Introducing Us

“You did WHAT Boys?

That is me, Abbie, and that is what I say, a lot.

What you cannot see on the floor behind me is my constant pile of clothes I am trying to fold, at all times.

Let me help you.

 I should be happy to be folding clothes because that would mean I am not pulling a slug off of someone or cleaning milkshake off the ceiling again…

or for that matter, getting the legos out of the blender.

I can help you with that one too.

I started sharing my favorite stories February 29, 2012.

I have written our stories down for years and I take pictures of everything, clearly.

 

Avery is really is not happy

because I am taking a picture

instead of helping him

get the bag off of his head

He is 4 in this photo

 

 

Avery is the “oldest” of the twins and likes to say since they are identical twins and came from the same egg he “made” Mitchell.   Avery is now 12.

 

 

 

 

 

Mitchell just happy I’m taking

his picture despite not being able

to get the bag stuck on his head.

He is 4 in this photo. 

 

 

 

 

Mitchell is 12 now and he says he is a “chick maggot”.  Mitchell thinks he is a middle child?

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is our Peter.

Enough said.

Peter is four in this photo.

 

 

 

 

 

Peter is now eight…

…and has had an entire post dedicated to things he has said called,

“The $hit my kid says is funnier than the $hit your dad says.”

 

 

 

Jim is my husband and while he was in medical school I began emailing him stories of our kids for him to read when he had a minute or two, knowing he was missing out on these “priceless” moments.

 

It may have also have been to explain my future trip to the nut house that I didn’t realize was an unobtainable goal.

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I would send our favorite story in our annual Christmas letter.  People began requesting I add them to the growing mailing list to receive the “DREADED” Christmas letter I decided this may be a better idea.

She doesn’t care where she sleeps as long as it’s on me.

Our Mutt Lilly (if she could talk)  “My brothers have found a new way to entertain themselves… When I am outside they yell, “Lilly in the house!” The funny part to them and not me is when I barrel through the yard and leap up the stairs and…this is the part that makes them laugh…I slam face first into a SHUT door. I don’t mind. I like making them laugh but our mom made them stop.

If you need a laugh today…

Ten Things We Learned This Weekend

Another Holiday That Tries to Turn Me Into a Liar

I have some serious stories to tell too.

Not Everyone had a Mother to Celebrate

What I cannot figure out is why they have reality shows called “The Real Housewives of…” but no one has a reality show of what a REAL housewife’s life is like. We have the most crazy, fun, REAL times in a crazy, fun, real, gated community with our families.  The best part is that we know how abnormal it all is and we go with it.

Here I am with our traveling Nutcracker, In August.

He enjoys Grey Goose and brunettes.

 

I write down our stories because, let’s face it, I am never going to make a scrap-book.

“If you would just smile she would STOP taking our picture!”  

Our Norman Rockwell moment.

I just started February 29, 2012 and so far I feel like I’m giving birth…mostly that legs apart and up in the air while naked in a well-lit room with strangers…feeling.

“Look mom!”

“You keep an eye out Peter while we sneak a kiss.”

“Those aren’t real boobies mom!  They just have sponges under the shirt!”

The stories I write are to give our kids one day.  Having a forum* to share our “funnies” encourages me to write them down so that when they have children of their own…

I can show them that they will only get to the brink of insanity.

Ha, take that!  The “nut house” would be a vacation and God needs parents to stay home and take care of their kids!  I will be sitting back laughing at my grandchildren’s “funnies” while watching my own grown kids squeegee the cooking oil off the floor.

I’m pretty sure their kids will one day POUR COOKING OIL ON THE FLOOR to slide around on or POUR A GALLON OF MILK INTO THE CARPET to see if it makes its way to the pipes that we should have NEVER told them run all over under the floors.

Peter is Tom Sawyer.  I can prove it.

So I may be new to blogging but I have years worth of stories that I will try to deliver daily to make you smile, laugh, think, love and possibly occasionally cry.

* My parents were hippies and I may not have made it to school as often as I should have to learn grammar and punctuation.

That is your warning.

I write as I think and am already aware I do not know how to use a comma or most punctuation.  Up until now I made my husband proofread our Christmas letter which was the extent of anyone seeing my thoughts fall onto paper.  Jim likes to tell me my writing is like an ugly porn star and my punctuation is the ugly part.  Thank God he finds my inadequacies cute.  Oh, and thank God for spell check.

Please don’t make me regret this thing yet.

What have I gotten myself into?

People like to tell me my kids are funny. I always reply with all kids are funny. It is wrapping your mind around the moment and finding the humor.

Halloween 2011 and yes, that is Doogie Howser, MD and Vinny.

 Mitchell and Avery are IDENTICAL twins and this is how much they looked alike before the can of black hairspray.

I believe in having a grateful heart and being joyful mother of children.  I am trying my best to instill in my children that we have to find things to be grateful for in order to be happy.  I am also sarcastic and not afraid to laugh AT MY KIDS, as well as with them.  I also think it is important for my kids to see adults having fun.  I want them to look forward to growing up as well as enjoying each stage.

“Oh no Bat Baby, have mercy!”

I want to create a place for people to check after they have read the day’s news in the car pickup line at school or on the side of a practice field and now you need a smile.

“Mom, the baby is eating dirt…don’t worry he likes it!”

