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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She Knows I Am Laughing With Her

Lilly would like people to stop telling me how cute she looks in bows.

She would also like me to stop matching her bows to her pink (rat-like) skin tone.

She also would like someone to drop a baby daughter off for me to torture decorate raise.

She is happy I didn’t give her this old haircut.  No one loved her for two whole months.

But I did do this.  

Come on.  It is too funny!  I don’t even paint my own nails.

She loves attention.

She begs to get her teeth brushed.

The toothpaste is chicken flavored and she is only allowed to eat her dog food.

She might think teeth brushing is a treat.

Abbie Gale

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Summer Camp

Saying goodbye at camp.Little brother Peter was left to watch Lilly our dog while we were unpacking Mitchell and Avery.  Peter was so worried our dog was upset that we were leaving his big brothers.  I think perhaps little brother was a little sad we were leaving them too.

Can you see how nervous Avery and Mitchell are while we check them in?

I CANNOT BELIEVE I LEFT MY BABIES!

I went to summer camp for the first time when I was their age.

That is what I kept chanting to myself every time I had the thought to throw them back into  the car and drive them to Disney World so I wouldn’t have to leave them with strangers.

The summer camp I went to in Michigan was not sitting on the top of a mountain though.

I would have happily stayed with them for these views for a week.

The camps now email the parents daily pictures of their kids and what they are up to.

The camp sent me this picture the first day.  I snapped a quick pic of the computer screen on my phone and texted it to my husband.

It looks like my boys are fitting right in.

Do you have fond memories of summer camp when you were a child?  Did you decide to send your own children to sleep away camp?

-Abbie, allthatmakesyou.com

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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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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)

Creek Tips

 

I love it when I come across something my boys have done that I didn’t know about.

Here is a video our Peter shot at one of his special critter catching locations.

The walk to the creek the time prior revealed a snake.  It looks like he went back with our big black rubber snake to leave out in hopes it would scare away any snakes that were venomous, while he could look for newts.

Thought you might enjoys…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv8uMqmdYGs&feature=youtu.be

My story, just yesterday, about same black snake and one of its evil doings.

How To Tell Your Lawn Guy You Are Very Sorry

-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.

Boy Versus Racoon Versus Macy’s

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” 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.