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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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

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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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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.

 

 

Epic Embarrassing Night, Again, Enjoy

Yet another awesome moment for me as I love to provide entertainment for my friends in real time and then share them with my friends online.

Last night we went to a dinner party at our club, but really they sat tables up around the pool and tennis courts. It was a beautiful night. Perfect weather, they had live music and ice sculptures and shrimp cocktail, prime rib and even nachos.

You know that based on what I have said I must be beginning another story that includes an awkward Abbie moment. You so wont be disappointed. I went to this shindig knowing I was dressed up and in close proximity to water. This is why I walked ten feet away from the side of any pool. I know I have a mark on my head with these men. Any one of them would gain tremendous satisfaction of being the guy who tossed Abbie into the pool with her giant orange patent leather espadrille, wedge, platform shoes.

Here is the real deal. I can barely swim. I grew up with a 12 foot deep pool in my backyard and I still sink. I would not be able to swim at all with these giant wrap around and buckle orange cones around my ankles, they really are cute.

Here is my sweet niece in my orange summer shoes. She liked them enough she wanted her picture taken in them. We had so much fun playing with clothes when she came this summer.

Now mix in the fact that I have an undiscovered genetic disorder that makes me gasp for air when I am underwater and it would have been a trifecta of embarrassment when I sank to the bottom of the pool while holding my nose. There would be clapping and cheering while no one noticed I drowned.

They all “owe me one” for various stunts I have done to them, (read about me tipping over their canoes during river trip last month) and I know I have it coming but it cannot be in a pool during dinner and an ambulance call. That would be really embarrassing. Not as embarrassing as when I tackled one of the husbands on the golf course and put him in a headlock, in front of his wife and other men, (I am 5′ 3″) because he ran off with my golf cart key. I have told you, I am Monica Geller.

Here I am taking my picture with my teams winning score in golf.

There are probably more people that would like to toss me in that pool.

I didn’t even realize how easily I could outdo my pool fear in my head, and all alone while just standing. But I did.

Jim asked me to walk up into the tennis pavilion to take a look and help him pick out some golf shoes. The tennis pavilion is like a raised square gazebo. The golf shop set up a little display and the men were getting their party loot or swag.

I wasn’t really interested and he was trying on shoes and not listening to me when I said to pick out the cool looking ones. He was trying on the ones that looked like ever other pair he wears.

I am standing in the middle off all these tables with my super cute orange giant shoes that I knew ROCKED when one of our friends looked at them and said, “No one told me there would be hookers here.” I told him he was jealous and that if he was nice I would let him borrow them as I am sure he wears the same size as me.

Karma, Karma, Karma. As I am standing there and looking so sassy and smart in my hooker sandals I am holding a vodka-cranberry that I have not yet drank and I have my legs crossed at my ankles. Suddenly! an earthquake shook the tennis pavilion and a drunk golfer shoulder checked me.

OK, none of that happened. Go back to legs crossed at ankles. Giant platform heels, little girl (me) rocking ankle because she is bored looking at golf shoes that all look-alike because her husband is making her. Karma. My one ankle rolls but because my legs are crossed it sends my other leg off-center. I am holding my first FULL cup with ice and cocktail so I am concentrating on not spilling. As I am trying to correct my shift in center I yell, “oooohhh! OOO!” and then “AAAAHHHHHH” then you hear WAAAHHBBUMMPP!!! when my feet flew up higher that my waist and I land on my right tush SO HARD I roll up to my shoulder. There is cocktail and ice that rained down like ticker-tape to all four corners of the tennis shop turned golf store. I am laying on the ice and drink and in my white skirt with legs in the air and they are, of course, finally uncrossed. I look around and I have a circle of men around me looking down. One of them announced “Jim, at least she is wearing underwear tonight!”

I know Jim. His face tells me his instinct is to run like he doesn’t know me. It is like the time we were facing a skunk and he pushed me forward and ran in the house. But he didn’t, he helped pull my embarrassed butt up. He was impressed with how NOT graceful my Olympic falling moment was. I think that gets you more points in the falling Olympics. I am a gold winner!!!