-Abbie Gale, allthatmakesyou.com

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Hit the “Follow me” button and I will try to tell you a story regularly that you can relate to.  A story that makes you smile, laugh, think, love cry or cry laughing.

 

 

Awkward! What do I do Now?

What do I do?

What do I do when I look on my phone and see I have a message.

I open the message.

It reads, “It took me forever to get the courage up to send this.”

There is a picture attached.

I open the picture and its a picture of boobies!

Mom boobies, like mine. I mean, they are NOT mine but they are by no means “dirty picture boobies.” They might be a picture for a husband out-of-town and it could be as innocent as “holy cow look at my tan lines” photo. It could be a “before” photo, as in before a little touch up with a plastic surgeon.

I don’t know why someone takes a picture of themselves naked. I don’t care if you do.

This does not change the fact that I just got a naked topless picture of a mom I know from my boys school.

A pair of boobies staring at me that I find myself studying and concluding that those are indeed her boobies.

Holy-Mother-of-God. What do I do?

Do I reply?

I get butt called and butt texted all the time. This is a byproduct of having a name that starts with “ABB”

I am a librarians dream.

Once she realizes she accidentally “sexted” me will she kill herself before school starts because she has to see me everyday.

I don’t want her to be uncomfortable. I have all sorts of wacky pictures on my phone. I don’t have MY boobies but I have other people’s boobies. I have pics of toilet stalls, dead mice in pool basket, husband spooning dog thinking its me…

Should I send her a naked photo of some of my anatomy so we are even? No harm, no foul.

Do I just send her a, Thank you?”

Do I just send her a, “Thank you but I like boys?”

Do I call the son and tell him, “Shame on you!”

Do I forward it to her husband and tell him I think if was intended for him?

These are the kind of pictures I send my husband. I sent this picture a couple of weeks ago. I wanted this puppy. I lost all sense of reason. I went to the mall to buy Chinese soup spoons and I am trying to leave with a Havanese puppy? Maybe he would have said yes if I showed him my boobies.

Do I play stupid and let it ride and always wonder if she quit speaking to me because of it?

After attending BlogHer last week and wondering where I fit into this whole “webosphere” God sent me a clear sign where I belong. I must keep blogging and telling these stories. He sent me Mrs ______ boobie picture so I could make you laugh.

I think God wants me to continue on.

What do you think I should do and do you have a story like this?

 

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

 

Follow us for…

All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.

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Ten Stupid Things I Learned at BlogHer 2012

Ten Things I Learned from Attending BlogHer in NYC

1. Turn off your phone and do not even answer if it is your kids. Chances are they will only call when you are talking to a “cloth diaper mom.” You will find yourself yelling into the phone, “NO, YOU MAY NOT WATCH THE HANGOVER 2! WHERE IS YOUR FRIENDS MOM? THAT MOVIE IS RATED R TOO! LET ME JUST SAY THAT NO MOVIE THAT IS RATED R IS APPROPRIATE!” The other mom with small children will look at you as if you are raising barbarians. Secretly, you are so happy your three boys called before they saw a woman in a movie shooting Ping-Pong balls out of her “place between where the babies exit out,” (you can click that blue link to find out why I wouldn’t teach my boys the word vagina.) You also secretly cannot wait until this woman’s kids are older and she gets hers.

2. That 5% of the 5,100 people who attended BlogHer in 2012 are the long time bloggers that really know what they are doing and have learned through their own successes and failures. Then there were approximately 3,000 people there with the objective to get something for free, go somewhere for free, get a discount on something back home to make it almost free or build a relationship with a vendor who will start sending them something for free. Those women had a pretty good offensive line. Then there were the rest of us.

Just in case we didn’t meet and because I suck at passing my cards out to people and then wish that I had and because there were 5,100 people there and I only had 100 cards and I came home with 80.

Email: allthatmakesyousmile@gmail.com Twitter: @allthatmakesyou

Facebook: Abbie allthatmakesyou Blog: allthatmakesyou.com

The rest of us wandered and occasionally bumped into one another. We wished we had someone with more experience to talk to but it turns out those with more experience were out together trying to get away from the people trying to “crack into their nut.” I get it. I have long time girlfriends too and I am sure these women have amazing relationships. Do I sound jealous? I am not because I really do get it. They have worked very hard to learn what they have learned and I am sure they had some bumps and bruises along the way. I am thankful for the sessions I attended and I did learn things. I am looking forward to catching a few of the other sessions I couldn’t attend, online.

3. It is IMPOSSIBLE to blow dry your hair and paint your toenails, at the same time. I am sorry Hilton and way to plan for everything with that polka dot carpet! We will call it even stevens since I paid $450 a night for a room with broken seals in the windows and I couldn’t even see out my premium priced views.

4. I may just have to accept the fact that I will never fit in with 5,000 women, as hard as I try. I never rushed a sorority, joined a mom’s group, or went on a “girls night out.” I like mixed company and I like men and frankly they were passing out plush vaginas and I won’t even teach my three sons the word “vagina.” When a table of women hear me say that I wont teach my boys “vagina” and that I refer to it as “the place between where the babies exit out,” they will looked at me like I just said women should not be allowed to vote. BTW, I didn’t get a plush vagina and I would have really loved one. I am the sole vagina bearer in my house and it would have been nice to bring it out on occasions and let it vote during family voting issues.

