T.M.I. But That’s Why You Love Me

Warning: T.M.I.I went to get a spray tan.

I wore a thong so I wouldn’t be completely nekk’ed in front of the lady spraying me. I’m modest. 😂

I wear a sundress so it doesn’t mess up my “tan.”

I come home and go in my bedroom to take off the permanent wedgie, the thong.

But first, I walk through my bedroom with the sundresses hiked up and snap that torture devise out of my bottom with tremendous relief.

Just as I turned the corner to walk around the bed and look ahead into my window I see one of the painter men on a ladder watching me.

I thought they were done with our bedroom windows. 

Now I have to get one of those bank tube things to send them the check when they are done so I never have to look or talk to them again.

Happy Friday!

Abbie Gale 

AllThatMakesYou.com

I Moved! Did You Know I MOVED?

Hello, I moved!

Come on over to the new place.

Abducted by Aliens.

At least that is how moving to my own site feels.

I no speak the language.

I would have taken you with me but

WordPress wouldn’t let me.  

If you were following me on WordPress as a WordPress follower you have to

head on over to my new site to continue

to read my stories.

I have a place for you to

subscribe by email

RSS

or even follow me on Facebook.

Head on over to my new place.

allthatmakesyou.com

I am still unpacking and decorating.

Stupid things keep happening to me…

I keep giving out my opinions…

The dog keeps sneak-attack-cuddling on people…

Our boys are still smuggling a small zoo in our home…

Oh, and we now have a cricket farm in the basement to feed EVERYTHING…

The boys tell me if the Mayan’s are right WE can eat the crickets too! (not happening)

Just in case the Mayans are right I am having my 40th birthday party on 12/21/2012…

Because I am just that STUPID LUCKY to turn 40 on “The End of the World.”

If you don’t follow me over at

allthatmakesyou.com

then you will never know if I ever reach the unobtainable goal

of a vacation stay to the nut house.

If it is really you, Bethenny Frankel reading this and you have FINALLY found me please just click this link and I will tell you where to send all the Skinny Girl Cocktails, Smoothers n’ Shapers, and all the other products to help me and my homies stay

39 FOR-EV-ER

(just in case the Mayans are wrong.)

Oh, and you are invited to my party!

Not just Bethenny, but all of you!

Ok, I might mean in spirit because I don’t know how you behave when you are at a party and they are serving booze.  Ok, fine because I don’t want you to take any pictures of me and behaving badly and then share them with all our internet peeps.

I think December 22 we are all going to be wishing the Mayans were right.

Anyone want to send about 100 hangover cures as party gifts?

Bethenny, are you making that yet?

Skinny Girl Hair of the Dog Hangover Cure!

You have EXACTLY

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Bethenny Frankel brings SkinnyGirl Margaritas to Dallas (Photo credit: CynthiaSmoot)

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Funny First Days and the Proof is in the Photos

Today my three boys all went off to school.  

It was the easiest first day of school for everyone.

It made me smile the whole drive home.  

I also now have time to write more and share it with you.  I am sorting some of my old stories from the journal I have kept since we began our family and I came across a funny from Mitchell when he and his twin brother Avery were in kindergarten.

My husband Jim came home from work and…

Jim, said very enthusiastically, “How was kindergarten boys?”

Mitchell, said with a very grown up matter-of-fact manner …“Dadda, I think there is more yelling than learning going on in Kindergarten.“

First day of school – Kindergarten

Avery and Mitchell’s First Day of School – 7th Grade

(note our dog always wiggles her way into photos)

Peter’s First Day – Kindergarten

First Day – This Morning

I may not go back to pick them up.

I’m joking!

If I am not, I am sure it will make the news.

Abbie Gale

Follow me by pressing that little button on the page

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Email me at: allthatmakesyousmile@gmail.com

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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.

Follow me on Twitter @allthatmakesyou

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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Subscribe and Like my Facebook Page so you can read in your news feed.

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.

 

 

The Difference Between Mothers and Sons

This is what I do with hydrangeas from the yard.

Cute, right?

Get it?  It is an ice cream cone.  

Even cooler is that they are all from the same bush is our yard.

The boys brought the stalk you see below, into the house yesterday and asked me if they can cut more of them off of the bush.