I have a sore right hip today. I have ANOTHER “stupid Abbie story” and I have to go figure out what I did to pi$$ off Karma and make it right.

Really though I am so happy I didn’t get tossed in the pool, white skirt and pink underwear.

Have you had an epic fall? This one may tie with my bowling alley fall. I love telling that story! Wearing Other People’s Ugly Shoes. Ok, Wearing Other Peoples Ugly Shoes is funnier. Have you read both and which do you think is funnier?

Abbie Gale, allthatmakesyou.com

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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 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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“That is Because Their Parents Don’t Love Them.”

“That is because their parents don’t love them.” -Me. *(See Below)

“That is NOT true.  Caleb has a TV in his room and his mom loves him.” -Peter.

“I happen to know, because I am a parent and parents tell each other their secrets, that the only reason you put a TV in your kid’s bedroom is to get rid of your kids.” -Me again.

The Family Room is Good Enough

“Well, Mrs East must REALLY want to get rid of Caleb because they put a flatscreen on his wall and hooked up an XBOX.”  -Peter

“They are also, obviously, not concerned about him developing mashed potato brains if he can play video games in his bedroom.” -Yep, me again.

When it is 95 Degrees Outside I Have No Issues WIth a Video Game That You Move To

“Mom, no one can really get mashed potato brains because there is no such thing as mashed potato brains and why don’t you ever want to get rid of me?” -Peter.

“Peter, go to you room and read a book. See, I love you AND I want to get rid of you” -Me.

Keep Digging Peter

* I threw all other parents under the bus out of frustration he wouldn’t stop asking for a television in his bedroom.  Each child is different as is each circumstance.  I am not one to judge, as I know I am doing the best I can, this day.  So if you have put a TV in your kids bedroom, I am sure you still love them and know that our boys have a “kids living room” with a TV in it in the center of their bedrooms.  I think a TV in their rooms would be redundant. 🙂

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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How To Tell Your Lawn Guy You’re Very Sorry

I was pulling out of my driveway yesterday when I saw one of our yard guys running up the hill from the backyard.  He was screaming and waving his arms for my attention.

I stopped and rolled down my window.  This man was a mess.  He was out of breath and talking fast and I am nearly certain I could see his heart beating through his shirt.

He came running up at me like he was getting away from a gunman.

“SNAKE!!!!”  He was yelling it in the voice and mannerism of a fourteen-year-old girl.

I quickly replied, “Oh, no…no, no…”

He interrupted me and said, “It’s a big one! Ahhhhhh!!!  It’s the biggest snake I have ever seen!”  He is still running at me.

I cannot help it.  I am smiling and pulling my eyebrows down, (the best you can with a wee-bit of Botox) but my nostrils flaring was giving my laughter away.

I begin again, “Noooo!  No. No.  Was it by the deck?  That’s not…”

He now feels like he has gotten away from the big bad snake and is running in front of my suburban across my driveway with a high step as if he had just made a touchdown.

He runs over to my side of the car and yells, “It’s out back!  It’s the biggest, (he has his arms stretched out as far as they will go) snake I have ever seen!”

I tell him that it isn’t real and that my kids leave it around to scare each other and us and he wasn’t the intended victim person, (but anyone will do.)

He threw himself on his back and rolled around screaming and laughing.

I continued into the road smiling again wondering how long before he realized he was rolling around where our dog does her “business.”

Can you send your lawn guy flowers?

I think he has had a bad day.

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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An Update With Nothing Dead to Report

Our Tom Sawyer, (Peter) caught a squirrel with his live trap within four hours.

It was immediately let go after enjoying its apple.

Peter has had requests to catch some bunnies in a neighbors vegetable path and relocate them.  He is so happy to go over in the evenings and set up his little trap.

I think it is genetic.

Here is the story about his long line of trapping ancestors back to Native American and French fur traders.