I need a man in the group, who used to be a boy, to get my sense of humor. I need a man to understand that it is a lot harder for little boys to yell at one another, “You’re a giant place between where the babies exit out!” versus “You’re a giant vagina!” I don’t need Judgy Judy looks and for you to whisper, “My children know the appropriate terminology” to your girlfriend. I just need you to chuckle or a smirk, that is what I do when I get that the person is being sarcastic. My husband is a doc and we all know the proper terms. My mom called mine my, “kitty cat” and I am not a stripper. She did give me a sense of humor because it is freaking hilarious when I hear a little girl get off a slide at the park screaming, “My vagina hurts!”

5. Mc Donald’s employees in NYC are paid wayyyy more than Mc Donald’s employees anywhere else, as evident by the McDonalds employee that sat down next to me and wolfed down a $24 cheeseburger.

6. You need to make connections before you go to the conference to meet people. If you don’t you will find yourself spending an evening listening to a woman tell you about the sex toy lock box business that she tells me is thriving. This leads me to the next thing I learned.

7. You need to be able to keep a straight face or get Botox everywhere so when the “naughty box lock lady” starts talking you don’t immediately begin making weird astonished faces and then decide to fist bump her? Ok, Botox arms as well.

8. If you work for a sex toy lock box company they train you to not blink when you talk about your products. Not one blink. Not one blink. I pay attention to blinks, (my story here about fast blinkers versus slow blinkers.) My guess is there was way too much giggling at training sessions so they just Botoxed their eyelids open. This whole sex-toy-lock-box episode has given me so much to think about and when I say that I am “thinking about” something it means I am hashing it out in public to anyone who will listen, that mean you reading too. I mean, have women not heard of a lock on their drawers? You put a locked box in my house and that is like giving my kids a challenge. That box would end up on a dark road waiting for someone to run it over for my little boys to find out what is inside and in their heads it would be gold coins and Skittles. Locked boxes are asking for trouble in my house.

9. Just because you took off your name badge off, Abbie, it doesn’t mean that it is OK to harass a vendor on an elevator. “But, why do we need to kill bad germs in the air now? Don’t we need to be exposed to germs? And how exactly do you know you are only killing the bad germs? We get new information all the time like, what if a germ we thought was bad turns out to be good for something else?” When the poor man finally breaks down and says his dad invented it, you can’t just say, “Oh, you will sell them gang busters because new moms are sleep deprived will buy anything for their babies” and then try to fist bump him, again…what is with me?

(Yes, my name is really Abbie Gale, (I said this 25 times.) My parents were hippies and they named me after the MAN Abbie Hoffman who spent his entire life trying to get pot legalized. He wrote the book, “Steal This Book.” My middle name is really Gale because they were babies having babies and they thought it was cute and they were lazy. Gale, as in a gust of wind hitting a sail because they also liked to sail. I am not giving you my last name, unless you want to hire me. I have high standards for my boys and hope that they get into college one day but if the school learns of their concerns over sperm diameter and whether or not this “sperm” I told them about is a liquid or a solid I will have to home-college them and I don’t even know how to form a proper paragraph.)

10. Wear a vendor badge so people will talk to you. Wear a vibrator company badge and women will chase you down like you have a key to Christian Grey’s house. I may do this next conference because I am much smarter now and very good with PhotoShop. I just have to make up a ridiculous vibrator company name. I am open to ideas. Anyone?

I think I will just keep on writing and keep on building the relationships I have on the computer and if it leads to more, than great. Perhaps one day I will be asked to sit with the “big dogs” but probably not until I learn to use a comma.

Hey, all you BlogHer chicks I didn’t meet, you missed out. I am much better in person as you cannot see my poor punctuation when I am speaking. I also had a rubber alligator in my purse my son sent with me. That is always a guaranteed good time.

You Tube Link (Click here if video above doesn’t work, because I never plan to run for public office)

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

Follow us for…

All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.

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Poor Tired Husbands and their Wives’ Naughty Books

I feel like an outcast.

My sweet, southern, girlfriends that I find so refreshing, have a little secret.

You can drive by their brick houses and see that something is going on with the family that lives there.  The pansies that were planted last fall are leggy in their flower beds and should have been pulled out a month ago, and replaced with begonias.  Their flower pots are sitting empty.  Has there been a separation?  Impending divorce?   Illness?

No, they just discovered “mommy porn.”  They are hiding in a little corner in their homes reading “Fifty Shades of Grey.”  I know because when we go to soccer practices or the club their whispering about it, giggling.  They greet each other with, “what page are you on?”  They declare that the second book is better than the first.  Everyone my age is talking about it as if they have never seen the opposite sex’s private parts in the daylight.   They are acting like a locker room full of high school boys with a dirty magazine.  I feel so left out!

It isn’t that I don’t want to read Fifty Shades of Grey.  I would love to be in the middle of the giggling.  I would love to feel all naughty with my mom friends.  It is just that the situation I am in forbids it.

You see I bought my dad a Kindle for Christmas.  I used my Amazon account to set it up for him and so far everything I have downloaded on my Kindle has loaded up onto his Kindle as well!

He is reading the books I buy and download before I do.  He is commenting and updating me on what he likes about the books that I haven’t even begun reading.

