Birth of a Blog

Mitchell (6) & Avery (6) in the Outerbanks of North Carolina

Avery…”Are there flowers in Heaven?”

Me…”I like to think so.”

Mitchell…”Are there bugs?”

Me…”I like to think so because they pollinate flowers and butterflies are wonderful.”

Avery…”Can big trees grow in the clouds in Heaven?”

Me…”Hmmmm…I don’t know about trees but I am sure…”

Mitchell, (butting in)…”Avery, TREES DON”T DIE AND GO TO HEAVEN!  THEY TURN INTO COUCHES!”

Mountains of North Carolina August 2012

Do you keep the things that make you smile, laugh, think, love or cry?  

I don’t mean cars or jewelry.

I mean the everyday quiet blessings that make you say a little thank you. 

– An old photograph of your family’s first home they owned, on American soil.

– Did you write in your daughter’s scrapbook the day she lost her first tooth?

– Do you have a photograph of a half eaten coconut cream pie because you want to remember what delicious looked like?

– Did you collect shells when you were on your honeymoon and bring them home?

I send myself an email often, of things I want to remember.

That is how this blog came about.  It is how I named it.

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

By talking to myself I am ensuring my external hard drive keeps the memories that my mind sometimes cannot remember.  When I looked back at my photographs I knew I needed to tell the story.  My blog was born.  

Even the little things are out there floating in cyberspace.  

Mitchell (3) & Avery (3) in Michigan chasing Jim at State Park

I even beat myself up when I cannot remember what I didn’t have time to type up on my phone and send to myself while we were shuffling out the door and on our way to school.  That really funny thing I told myself to write about later.  Memory can be a little temperamental.

Then I remind myself that I have recorded one more thing than my parents did for me.  I do not have a baby book from when I was born.  When I was twenty-eight I was given my immunization record, but it was only for my first set of shots.

I do not know when I read a book to my parents for the first time, or what we looked like while it was happening.

Peter Reading me a Bedtime Story, for the First Time

I don’t know if my boys will even care that I have written their stories down since they were born, when they are grown men.  I do it anyway.

I do not have a newborn picture of me in my own mother’s arms.

I know I was loved.  Everyone loves their baby.  Their child.

and there probably

were those things…

…somewhere…

…over time

and with divorce

and death,

things get lost.

If it weren’t for emailing myself these little gifts, I couldn’t unwrap them years later and share them with you. 

I do it because I love them and I love our life and when memories fade we will have our story, out here, in cyberspace.

What do you do to keep the everyday things of your life from being forgotten?  Should we let the moments we forget just be forgotten as they were intended?

Abbie Gale

Follow me by pressing that little button on the page

allthatmakesyou.com

Facebook subscribe: Abbie Allthatmakesyou

Like and subscribe to my Facebook page: All That Makes You

Twitter @allthatmakesyou

Email me at: allthatmakesyousmile@gmail.com

Related articles

• Summer Camp (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)
• Funny First Days and the Proof is in the Photos (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

Flowers for Hurricane and Lessons Learned

Seven years ago I found out that I just don’t handle hurricanes well.

I had to Google search the name of the one this week, Isaac.

It isn’t that I don’t read the news or keep abreast of current events.

Seven years ago today Hurricane Katrina was bearing down on our southern coast and I watched, with the rest of the country, its progress on television. I am not watching Isaac descend on the anniversary of Katrina.

Katrina was in the background while I was cooking and cleaning and folding clothes. There were reporters interviewing residents. They asked people if they were staying and riding the storm out or evacuating. Reporters told us that seafood prices would rise and that power could be out for days and that residents were being told to leave New Orleans.

New Orleans. I had not been to New Orleans but I had always been excited to visit the city one day. We had recently relocated to the south and New Orleans was on our list of cities to explore on a long weekend trip.

A few of the news programs I was surfing, as Katrina was approaching, were highlighting the levees and they were interviewing civil engineers. I sat and listened as one engineer spoke with such concern that the levees would never be able to handle a storm this size. He then talked about a study using a model to show what would happen to New Orleans and the surrounding areas if ever a hurricane of Katrina’s size hit land.

It was a devastating scenario.

Just then Jim walked into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee and say goodbye before heading to the hospital to work.