The live trap he begged for is working much better that the method I suggested.  My method kept him BUSY for hours.  I like methods that keep little boys busy!

A Mother’s Guide on How to Trap a Rabbit

1. Box
2. Twine, Very Long
3. Stick
4. Carrot
5. Patience and the Ability to be Very Quiet

Yes I know they are doing it wrong but it is a process.

A father goes to the hardware store and buys a box trap.  

A mother lets them try for two months in glorious silence with gratitude that the boys are busy.

Here is the story about his long line of trapping ancestors back to Native American and French fur traders.

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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I Don’t Know What to Name This Post

I promise you there is more to this than it appears. Just keep reading.

“Exactly what would a raccoon want to eat the most?”

Yes, our eight-year-old Peter asked this. Yes, I know what wretchedly mean creatures raccoons can be and I know they are smart, can be trained as pets, and I also know they can have rabies.

“What time does Ace Hardware close in North Carolina?”

“What time do we have to leave by to get to Ace Hardware back home before 7:00?”

“Please do not say no before I say all of this. Promise mom? Let me say EVERYTHING before you tell me no because I have thought about this and I know I can hold the live trap on my lap on the way home because I know the car is already full from our suitcases and us and the dog but it is a short drive from the hardware store to our house and I am afraid if we don’t go buy my live trap until after we go home and unpack the car Ace Hardware will be closed and I will have to wait until tomorrow to go buy my live trap.”

Don’t we totally look like we can fit a live trap?”

WTF, WTF, WTF!!!!

I am going to kill my husband and my father-in-law for showing Peter my father-in-law’s traps.

Oh yes, my FIL still traps. Yes, it is barbaric and no he will never stop. Don’t yell at me in the comments as I have been trying to get this man to vote for the right person every election for the twenty-one years I have known him and there is no changing him.

He lives on the marsh his French fur trapping and Native American ancestors lived on.

They have just changed the dwellings in which they sleep. Currently, my father-in-law resides in a modular home, (do not call it a double-wide or else they will knock your teeth out as it has a full unfinished basement and a back-porch.)

The motor home has been forever “for sale” on the back forty. I felt the need to snap some photos of it in case one of those shows like American Pickers or Antiques Road Show stops by and decides the “seventies mobile” needs to be in a museum. All the years I spent trying to keep this monster out of the background in the pictures I take while we are in Michigan and now I am snapping pictures of it to make us laugh when we are old.

“A Mere Blessing” is painted across the front.  I have never seen this man go to church a single Sunday.

I have known my husband long enough to remember the old farm-house they knocked over with a tractor in 1991. They put the modular on the exact spot the farm-house once sat.

I wrote a little about my husband’s childhood here in my story about my “WTF” license plate coming in the mail, randomly.

Jim’s dad even still sells the pelts and I even have to hear, every freaking year, how he got better prices in 1984.

Will someone please bring back wearing dead animals so I don’t have to hear my FIL complain about the prices anymore. Oh, and you have to make wearing MUSKRAT coats cool, (again?)

I still married my husband after watching his father, (duration of six dating years or as Jim says while I was waiting to see if he actually got into medical school) sit in front of the television, in the living room, with a five gallon bucket, and dead animals in a pile while he stretched their fur on wire thingies and then hang them all over the basement ceiling to dry.

I know that sentence is weird but that is how I would say it if you were sitting across from me.

Think about how much fun it is to trip the circuit while blow drying your hair, (when you are in town visiting) and you have to venture into the basement or as I like to call it…

The Dead Zone.

There is no switch to flip to turn on the basement light. You have to walk across the basement, in the pitch dark, and feel above your head for the chain to pull.

THERE ARE DEAD THINGS HANGING ALL OVER FROM THE RAFTERS ABOVE YOUR HEAD!!!

We come from a long line of weird. We both have to have a lot of weird behind us for this to not faze me. Ok, it fazes me…but for the love of God there is dead $hit dangling from the ceilings where I have to sleep!

Have you looked at a picture of me? (!!!)