I AM NOT HAVING A BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION WITH MY DAD

ABOUT “FIFTY SHADES OF GREY!”

I found our seven year-old Peter’s beloved Bunny like this.  Maybe I could borrow Peter’s copy of the book when he is done with it.

It isn’t just the women that are being affected by this series of books.  The husbands look tired.  I heard one mom shout out to her husband at the lounge to “not have too many” and then give him a wink.  I heard another tell her husband he better have a protein drink because she was going to sit and read while he is out playing golf, and when he gets home she might need some “attention.”

This is yet another reason to be mad at the Kindle.  My poor husband is missing out on the  “Fifty Shades of Grey husband byproduct effect.”

This is NOT “The South” you read about in “The Help” anymore.

Abbie, All that makes you… allthatmakesyou.com

Click that “Follow” button or subscribe if I put a smile on your face.  I promise this is the first dirty book review of a book I have never read.  I wont think you are “bad” if you subscribe to my site on a day that I am writing about bondage books.  I would think that was awesome but ask that you not try to figure out where I live. 😉  Oh, and Peter loves to leave his bunny in precarious situations for me to find.  It is like a sport for him.  This is why I know my three boys will be the next generation of kids on that show, “Jacka$$” and I will be that boys poor mom.  Little girls don’t tie up their baby dolls and leave them for their mom to find and giggle around the corner.

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The Bethenny Frankel Show Called Me!!!

I have to share this super exciting thing that happened about a week ago. I share this because I realize this is probably as far as my very exciting story is going to go. As usual, my frontal lobe is defective and I ramble things off that perhaps I shouldn’t, even to television producers!

As some of my regular readers know I have been busy updating all three of our boys rooms. I had the phone practically in my hand for about a week straight talking to carpet people, painters, and furniture salesperson. I kept measuring and they kept calling me back with info and prices and since nearly all of these contacts were local I was shocked when, while the phone was in my hand, the caller ID said…

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!!!!

Who calls me from Los Angeles, California? I might get Temecula or some other former goat town in California but Los Angeles proper?

I answer, “Hello.”

Pleasant young woman, “May I speak to Abbie… Ssss….how do you pronounce the last name?”

I chuckle and say, “It is just as it looks.” and then I say my married last name and then I say, “I tried to get my husband to take my last name when we got married. It would have been so much easier, _______. It even rhymes, Jim _______.”

Nice lady on the phone chuckles now.

Who am I talking to I wonder? This is the kindest bill collector I have ever spoken with. I’m kidding!

She says, “This is _____ from the Bethenny Frankel Talk Show.”

I have instant heart palpitations. Spontaneous combustion is occurring from my ears up and my kids are erupting into what I can tell already is going to morph into World War III in the kitchen below me.

I move into a spare bathroom on the second floor in hopes she cannot hear my boys and in hopes my boys don’t find me.

I am going to sound cool, sound cool. Bethenny, in my world and my head is AMAZING. I get her. We had similar childhoods. I understand her abrasive, at times, personality and I know that it comes from having to be her own parent and knowing how to “talk like a man.” I get her need to show people she is worth something and has value and her desire to have a family of her own, to do it right. I understand her drive and let me try to say this without sounding nuts, (like I would think anyone else saying this about someone they have never MET) I think she is all that with a side of chips.

When hearing about Bethenny’s new talk show I checked it out online and they were advertising an upcoming show about friendship. They were asking people to submit a letter about any friendship their viewers may have had that was special.

I had just posted my story “Two Broke(n) Girls.” It was perfect timing and so I forwarded it on. The best part, they are going to choose two friends to fly out and be on the show.

Did I think I was going to get chosen?

Of course!

The same way people fantasize about winning the lottery, I am fantasizing about my girlfriend and I running away to CAL-i-forn-“I”-“A” to meet Bethenny Frankel! Heck, I think ALL of my neighborhood girlfriend peeps would fly out for that!

Is she calling to tell me we won?!!!!

My hands are shaking!

She says, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Me, “Yeah. Sure. No problem.” This was said in a much slower and lower tone than my voice really is. Do I always sound like a pot head when I am trying to NOT sound like me?

“Are you married?”

Me, “Yes.”

“Do you have children?”

Me, “Yes, three boys.”

“Oh…how old are they?”

Me, “7, 12, 12.”

“Oh, uh..”

Me, “We have twins. They are the ones that are 12.”

What is wrong with me?!!! Really, I had to explain that the 12 year-olds are the twins and not the 7 year-old and one of the 12 year-olds? I am so distracted by the sounds of my boys screaming, “Mom told you not to give me Charlie horse! I’m telling!”

She asks, “And how old are you?

I tell her my age.

I am now running down the back stairs while I hear my three boys running up the front stairs and fighting like a giant “Fight Club” tumbleweed every step.

I am in a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top with no bra, a very thin tank top.

She asks, “And your husband’s age?”

I answer with his age (I am not telling you and you will find out why in a moment.)

I am now running through our garage towards the driveway.

She says, “Awwww, that is so cute. You and your husband are the same age.”

I am now running down my driveway, but really bouncing, in broad daylight, while I hear my boys who were “against” each other have now turned on me.

I hear the boys screaming things like, “WHERE ARE YOU MOM?!”

Another yells, “I see her! She is outside on her stupid phone, walking down the street.”