I began sobbing.

I kept thinking about all the people who said they were going to ride the storm out and the danger they would be placed in if this man was right. I thought about the rescue people who would also be put in harms way while having to save people. I began thinking about the people who really didn’t have any place to go or the means to get there. The old people whom neighbors barely noticed were shuffling around their houses, inside. Who would offer them a place to go and a way to get there. Who will look for them when the storm passes?

Jim gave me a kiss and a hug. He told me that sometimes these storms fizzle out as they make landfall and he mentioned this was one persons opinion of a possible situation. We talked briefly that there is nothing I can do in my kitchen in North Carolina and he went off to work.

I sat at the kitchen table and said a prayer.

A little while later a delivery man rang my doorbell. He handed me the prettiest bouquet of flowers.

The card in the flowers told me I was sweet and that Jim loved me.

I couldn’t do a thing before Katrina devastated so many people and their families.

We pay taxes and we pay insurance and we hope the government and the media outlets inform people when they need to evacuate.

I grew up in the midwest and in fear that a tornado could form quickly and in the middle of the night. A tornado can give no warning and they are hard to track. We moved to North Carolina during hurricane season. We even bought our first house here without a basement.

It seems like such a gift that we know when a hurricane is coming, days in advance.

Katrina made me think.

• I learned that Mother Nature sometimes likes to show us that she is smarter than us and our fancy engineers.
• I learned that government isn’t perfect but from mistakes, lessons are learned.
• People should value their lives more and their property less. After all, our possessions and even our property can be washed away in a day.
• Keep a close watch and offer help to those that live around me, if everyone did just that then everyone would have someone watching out for them.
• Know what is coming and if it’s headed your way, MOVE.
• If your fortunate enough to not be in a disaster then help those who have.
• I learned that getting flowers does make you feel better.

Happy 15th Anniversary Jim (tomorrow) and thanks for not sending me flowers seven years ago a day later but instead you sent me “hurricane flowers.”

You knew just what would make me feel better.

Abbie Gale

Follow me by pressing that little button on the page

allthatmakesyou.com

Facebook subscribe: Abbie Allthatmakesyou

Like and subscribe to my Facebook page: All That Makes You

Twitter @allthatmakesyou

Email me at: allthatmakesyousmile@gmail.com

Related articles

• Has the Gulf Coast Learned Katrina’s Lessons in Time for Isaac? (usnews.com)
• How does Hurricane Isaac compare to Katrina? (miamiherald.com)

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

Follow us for…

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

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.

 

 

Funny Ending to AWKWARD and a Lesson For Us All

 

I decided to contact the mom from my kid’s school who sent me the AWKWARD AS HECK NAKED PHOTO OF HERSELF to my phone.

I am soooooo glad I did and so glad I didn’t have to tell her I am not into girls, that way.

I think we can all take away a BIG lesson from what happened to her, (and don’t forget me, as I was handed this AWESOME situation to write about.)

I just copied the text conversation I had with the mom who sent me naked pictures of her boobies this week.

 

The sliver of the photo and white bubbles are from her.  It took me HOURS to reply, (in blue.)  I get a boobie picture on my phone and “It took forever to get up the nerve to take this” and I am pacing the house chanting…

“What the heck do I do?  What does this mean?  

Ahhhhhh who can I share this freaking hilarious situation with?”

And so I shared it with y’all a couple of days ago.

The first half of the story here Awkward!  What do I do Now?

The aftermath and explanation below.

Deep thoughts by Abbie: 

We all get things in our teeth.  We all get boogers.  We all have boobies.  Just don’t have pictures of your OWN things as in food in teeth, boogers in nose or YOUR boobies on YOUR phone.  OH, and NEVER, ever,  leave your phone with a group of teenagers without a password on it.

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

Enter your email to follow us or press the “follow” button above if you enjoy. 🙂

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

PS  I promise I wont send you pictures of my boobies.  I may at any time send a picture of something in my teeth or an exceptional booger.  Stop it!  We all get boogers!

Related articles

• Cake Wrecks: Awkward 50th Birthday And Retirement Cakes (huffingtonpost.com)
• Robert Pattinson gives first interview since split with Kristen Stewart (thesun.co.uk)

 

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.