I am perplexed as there aren’t any fresh blossoms.  I also don’t cut them back this far because they will bloom next year off of this years growth.

They wanted the long spent hydrangea branches from the yard to sharpen them into spears and arrows.

Perfect.

This is the difference between Moms and Sons.

Time to get out of the house.

Apple camp today!

Learning to make movies!  Peter would rather be sharpening hydrangeas.

 

(Just realized you can see our white suburban in the window)

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What is a Wordless Wednesday?

I took this photo yesterday at my father in-laws house.

Ok, so I get the wordless Wednesday thing but I have been without any consistent technology and I’m breaking! So until I finish writing, (ON MY PHONE) a post for tomorrow I will leave you with a photo I took yesterday, and a few words.

We are wrapping up a trip to our rural hometown, out of state, and I cannot stop daydreaming about making out with my washer and dryer the moment I walk in the door to our home.

If my washer and dryer had legs and arms we would be running through a field of wildflowers towards one another, arms outstretched. When we get within a few feet of each other my washer would throw its door open and I would toss all of our dirty clothes in and possibly our three boys and definitely our dog.

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

The Father I Used to Have (and Sea Monkeys)

My dad is Simon Cowell, not really, but that is how I often describe his demeanor.  I get that from him.  It is far less attractive on a woman, I am told. He is part of who made me and I like myself, even if I tend to “talk like a man.”

He is straight forward in business and in raising two girls.  He is Simon Cowel if Simon were raised in the midwest and literally worked his fingers to the bone.  But he isn’t the strong silent type that daughters often describe their dads as.

He is the kind of man that when a microphone needs to be passed to someone who is good with words he can step up and rustle up an instant speech that will make you laugh and cry.

Everyone will be looking at him with a smile, head tilt and with a tear.

My dad in Michigan is a funny mix of sarcasm, tough as nails, strong as an ox and as anal retentive about cleanliness as Monk and with an extra heaping of smart ass.

He never used my expression, “act like a butt and people will think your a butt” but he taught it to me.

He would call you out if you needed it and when I needed a summer job in college I wasn’t sent to the steel mill’s office to file, he sent me out with a blowtorch and steel toe boots to cut samples over the “cooling beds” of red hot rebar.  He sent me to the noisy “shear” to catch samples of steel bars to grind down for seam allowance tests and to the “yard” to find bundles of rebar to cut and bring back on a fork lift to the lab and inspect.

The guys who worked for him for 20 years would say, “He is about the meanest man I have ever met but he knows what he is doing and I respect him.”  They would also say, “Your dad sent little old you to do THIS job?”

I am sure that the 98 pounds of me with three layers of flame retardant clothing, steel toed boots, protective ear gear and face mask had to look a little funny on me.

He also never said another of my favorite phrases but he taught it to me, “for the love of God, I figure if a man can do it, I surely can.”

When family emergencies arise and you have to be in a hospital waiting room you have to find the humor in this 6′ 3″ man who wont touch the arm rests on the chairs.   Yes, he is that “Monk” from the TV show who doesn’t like germs.

When I was a teenager I came home and discovered my shower head was missing from my bathtub.  I went to tell him thinking we’d been robbed of plumbing fixtures.  He informed me I was “grounded from showers” for not “squeeging” the ceramic tile after I showered to keep water spots from forming…INSIDE THE SHOWER.

He is the kind of man that really does sleep three to four hours a night and carries a bottle of bleach around with him in case anything needs a good scrubbing.

This is why this story will never get old to tell. I

may have been eight years-old. My dad had just mowed the yard and he is hot and thirsty.

My sea monkeys that I mailed away for, that took six weeks to arrive because there was not internet ordering back then, were on our kitchen table.

These were going to be my new pets.  I couldn’t be allergic to sea monkeys, right?  They are underwater and they are cute and the cartoons on the box show them smiling and waiting to be my petsll!  

I am going to be the luckiest girl in town with my own little Sea Monkey Circus.

Photo from “the yeti speaks” here.

My dad had just come in from mowing the yard and grabbed the closest glass of water to the door. He began drinking and I began the phenomenon that occurs when you cannot speak because you are so mortified.

I did the action movie arm outstretched with a slow motion face of “AAoooowwwwaaa!!!!” then “Noooooo!…!…!”