Here they all come out of the garage and after me…

I say to the nice girl who works for Bethenny Frankel, “Oh yes, not only are we the same age we are born the same week AND with baby Jesus’s birthday right between us.”

WTF did I just say? What DID I just say?

I am fully prepared to run onto the golf cart path, barefoot, and with my cell phone, sans bra, and with my husbands underwear on as I realize this is a once in a lifetime chance for…I don’t even know what yet.

She is now laughing instead of chuckling. Thank God.

I am thinking, she doesn’t know me and my sense of humor. You can’t say things like that to someone you don’t REALLY know. What if she is Jewish? What does that have to do with anything? What if she thinks I am a religious freak and I really use the term, “baby Jesus” regularly in my speech?

She says, “Have you read “Fifty Shades of Grey?”

When I submitted the “Two Broke(n) Girls” story they were also chatting on Bethenny’s new site about “Fifty Shades of Grey” and how it has changed their reader’s sex life. I, the ever-present smart ass, replies with my post I had also just written that week called, “Poor Husbands and their Wives’ Naughty Books.”

They weren’t calling about my “Two Broke(n) Girls” story?

I answer, “NOOO! I can’t read it because my dad will read it first on his Kindle and then he will want to have a book club discussion and I am not discussing a mom porn book with my dad and I cannot borrow a girlfriends hard copy because, well… I don’t know where it has been and what if a page is sticky? My mind would make it into something worse when it was probably just candy hands. Frankly, I feel like I have already read the book since all my naughty girlfriends are giving me the “blow-by-blow” of the three books…”

That is how I talk. Commas do not enter into my speech and my frontal lobe, which is supposed to filter what we say, has apparently completely stopped working.

She is chuckling again, “Yeah, I just wanted to call and see if you had read it yet.”

I say, “Crap, I was hoping you were calling about my post about friendship and the reference letter I wrote to my BFF’s new neighbors when they meet her and decide they hate her at first, (like I did) and why they should give her a second chance. It is honestly funnier than my “Fifty Shades of Grey” post.”

Did I just try to give someone advice on what to put on their talk show? Did I just hint that my “Grey” post wasn’t good?

OH-MY-WORD! What if I get invited to be on a show about the “naughty book?” If I don’t get banned from my kids southern schools for my post about the gay marriage vote in my home state of North Carolina I will FO SHO get shunned if I go on a talk show about a sex and bondage book.

Sign me up as I am sure this means they won’t ask me to come in and be a “scissor mom” or count “Box Tops” for the school PTO after that!

We talked for a few more minutes while I continued to ignore my kids chasing me down the street shouting things like, “ARE YOU TELLING DAD ON US?!” and, “WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?!” and, “YOU SAID YOU WOULD GROUND HIM IF HE PUNCHED ME IN THE SHOULDER AGAIN!” and, “I WANNA TALK TO DAD!”

She told me she, “liked my energy” and I continued to try to act cool, like talk shows call me regularly. I may have said my group of girlfriends were, “The Real Housewives of North Carolina.”

Yep, I did and collectively between that and the other things that slipped past my lips and the three screaming banshees that followed me everywhere, I realize I will probably never hear from that nice girl again.

I have had so much fun telling my girlfriends the story that it is (ALMOST) just as good.

Follow me or start hammer tweeting (here) Bethenny Frankel or post on her FaceBook wall (here) or comment (here) on Pinterest, (I will send you an invitation if you aren’t on even he, he) to give Abbie at “All that makes you…” a second chance because surely I have enough stories for my own show. I have “dirty” school noodle art.

Oooooo…Bethenny could bring in that British Nanny to make my kids stop calling my phone and computer and blog “STUPID.” I think a shock collar and remote I keep in my pocket would work. They say “stupid” and I say PAVLOV’S DOGS! For Pete’s sake people I am kidding! I just did it again! I just told the “Nanny Show” how to do their job.

-Abbie, and I hope we can share all that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry and cry laughing. allthatmakesyou.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/bethenny-frankel-prefers-good-conversation-celebrities-talk-show-article-1.1092336?localLinksEnabled=false

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Mad Men and Dirty Dancing in the Mountains

We sneak off to the mountains when summer gets too Warm in North Carolina.

It only takes about fifty minutes and we are suddenly transported into that town from “Dirty Dancing.”

I’m not kidding it is even the same year! It is like “Mad Men,” but in the mountains!

The restaurants bring garlic toast and salads are iceberg and steaks are New York strips.

It is really lovely.

Watching the thermometer dropped 20° is magic. They have to heat the club pool in the summer and no one says a word when you walk in with a bottle of champagne to share with the moms.

Everything is decorated with lattice and the color rose.

Men wear driving shoes and seersucker. The women wear bathing suits with little skirts at the pool while the men are out golfing.

Everyone meets up for a cocktail before dinner and for a nightcap before bed.

To really prove you have entered through a rabbit hole and are now in the past…there is ZERO cell service. We have to talk to one another instead of staring at our screens in our hands.

Thank you mountains for such a bounty of memories and for a flash of the past.

Thanks for letting me share, All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.

Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

Watching Old Sitcoms With Our Kids

Watching “old” sitcoms with our kids.

Do you remember Doogie Howser, MD doing things like an “emergency” pelvic exam…ON HIS GIRLFRIEND?  Well, he does.