Related articles

• New Ways to Earn Money From Your Influence: With BlogHer Economy 2012+ (blogher.com)
• What’s Your BlogHer ’12 Follow Up Strategy? (blogher.com)
• It’s a… BlogHer Recap! (buriedwithchildren.com)
• When Did I Lose Faith in Myself? (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)
• BlogHer 2012: In New York, There’s Nothing You Can’t Do (queenofspainblog.com)

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.

Related articles

• ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ author brings book tour to Mass. (enterprisenews.com)
• Fifty Shades of Seriously? (scarymommy.com)
• Our families downward spiral to being the next generation of Jacka$ cast. (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

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

Related articles

• Bethenny Frankel’s Talk Show is Loved by Fans (celebs.gather.com)
• Bethenny Frankel to Have Her Own Talk Show? (lifewithbrandon.com)
• Bethenny launches bid for national talk show (boston.com)
• Bethenny Frankel’s Celebrity Crush Isn’t Who You’d Guess!! (perezhilton.com)

Our Most Embarrassing School Art, To Date Anyway

I am running a few of my favorite stories this week.  I will be back soon with new stories, that is if I don’t end up in jail in NYC.  My boys said they won’t miss me much when I am gone since I make them unload the dishwasher.  I reminded them that I wash and load the dishes and so they will have to load as well while I am away.  

Anyone willing to bail my naked ass out of jail?  I know I will be naked because with two drinks and I am drunk and three…NAKED and jail seems like the logical progression for four.  I hear the girls at BlogHer like to party at the conferences, crap.  

Your dad is a BONE doctor!  How can you NOT know there is NOT a bone in it?

I don’t know.  They are sweet.  They are cute boys.  They win classroom awards like, “Most Conscientious”.  These are the only reasons I can think of that the teachers don’t call me when my boys do a project in school and they...just look at the picture.

There are reasons I am not a PTO mom, or a scissor mom, (the ones that come to school to cut things out).  The reasons are because my kids think its funny to make a pasta skeleton and put macaroni testicles and rotinini pee-pee and spaghetti BONE?  I asked what the spaghetti was and he said, “That’s the bone in the pee-pee“.

I know I clearly have more to worry about, judging from this picture, but….

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WE HAVE STANDARDS.

YOU DAD IS A BONE DOCTOR!

HOW CAN YOU NOT KNOW THERE ARE NO BONES IN YOUR PEE-PEE?

I take a few deep breaths.  I put it into perspective.  There are three types of pasta that makes up the noodle guys junk (oh and we know it’s a noodle GUY, right)  but the dude has no feet.

For all of you with girls I want to remind you that little boys are different.  For little boys, that area is a toy that stays with you.  To quote one of my kids when they were three, “When can I get one of these BALLS out so I can see what they look like?”  Your daughter is putting shoes on her Barbie’s feet right now and I have an anatomically (in)correct foot-less pasta dude on my fridge.

-Abbie, All that makes you smile, laugh, think, love, cry, and hopefully cry laughing.

allthatmakesyou.com

Ellie Mae Takes on NYC

Update!  I am going!  That is, I am going to BlogHer 12 in New York City!

Well, I just booked the trip to BlogHer 2012 and I just realized I have NOTHING prepared!

Do people still carry business cards?  Will people look at what is on my laptop, over my shoulder, while I am in a meeting?  Do they too have pictures of their husband (accidentally) spooning your dog while sleeping and photos of bathroom stalls with abnormally low walls, (what is the point?)  Will I look like a doofus if I drag around a PAPER notebook?

How do I get rid of this giant zit in the middle of my forehead that looks like a “start” button before I fly out?  Will they refuse me entrance onto the plane for fear I have a communicable disease?  Do I need a note from my dermatologist saying I am not contagious but you probably shouldn’t stare at it too closely?

Do I just draw “Start” above Pablo, (I named it Pablo-the-Pimple) and it could be “my thing” like The Bloggess with her rollers or The Bearded Iris with her beard?  Damn you iPhoto for making it so easy to “disappear” my pimples that I get disappointed when I look in an actual mirror!

 I am too stinkin’ excited, especially considering a week ago I wasn’t going!  