This is me taking my own picture in San Francisco recently. I am smiling because behind is Union Square and I can see Macy’s from my hotel window, all half a dozen or so stories. I was happy because even if I couldn’t be shopping with the people all of the time I could stare at the people all walking around inside like a Richard Scarry Storytime book. I am not a good photographer and so…no Macy’s but I swear it is there…in all its glory!

It makes me happy and don’t judge! I am keeping the economy moving.

Dead former fluffy critters hanging above me with holes where their eyes used to be DOES NOT MAKE ME WARM AND FUZZY!

I do not have pictures of me at my father-in-law’s house holding my thumb up and smiling at what was formerly a mink but now is drying on a misshapen wire coat-hanger.

Don’t I just look like the kind of girl who would marry a man with a “Pet cemetary” in his basement?

I am so happy that our little guy doesn’t want to kill anything. He just wants to take a close up look and let it go, unless muskrat coats come back (???) in style and the prices of a water-rat pelt rise. Oh, I’m kidding! Stop it. We are animal lovers and if nothing else stimulators of the economy lovers! Why can’t my husband be from San Francisco?

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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

Story Ideas: This is new and a way for me to remember, possible, future things to write about as I am such a pro, bahahaha! If I don’t do it right here and now, it is gone like the wind. How can I remember the minute details of a situation but I cannot remember to write down a few ideas that pop in my head at the end of writing a story? Anyone else like that? I will make myself crazy trying to remember an idea, that I knew was good, but couldn’t write it down at that exact moment. I also like the idea of running it by y’all and you might be all, “good Lord I am not coming back for another story about her embarrassing herself by getting an appliance stuck in her hair, again!” and you can just tell me that before you stop “following” me and WordPress informs me I can no longer use their service as no one is reading my nonsense anymore and would I also like the phone number to a mental health professional? Anyway, feel free to comment and “shut it” if it’s about my lack of REAL writing skills. I know already.

-Remind me sometime to tell you the cool story about how my husband’s family acquired their last name. It is really awesome and could be complete horse$hit, but were going with it since anyone who really knows if it’s true is dead.

-Remind me to tell you a story about where I worked before I had kids as I have more hunting stories than my husband, (primarily because he doesn’t hunt ever.) Don’t I just look like a girl who can walk around Cabella’s and talk camo and expedition gear and yet I have never been hunting in my life. So much talent I have going to waste it is no wonder I have not mastered grammar when I am too busy playing “name that camo” while walking around walmart. It is really easy as it is nearly always “Mossy Oak.”

Want a window into my mind? This also leads me…

-Remind me to tell you about how I sold my soul and saved a line of trees behind our old house and below a power line, all because I ran out of my back door talking “hunting smack” and throwing names around like “Bill Jordon” and “Realtree Outdoors” with the utility guy. It was good fortune that he wore a size ten boot and it was even better that I have an uncanny skill at guessing a man’s (only size ten) shoe size from great distances, (such as up in a tree.) Thank you Bill Jordon for the hats you signed for me to give to my groomsmen and sorry Jim’s friend that no longer was getting a Bill Jordon hat at rehearsal dinner. You may only understand this if your are from “hunting country” where your vacation time is planned around when opening season is.

PS, Anyone with any advice for “homesick?” I have a nine-year-old niece that is homesick and has a week to go until she goes back to Michigan. I only was able to plunk this story out because my darling husband picked her up like a sack of potatoes and removed her from my hip and took her on a golf cart ride on the golf course in the dark. I am a bit worried he is out there telling her if she doesn’t let me sleep in bed with him tonight he will leave her out in the middle of no where with the toads that make the creepy “baaaahhhh bahhhh” sound like sheep. For shizzel, I am feeling a bit like Jack from “The Shining.”

Gotta go I hear them pulling in. I am sure I will have to go pet the toads they caught on the golf course cart ride.

For real, goodbye!

I have camo boots on but they didn’t get it in the picture.

Kidding.

Macy’s wins, always and forever.