Our three boys love watching Doogie Howser, MD with all its nerdy, dated glory and friend Vinny makes them belly laugh.  We didn’t remember the show dealing with such “racy” topics that have required some previewing by us before letting our little guys watch.   If you could have seen my husband and I running for the remote when Vinny was showing off the condom in his wallet he was planning on using that night.

Doogie and Vinny, as played by our 12 year-old IDENTICAL twins, were last Halloween’s hit, (only with adults over 35 who knew who they were.)  It took an entire can of black hairspray to turn Avery into Vinny.

This picture shows how much they look like normally…

“Who wants to watch Little House on the Prairie with me tonight?”

Peter, “Why would anyone NOT want to watch Little House on the Prairie!”

I’m thinking Peter would make an awesome Laura Ingalls next Halloween. You have no idea how happy it makes me to watch Little House. 

Peter wearing my scarf and offering me a poison apple.  Wrong show but you see what I mean with thinking he could rock Laura Ingalls this fall. 

I always find it hilarious when the kids don’t connect that the actors are not REALLY the characters they portray.

We rented Smurfs to watch with our boys.  Peter, then seven, announced when he saw Neil Patrick Harris, “DOOGIE IS IN THIS MOVIE!  THERE IS DOOGIE HOWSER!”

Avery, who is twelve, looked at his younger brother with a very annoyed and sophisticated look said to Peter, “That is NOT Doogie.  I read this book and Doogie is not in the story at all.”

I don’t know if I should be worried about them all but I did what came natural.

I laughed at them all and told them they are all a bunch of DING-A-LINGS!  

I explained, for the thousandth time that these are all actors and that was indeed Doogie but playing the part of another person in a different movie because he is an ACTOR!

Good Lord.  I know one day they will be adults and watch “Harold and Kumar go to White Castle” and I would LOVE to be a fly on the wall when they see all the things “Doogie” does in that movie.

It may wreck my boys forever.

Do your kids watch any “old” TV shows?  You have to love the DVR.  It may turn my kids into super geeks, but I am ok with that.

Thanks for letting me share,

-Abbie, All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.  allthatmakesyou.com

P.S.  ALF terrified them!  Bahahaha!

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Sunday Dinner Cancelled, Bring Vodka and Mop

“Sunday family dinner is cancelled.  Bring vodka and mop.”

This was a particularly unbelievable story that began with an innocent shopping trip to the grocery store to make the perfect Sunday family dinner.

I was dressed in a sundress and floating about my kitchen putting away the groceries and planning the meal in my head.

The kids were outside playing with their friends.

Jim was outside golfing with friends.

All was right in the world.

Then I dropped a can of whipped cream.

It just bounced and as I bent over to pick it up it shot diagonally like a rocket.

So I twisted myself and tried to catch it on the bounce.

Wait that isn’t a bounce!

HOLY CRAP BAGS…IT IS SPRAYING UP MY DRESS AND ALL OVER?

It is shooting all over my kitchen like a Jimmy Neutron jet pack and I am on a three-second delay trying to choose which random direction the can of whip cream will take after the next interaction with any hard surface.

It is a micro fine spray, and it is making its way around my kitchen like a naked picture of a teacher in High School.

I can’t form words as I shuffle around making a sound like, “ahhhhh–ooah-oooooh-eeehh-OOOOHHH!!!!”

I cannot catch the stupid thing.  It finally spins across the wood floors as it runs out of jet fuel.

I look around and I am amazed that all of that fit in that little can.

It was all over the floor and the cabinets and up the walls about 8 feet.  We have dark cabinets with lots of crevices.  It was sprayed up into things at a funny angle.  Up and into things like my dress and under my pony tail.  That picture is of only half of the kitchen.  I may have helped it travel by kicking it on accident.

Whip cream hates me and I hate whip cream now.

Whip cream is sticky and creamy and I am fairly certain was developed by the same terrorists as the “automatic candy dispenser” or “Christine” as I like to call it.

I sent my husband Jim and the boys a text message…

“Sunday family dinner cancelled in lieu of exploding can of whipped cream, think Jimmy Neutron jetpack style.”

I sent my girlfriends a different text…

“Sunday Dinner Cancelled, Bring Vodka and Mop”

–Abbie and I love sharing with you, “All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry or cry laughing.”   allthatmakesyou.com

Jimmy Neutron Photo from this website

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The Bethenny Frankel Show Called Me!!!

I have to share this super exciting thing that happened about a week ago. I share this because I realize this is probably as far as my very exciting story is going to go. As usual, my frontal lobe is defective and I ramble things off that perhaps I shouldn’t, even to television producers!

As some of my regular readers know I have been busy updating all three of our boys rooms. I had the phone practically in my hand for about a week straight talking to carpet people, painters, and furniture salesperson. I kept measuring and they kept calling me back with info and prices and since nearly all of these contacts were local I was shocked when, while the phone was in my hand, the caller ID said…

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!!!!

Who calls me from Los Angeles, California? I might get Temecula or some other former goat town in California but Los Angeles proper?

I answer, “Hello.”

Pleasant young woman, “May I speak to Abbie… Ssss….how do you pronounce the last name?”

I chuckle and say, “It is just as it looks.” and then I say my married last name and then I say, “I tried to get my husband to take my last name when we got married. It would have been so much easier, _______. It even rhymes, Jim _______.”

