag.  I bought two more. One for TSM and one for the teenager. If you watched my first video on my new Maxpedition Bag you saw the bag has a spot for a cell phone, but I keep my cell phone on my body leaving that pocket empty.That spot is perfect for the charger!!

For the most part the people in my real life have not known that I carry a gun. I have always had a very small number of friends on my personal Facebook. It has been made up of my close friends and people I have known either most of my life or for a very long time.

I have not posted about guns on there until recently. Over the past several months I have posted a picture here or there of me with Eleanor(my AR) or of the kids at the range and I have even posted a few links to this blog(but people didn’t realize I was AGirl), but I never really spoke about me and guns and I never spoke of the mugging.

I have been trying little by little to integrate my two worlds. Last night I posted an old picture of me with my gun on my hip along with a story of how I almost walked into the kids’ school dressed just like that.

Soon, I had a few friends email or FB message me asking what on earth and what in the world and oh my…

So, today, I came out. Today I told all those people that I had been mugged and that I am not only a gun owner, but a gun carrier.

There has been something very protective and safe about being two people. There is something comforting about having a place where I could still be the old me or at least subconsciousness-ly pretend to be. It was nice for a while and then it became a burden and started to feel heavy.

In the beginning I did not tell them because I did not tell anyone and then I didn’t want them to know. I was embarrassed and ashamed and I had already had the few friends I did tell walk away. Later it just became a nice place to escape. A place where I didn’t have to think about being a victim or what had happened. And I liked holding onto the old me. Even two years later I wasn’t ready to fully walk away from the old Shelby, the one that was never attacked.

With all the good that has come from my waking up, there is still pain. It is faint and hardly even there, but nonetheless, it can be felt from time to time.

The more I have healed and the more I have come to accept all the new aspects of myself the less I have wanted to hide. I have not wanted to be AGirl any more, but be more, just a girl. More Shelby. In fact, the less I want to blog or post on my AGirl facebook and really just talk about guns as part of my everyday life and not so much as an announcement or a revelation. I am, in a way, becoming more private again and yet still wanting to share.

I am not walking away from the blog or guns or my public advocacy for training, awareness, self defense and gun owners. I am just being a little more me and a little less AGirl, if that makes sense.

As of right now no one on my personal facebook has walked away or been anything but supportive  Time will tell I guess, but regardless I am feeling lighter than I have felt in a while and a little more whole.

Just a quick update…

Basically all is good here. The forehead thing is fine. The key was that I needed the spot to get all red and icky to show that the cream was working and it is indeed doing that.  Good news!!

I have been doing a lot of dry fire practice and I have been reading a ton to make up for lack of actual training. I also started a glute program. My backside needs a little(or a lot) work. I have a ways to go, but I can see changes and I feel stronger.

The guy I was doing self defense training with flaked on me, so I have been looking for a quality replacement. Has not been easy, but I think I might have found a place. Excited to at least have an opportunity.

Mostly have just been busy with EMT and the kids. I do have a couple of posts I am working on, so hopefully I will find he time to sit down and finish those.

Hope you are all well!!!

My daughter M, who will be 15 on Sunday was talking to me about one of her friends. I like this friend very much. She is a nice girl, but like many young girls, she is searching for her place in the world.

This friend was asked to prom by a boy a few weeks ago. Prom is this Sunday. Last night this sweet girl texted M and asked her how to by a boutonniere. M didn’t know, so she asked me. Together we walked through the process and got one ordered. I wondered why the girl’s parents didn’t help. I do not think M would appreciate me sharing the conversation, so we will skip that part.

Today M told me about her glutes being sore. She started a new workout. She told me that she likes being healthy, but she could careless about being thin.

This same friend cares very much about being thin. Her mom think that for her height, 120 pounds is the ideal weight. So much so that she will have a 20 minute discussion with herself about eating a cracker.

Friend- I want to eat the cracker, but I don’t want to. I am hungry, but do I need it??

M- Eat the cracker or put it away, but lets not waste our night trying to figure it out.

This conversation between M and me took place on the way to the store today to buy toilet paper(I have TP, but there was a sale:). I use the term conversation loosely. I didn’t say a word. I listened.

Eventually M says, “She does not have an eating disorder, but she eats disorderly.”

That is the quote.

How many of us do not have a “disorder”. but we do things disorderly…

What a very insightful thing for a 15 year old to say.

Last week my dermatologist’s assistant called to tell me that the official word came in. The thing on my forehead was/is cancer. I made an appointment to go in to discuss options. That appointment was yesterday.

As a quick aside, my daughter and I were asked to participate in a photo shoot for an gun article written by my friend Lynne. That was Monday night. I left there sick, sick, sick. In addition to tossing my cookies the entire drive home(did I mention I was the one driving?), I spent the next day and half in bed. I was feeling much better by my appointment yesterday, but not my usually chipper self.

When my doctor came in to see me she said…

“Make no mistake there is no good kind of cancer. Cancer is bad and unwanted in any form. Having said that, yours is very remediable”. As she said, I have the best of the worst. Cancer is the worst, but Basal-cell carcinoma is the best to have as already stated by other bloggers who have been there done that.

Due to the location she suggested we go with the cream. She is a big fan of the cream. My first thoughts were lets just cut the thing out. Intellectually, I understand this is not the end of the world, but I just hate having cancer in me, on me, growing…I want it out, but I trust her judgement. She did a very good job of explaining why she felt the cream was a good option and said if I wanted the surgery then that is what we would do.

So, for the next 2 months I will be applying this super cream to my forehead 3 times a week and then in 3 months I will go back to be checked. There is every reason to believe that this is basically a non issue and once dealt with should not cause any more concern.

I want to thank everyone who came here to offer me support and kind words. I realize that this is not that big of deal in the world of big deals, but in my world it was. Kindness is one of the greatest gifts one can give. Truly, thank you!!