To add to the excitement, don’t tell anyone because I cannot believe it myself with as much as I have traveled and it makes me feel a bit like Ellie Mae Clampett but…

I HAVE NEVER BEEN TO NYC???!!!

With that said, if you see me wandering around NYC aimlessly, do me a favor and yell, “MOM!!!!!!  We’re hungry! He broke my Lego Star Wars ship!  I can’t poop!  I can’t stop pooping!  Come and see my cool corn poop!”  That way I don’t get homesick.

Also if you see me, please introduce yourself in case I don’t recognize you because you look SO MUCH better in person!

If you never hear from me again it is because I ran away from home and joined the circus as…

“The Woman With a Unicorn Horn”

Remember my story about “Unicorn Horn or Extra Finger?”

I so should have chosen the unicorn horn.

At least it would have covered the Pablo-the-Pimple.

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

Follow us for…

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

When Did I Lose Faith in Myself?

I worked in corporate America until I was put on bed rest with my twins, now twelve.

Companies would send their private jets to a little airstrip, by my home, and I would fly up to a factory and be back home in time for dinner.  I was young and feisty and I could keep a project together from idea to market.  I could negotiate a price and delivery date from China to the eventual chain of outdoor stores or military base.

I was on a product development team for a major boot company.  I was a woman in a business of men.  When passed a cigar to enjoy, I did.  I was comfortable there.

In college I worked in a steel mill running a blowtorch and assisting the crane operator.  I don’t remember another woman who worked there, but I know they did in the offices.  I weighed about 100 pounds and I wore three layers of flame retardant clothing, steel toe boots, safety glasses and a hard hat.  I fit in there.

I started blogging February 29th of this year.

I recently started calling myself a blogger.

I AM a blogger.

Bloggers need to go to conferences.  They need to meet others that proudly say they are bloggers.  They need to network and meet with publishers and find out how to monetize and find their people.  I need to find my peeps.

BlogHer ’12 is in New York City August 2-4.

I have looked at plane tickets.  I talked about going to the conference to my husband.  He has told me it would be awesome for me to go and encouraged me to do so.

I have no excuse not to go to BlogHer ’12, but I cannot get myself to do it.

Why?

The idea of going to a meeting full of women terrifies me.

Please don’t chastise me.  I know this is a counterproductive statement for women.

Hear me out on this.  I have always had a little secret motto in my head that goes like this…

“If a man can do it, I am sure I can.”

Women, for most of my life, have been harder to gel with.  I have girlfriends, but most of them would probably also get along with guys better than girls.

Where is that Abbie that would stomp around a factory floor asking the foreman questions?  Where is that Abbie that hopped on a plane and negotiated the price of thousands of sides of leather?  Have I gotten soft since having kids and no longer have an edge or a belief in myself?

If a man can walk into a conference full of women, why can’t I?

I feel stuck in limbo.  I am stuck between the person in the workplace full of men and the reality of my life now as a mom raising three little men.

BlogHer announced a contest today.  They are giving goodie bags to people who are NOT going to BlogHer ’12.  I wrote this to enter into the contest.  I was writing this post in my head though before I even knew about the conference.

Here I am on BlogHer

I have been thinking that if by chance I were to be chosen for a goodie bag I would like to request, rather rudely, that I would much rather go to the conference.

But I need a mentor. 

I would much rather see BlogHer run a contest granting one newbie the chance to shadow a BlogHer team member, DURING BLOGHER.

We would be instant chums.  She would tell me she appreciates my brass ba!!s when it comes to what I want to post and yet understands why I spell inappropriate words with symbols.  She would give me the inside scoop on how things really work and tell me plainly what I am doing wrong and how I can improve. She would share my fondness of vodka and love of desserts.  She would tell me there is a place for me and that I am not like everyone else that calls herself a blogger.  She would offer me a cigar.

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

allthatmakesyou.com

Related articles

• BlogHer at Home Giveaway #1: The BlogHer ’12 Swag Bags! (blogher.com)
• All the Advice You’ll Ever Need for Attending the BlogHer Conference (blogher.com)
• Mystery BlogHer ’12 Party Revealed: BlogHer ’12 Fashion Show and Style Spotlight (blogher.com)
• Dear BlogHer Sponsors… They Don’t Speak For Me (socialdialect.com)