Nice lady on the phone chuckles now.

Who am I talking to I wonder? This is the kindest bill collector I have ever spoken with. I’m kidding!

She says, “This is _____ from the Bethenny Frankel Talk Show.”

I have instant heart palpitations. Spontaneous combustion is occurring from my ears up and my kids are erupting into what I can tell already is going to morph into World War III in the kitchen below me.

I move into a spare bathroom on the second floor in hopes she cannot hear my boys and in hopes my boys don’t find me.

I am going to sound cool, sound cool. Bethenny, in my world and my head is AMAZING. I get her. We had similar childhoods. I understand her abrasive, at times, personality and I know that it comes from having to be her own parent and knowing how to “talk like a man.” I get her need to show people she is worth something and has value and her desire to have a family of her own, to do it right. I understand her drive and let me try to say this without sounding nuts, (like I would think anyone else saying this about someone they have never MET) I think she is all that with a side of chips.

When hearing about Bethenny’s new talk show I checked it out online and they were advertising an upcoming show about friendship. They were asking people to submit a letter about any friendship their viewers may have had that was special.

I had just posted my story “Two Broke(n) Girls.” It was perfect timing and so I forwarded it on. The best part, they are going to choose two friends to fly out and be on the show.

Did I think I was going to get chosen?

Of course!

The same way people fantasize about winning the lottery, I am fantasizing about my girlfriend and I running away to CAL-i-forn-“I”-“A” to meet Bethenny Frankel! Heck, I think ALL of my neighborhood girlfriend peeps would fly out for that!

Is she calling to tell me we won?!!!!

My hands are shaking!

She says, “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

Me, “Yeah. Sure. No problem.” This was said in a much slower and lower tone than my voice really is. Do I always sound like a pot head when I am trying to NOT sound like me?

“Are you married?”

Me, “Yes.”

“Do you have children?”

Me, “Yes, three boys.”

“Oh…how old are they?”

Me, “7, 12, 12.”

“Oh, uh..”

Me, “We have twins. They are the ones that are 12.”

What is wrong with me?!!! Really, I had to explain that the 12 year-olds are the twins and not the 7 year-old and one of the 12 year-olds? I am so distracted by the sounds of my boys screaming, “Mom told you not to give me Charlie horse! I’m telling!”

She asks, “And how old are you?

I say, “39.”

I am now running down the back stairs while I hear my three boys running up the front stairs and fighting like a giant “Fight Club” tumbleweed every step.

I am in a pair of boxer shorts and a tank top with no bra, a very thin tank top.

She asks, “And your husband’s age?”

I say, “39.”

I am now running through our garage towards the driveway.

She says, “Awwww, that is so cute. You and your husband are the same age.”

I am now running down my driveway, but really bouncing, in broad daylight, while I hear my boys who were “against” each other have now turned on me.

I hear the boys screaming things like, “WHERE ARE YOU MOM?!”

Another yells, “I see her! She is outside on her stupid phone, walking down the street.”

Here they all come out of the garage and after me…

I say to the nice girl who works for Bethenny Frankel, “Oh yes, not only are we the same age we are born the same week AND with baby Jesus’s birthday right between us.”

WTF did I just say? What DID I just say?

I am fully prepared to run onto the golf cart path, barefoot, and with my cell phone, sans bra, and with my husbands underwear on as I realize this is a once in a lifetime chance for…I don’t even know what yet.

She is now laughing instead of chuckling. Thank God.

I am thinking, she doesn’t know me and my sense of humor. You can’t say things like that to someone you don’t REALLY know. What if she is Jewish? What does that have to do with anything? What if she thinks I am a religious freak and I really use the term, “baby Jesus” regularly in my speech?

She says, “Have you read “Fifty Shades of Grey?”

When I submitted the “Two Broke(n) Girls”story they were also chatting on Bethenny’s new site about “Fifty Shades of Grey” and how it has changed their reader’s sex life. I, the ever-present smart ass, replies with my post I had also just written that week called, “Poor Husbands and their Wives’ Naughty Books.”

They weren’t calling about the “Two Broke(n) Girls?”

I answer, “NOOO! I can’t read it because my dad will read it first on his Kindle and then he will want to have a book club discussion and I am not discussing a mom porn book with my dad and I cannot borrow a girlfriends hard copy because, well… I don’t know where it has been and what if a page is sticky? My mind would make it into something worse when it was probably just candy hands. Frankly, I feel like I have already read the book since all my naughty girlfriends are giving me the “blow-by-blow” of the three books…”

That is how I talk. Commas do not enter into my speech and my frontal lobe, which is supposed to filter what we say, has apparently completely stopped working.

She is chuckling again, “Yeah, I just wanted to call and see if you had read it yet.”

I say, “Crap, I was hoping you were calling about my post about friendship and the reference letter I wrote to my BFF’s new neighbors when they meet her and decide they hate her at first, (like I did) and why they should give her a second chance. It is honestly funnier than my “Fifty Shades of Grey” post.”

Did I just try to give someone advice on what to put on their talk show? Did I just hint that my “Grey” post wasn’t good?

OH-MY-WORD! What if I get invited to be on a show about the “naughty book?” If I don’t get banned from my kids southern schools for my post about the gay marriage vote in my home state of North Carolina I will FO SHO get shunned if I go on a talk show about a sex and bondage book.