He is downing the glass with his eyes closed and enjoying the cool, refreshing glass of water while sweating and visibly tired from yard work. As he opens his eyes and sets the empty glass down I finally reach him and am sobbing while tugging at his arm.

I am looking to be consoled.

He is looking at me like I have gone mad.

I finally am able to inhale enough to exhale a sentence from my hypervenhilating…

“YOU DRANK MY PET SEA MONKEYS!”

His face.

My God…his face.

His eyes were huge and his head led his body into the kitchen sink.

Turning knob for water. 

Face, mouth, and eyes looking up at ceiling, allowing water to run in and out.

Other hand’s desperate blind feel for the little black levered sprayer.

He is now spraying the water directly into his teeth.

I am silent as he begins the rabid gurgling and spitting.

My tears of horror and sadness are now tears of laughter as this grown man is using his fingernails to pick between each and every tooth.

Will telling this story ever get old?

Nope.  

Me laughing 30 years later…

Once, when I was in college, he asked me NOT to park my dirty car, (boyfriend lived on a dirt road) in his driveway.  He owned a couple of car washes and he said it was as if he were a barber and I was walking around town with a bad haircut.  BTW, I never got a free carwash.

He taught me to work, and that too, I am grateful for.

He also taught me to love unconditionally my children, because in the end, he didn’t. In the end, when my mother died and he remarried he decided he wasn’t my father anymore.  He adopted me when I was three, when my mother married him.  He was the only father I knew for 21 years and I have always loved him.

Even with the rift between my dad that has now spanned 18 years I am still grateful for the gifts he gave me that made me who I am.

I am also grateful that I know to tell my boys that I will love them forever and that they will always be my children.

Happy Father’s Day to my husband Jim and thank you for being the best dad to our boys.

Happy Father’s Day to all of the dads out there and to both of mine.  Happy Father’s Day to all of the people that don’t have their dads anymore or may have never had one and may you, too, find the blessings of the father figures you have had in your life and be thankful for them.

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

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The Turtle Has 1 Toe On 1 Foot, Like A Human, Wanna See It?

It is 8:00 am on a Saturday.  I am drinking my coffee and Peter, who is already outside looking for critters to be his “pet for a day”, has just run into the house and announced…

“The turtle had one toe on one foot, just like a human toe.  Wanna see it?”

I, of course, said, “YES!”

I am now awaiting his return with the “toe-d turtle.”

It could only get better if he found one of the two-headed turtles we went to see at our local science museum.  That is what you do with mutated animals now instead of a “side-show.”

I can tell it is already going to be one of “those kind” of Saturdays!

Have a great weekend and see you tomorrow!

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

allthatmakesyou.com

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Is it Possible to Write Without Insulting? I Say, IMPOSSIBLE!

Fear kept me from posting something I wrote a while back.  

I finally posted the story that scared me this week.

Why Can’t You Drop Your In-Laws off at a “Safe Haven”, No Questions Asked?

I had time to think about it and well, my in-laws know me.  They have known me for over twenty years.  They know I tease.

I tell stories and I tease in stories I tell, (my husband Jim says I would NEVER exaggerate.)   When he says, “NEVER” he looks up at the corner of the room and the word, “NEVER” doesn’t sound like the other words in the sentence.

I was not prepared for someone I am not related to, even by marriage, to take issue with my post.

It wasn’t on Word Press where I park my thoughts, but on BlogHer where I occasionally copy a post I think might be well received there.  I mean, come on, this is a story about a woman complaining about her in-laws and BlogHer is supposed to be female readers, right?

Whapppow!  Right to the back of my head.

A section editor over there let me have it in my comment section.

BlogHer post with BlogHer reader comments.

Here is the thing, I like this fellow bloggers style and respect her work and she has been very helpful to a newbie like me.  I even respect her for calling me out on it, (I will let you click the link above to read the comment for yourself.)

Here is what I deduced and replied with…(oh yeah, all in the comment section because I am a wordy girl.)

I think Safe Haven is an amazing program.  The entire concept is genius as I appreciate any government program that calls for the care of a child as an immediate priority instead of placing blame on the mother or father.  I realize that everyone has their own circumstances and I try VERY, very hard to not judge as I have not walked in someone else’s shoes.