Sign me up as I am sure this means they won’t ask me to come in and be a “scissor mom” or count “Box Tops” for the school PTO after that!

We talked for a few more minutes while I continued to ignore my kids chasing me down the street shouting things like, “ARE YOU TELLING DAD ON US?!” and, “WHO ARE YOU TALKING TO?!” and, “YOU SAID YOU WOULD GROUND HIM IF HE PUNCHED ME IN THE SHOULDER AGAIN!” and, “I WANNA TALK TO DAD!”

She told me she, “liked my energy” and I continued to try to act cool, like talk shows call me regularly. I may have said my group of girlfriends were, “The Real Housewives of North Carolina.”

Yep, I did and collectively between that and the other things that slipped past my lips and the three screaming banshees that followed me everywhere, I realize I will probably never hear from that nice girl again.

I have had so much fun telling my girlfriends the story that it is (ALMOST) just as good.

Follow me or start hammer tweeting (here) Bethenny Frankel or post on her FaceBook wall (here) or comment (here) on Pinterest, (I will send you an invitation if you aren’t on even he, he) to give Abbie at “All that makes you…” a second chance because surely I have enough stories for my own show. I have “dirty” school noodle art.

Oooooo…Bethenny could bring in that British Nanny to make my kids stop calling my phone and computer and blog “STUPID.” I think a shock collar and remote I keep in my pocket would work. They say “stupid” and I say PAVLOV’S DOGS! For Pete’s sake people I am kidding! I just did it again! I just told the “Nanny Show” how to do their job.

-Abbie, and I hope we can share all that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry and cry laughing. allthatmakesyou.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/bethenny-frankel-prefers-good-conversation-celebrities-talk-show-article-1.1092336?localLinksEnabled=false

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Do Not Tell My Kids About The Zombie Apocalypse!

“I told my kids the Zombie Apocalypse has started in Miami and we are awaiting confirmation from the government. This is what I have been preparing my kids for at the shooting range.”

I received this text message from my girlfriend I call “Crazy Sarah” yesterday.

I call her that for reasons that are already obvious to you.

When she calls my cell phone the photo below comes up. She already knows I use it for her contact information. When I drove past the sign I had to turn around to take a photo of it, then I sent it to her. I am wide open with teasing and she is fine with it. I like a girl that can handle ribbing like a man.

“Crazy” doesn’t scare me away. I decided before I met her I was going to be her friend.

I had heard about one of our country clubs members getting called before the board for her behavior during a couple’s golf tournament. The story spread like wildfire and I was fanning the flames. I wanted to know who this new member was that “borrowed” a plastic coyote out of one of my neighbors yards and drove around the golf course with it on top of her cart. I wanted to steal a plastic coyote intended to scare away pooping geese TOO!

I decided I liked her long before I really knew her. Now that I know her I am afraid to not be her friend.

She will be mid-sentence and suddenly go looking for her phone to call her husband. You will wait while she dials and when her husband answers you will hear her say, “DO NOT TOUCH MY DEAD SQUIRREL. I just got the maggots working. Leave it where it is.” Then she hangs up the phone and finishes her sentence. She collects bones.

So, you may remember my recent story “Two Broke(n) Girls” about my unlikely friendship and the reference letter I wrote for my bestie to give her new neighbors after they have met her the first time and decided they don’t like her, like I did. Well, my friend did indeed sell her house and I am distraught. Her family is going through their closing procedures and I am, (trying) to sound like a supportive friend, (because that is one of the things she taught me.)

Then I hit a moment of genius. Well, first I asked another friend that owns a nursing home if I could borrow a couple of dead bodies for a few hours before they have them “officially” hauled away.

When he didn’t respond to my text I had ANOTHER moment of genius!

Crazy Sarah and her animal bones! Crazy Sarah and her animal bones and my best friends home inspection! All I have to do is move Crazy Sarah’s dead-critter-science-experiment to my besties sealed crawl space. Throw in a few index cards with dates in front of the dead stuff and add a photo of my adorable fluffy dog, Lilly, and a future date written on her index card and…

They aren’t moving anywhere!

This was even better than the dead old people in the crawl space. That would have been a logistical nightmare and their yard is steep so hauling Fred and Myrtle would have been a two person job.

Then I remembered the high-pitched, sing-song voice that Crazy Sarah used when she said to her husband, “Do not touch my dead squirrel. I just got the maggots working. Leave it where it is.” She was smiling as she said it.

I cannot move Crazy Sarah’s dead stuff. She will kill me and I will be part of her new “dead stuff collection.”

Ironically while I was writing this Jim and my boys were discussing music and I heard Jim say, “Suri, define “Crazy Train” and play song from “YouTube.”

Here I am with “Crazy Sarah” the bone collector.

She asked what we were going to do for the next picture and I said, “I’m gonna lick your nose!”  This is why I’m holding her cheeks and trying reach her nose and she is wearing a shocked face.  Who knows, maybe she calls me “Crazy Abbie.”

Here is to all of the friendships that help each of us be who we are. My bestie makes me proud to be a mom and mother and “Crazy” reminds me that just because we are those things it doesn’t mean we can’t have fun and…explore our own hobbies???

–Abbie, All that makes you… allthatmakesyou.com

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