I also work very hard at having a good relationship with my in-laws and the comment was made in good fun.  I would never really think anyone would think I was serious as it was simply a play on “walking in someone else’s shoes.”  If someone had been walking in my shoes they would realize that I would never want anyone to think I REALLY wanted to drop my husbands parents off at a fire department.  I never really would turn the porn channel on in the guest room to try and help them, “get along”.  However, I have sat up late into the night trying to think of ways to help them.

I was applauding Safe Havens as being a GOOD IDEA and thinking about a world in which it could be applied to other groups that need help.  If I could get a grown adult help without being judged for running out of options or lacking in the ability to help them anymore it would be great.   We really have though thought that their spouse might leave them with us.  I guess we are their “Safe Haven.”

I apologize if I offended you as I really think the entire Safe Haven program is great.  Sometimes I think I am funny and sometimes “getting” to funny I may have inadvertently insulted someone.   In this case I think we both agree that Safe Haven is a necessary program.

I also can tell you my dad in Michigan adopted me at three after my biological father signed off on custody.  I can also tell you that I have very real memories of having a dad and then going to see a judge who told me that I have a “new” dad.  I and am VERY aware of the ramifications of words related to adoption such as “real child” or “not really his” or “unwanted” and the list of words and phrases cut.  I feel in this case, and for me, it more of a compliment on a program that I obviously feel is genius.  I don’t think it is funny to write a “funny” story about REAL Safe Haven, but a fake Safe Haven to drop off your in-laws..I (still) do think is a little funny.

I joke about being anal retentive about things that don’t matter, but people really do have mental illness.  I joke about being messy but there are really people who have diseases that make them hoard.  I joke about having a cup holder as a bellybutton as a “birth defect”, (I give birth to double digits every time) and there are really people who have birth defects.  I have the attention span of a fruit fly and I blame it on a lead pacifier that I am convinced that my parents gave me, but there are people who really have contracted lead poisoning.   I tease about my poor writing skills and my inability to figure out how to use a comma, but there are people reading that have learning disabilities.

If I didn’t write things that MIGHT offend someone, I would never write anything.  When I was writing this story I was only worried about offending my in-laws.  Insulting anyone who has ever been touched by adoption, which is nearly everyone, had never been a worry.

I hope you understand and hope you might get to know me enough one day that you would know that hurting people is not even close to what I am about.  I do admit that I find things to laugh about but that comes from waaayyyyy back.  That comes from the same place that the people who like to make people laugh draw from.  I kind of consider it a gift, even if I had to go around the block a bit to receive it.

End of my BlogHer response.  

Then I thought, this is a post!  This is something I need to share with my WordPress friends!  What if they too have a bellybutton that turned into a cupholder.  What if I have insulted anyone that has wiped their boogers on the walls for someone else to clean up when I lied and said there was a “Booger DNA Test” that is sold at Walgreens?

Let this be fair warning to anyone who thinks I am an evil doer.  Let this also serve as a warning to everyone who thinks that I really have a TV in our guest bedroom to even turn porn on.  If I put a TV in the guest bedroom my in-laws for sure would never leave!

And I bet you thought I was a terrible person for the first photo at the top of the post.

Peter was so excited to be a black panther that he asked to sleep on the deck since he knew I would say he couldn’t go to bed without washing it off first.  Sometimes we just need to know the whole story or the whole person and sometimes we just need a sense of humor.

-Abbie, for all that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry, or cry laughing.

Why I Will Never Be Freshly Pressed

 allthatmakesyousmile.com

If you think you can handle me hit the “follow” button and I will explain later the booger test I mentioned, (I tweeted it but I will elaborate on “Booger-Gate” and Lord knows you don’t want to miss that when I do.)

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Wants to be a (Fill in the Blank)

“     Peter       wants to be a     BEE     because they are not allergic to pollen.”

– Peter’s school paper he brought home.

I love the drawing of the bee stinging the guy in the head and the guy screaming.  Well, that is what they get for insisting he draw a picture.  Please note the use of one crayon color.   This is what I get when I ask him to stop drawing pictures at school of guns, knives and blood.  

As much as he hates pollen, all of our boys love the flowers around the yard.  Peter likes to check what colors are on this hydrangea this week.

-Abbie, All that makes you…   allthatmakesyou.com

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