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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The Bethenny Frankel Show Called Me!!!

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

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

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA!!!!

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

I answer, “Hello.”

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

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

Nice lady on the phone chuckles now.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Did I think I was going to get chosen?

Of course!

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

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

My hands are shaking!

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

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

“Are you married?”

Me, “Yes.”

“Do you have children?”

Me, “Yes, three boys.”

“Oh…how old are they?”

Me, “7, 12, 12.”

“Oh, uh..”

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

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

She asks, “And how old are you?

I tell her my age.

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

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

She asks, “And your husband’s age?”

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

I am now running through our garage towards the driveway.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She is now laughing instead of chuckling. Thank God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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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.

Get Some Pants On

I may not ever understand my three sons.

Get your pants on!

My Boys Put Me on a Dating Website? I’m Married!

Hmmmm…I see a bunch of Match.com emails.

I dismiss thinking it is spam.

Then I see I have people liking me.

Shut the front door!  Seriously?

Do I open and risk it being a virus or do I risk finding out I am SOMEHOW on Match.com?

I open.

They are welcoming me and show me the 18 WOMEN THAT ARE INTERESTED IN ME! I am a MAN who is interested in 18-27 year olds???

My zip code is listed and these are LOCAL WOMEN!!!

Oh…my…word!!!!

These kids must have used my computer and created an account by clicking a Match.com ad?!!!!

Find girls? Why sure if I am a little boy! I will click you and log onto your website via my mom’s accounts because she doesn’t have passwords on HER computer.

I do now AND what bothers me most?

They don’t know my birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!

You may also enjoy this story…

Said from a mexican restaurant men’s bathroom, “What did we ever do to you mom?!”

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

Sunday Dinner Cancelled, Bring Vodka and Mop

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

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

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

The kids were outside playing with their friends.

Jim was outside golfing with friends.

All was right in the world.

Then I dropped a can of whipped cream.

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

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

Wait that isn’t a bounce!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Whip cream hates me and I hate whip cream now.

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

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

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

I sent my girlfriends a different text…

“Sunday Dinner Cancelled, Bring Vodka and Mop”

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

Jimmy Neutron Photo from this website

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

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

I finally posted the story that scared me this week.

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

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

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

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

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

Whapppow!  Right to the back of my head.

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

BlogHer post with BlogHer reader comments.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

End of my BlogHer response.  

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

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

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

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

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

Why I Will Never Be Freshly Pressed

 allthatmakesyousmile.com

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

Related articles

• Advice from Anyone Reading this Regularly or Accidentally (allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com)

Dear Parent’s Who Do Not Think All Americans Should Have the Same Rights,

Dear Fellow Parents in North Carolina,

Please stop asking me to “Get out and vote FOR the marriage amendment” and that “You believe marriage is between one man and one woman.”

It makes me lose respect for you.  It makes me think you aren’t very intelligent.  It makes me think you’re insensitive, and that you would feed my children to yours if you had to.  It makes me think you will find a Bible verse to justify it.  It just makes me not like you.

Here is what the voters in North Carolina are presented with this week…

Marriage Amendment 1

The measure would define marriage in the state constitution as between one man and one woman, and would ban any other type of “domestic legal union” such as civil unions and domestic partnerships.^[1][2]

Same-sex marriage is already illegal in the state of North Carolina. The proposed measure, however, would add the ban to the state constitution.^[3]

How is it possible that a country that was founded on the idea of religious freedom and separation of church and state be so forgetful?  How can the Unites States of America, that invades other countries in the name freedom, want to discriminate against two people who want to be together but do not have the proper anatomy to be considered the “opposite sex?”

How can a sweet, southern accent, blond bob, fellow mom that has a glass of wine with me and shares stories about our funny and adorable kids spew this insanity?

How can you know your children are going to be straight or gay?  How do you know that if one of you children announces in twenty years that they are in love with someone and want to share their life with them that you will be able to say “those words”, then, that you are plastering all over FaceBook, now?  How can you look at your child and tell them that their love is less valuable than the love of two people who do not have the same “private parts?”  How can you teach your children to love and to be “Godly” and to not judge and yet you are?

You are judging based on your religious beliefs with the same tenacity that people across the world have when they strip away the rights of people, in the name of religion.  In Afghanistan women aren’t allowed to drive.  I am sure you believe that is just ridiculous.  The law banning female drivers is based on their religion.  A religion that brought people to our great country to seek religious freedom and personal rights.

Your religion should not be dictating our laws.  This is what founded this country.  We believed in freedom for all.  We believed to be treated equally.  Why should opposite sex couples be allowed more freedoms than same-sex couples?  If you don’t like it based on your religious beliefs then don’t let them get married in your church.

I cannot imagine that your loving, forgiving and accepting God would want you to judge.  I don’t care what version of the Bible your reading.  My God is loving.  He created us and he created us all different.  I refuse to deny rights to Americans because of sexual orientation and I refuse to believe that homosexuality is a choice and something you can get “help” for.

How can you say your “proud to be an American” and yet you want to take away the freedom and liberties of people who don’t live with your same religious beliefs?

I took both of these photos myself with several years between them.  The old man who drives this truck with his homemade “bumper stickers” bungeed onto the back makes me proud to be an American.   We can have religious differences without being condemned.  I believe those religious beliefs should not get in the way of providing equality to all of our citizens.

Sincerely And With Respect,

Abbie, All that makes you… https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/culprits/

Please feel free to repost/share this onto your FaceBook wall, Twitter…  If I have to listen to everyone telling me to hate you can help me spread the word of love.

References

1. ↑ QNotes,”Anti-gay marriage amendment filed in N.C. Senate,” February 22, 2011
2. ↑ ENCToday.com,”Same sex marriage ban aims to protect definition of marriage,” February 24, 2011
3. ↑ The Huffington Post,”North Carolina Puts Gay Marriage Ban On May 2012 Ballot,” September 13, 2011

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/06/152045460/friends-and-foes-of-gay-marriage-woo-voters-in-n-c

Info also gathered from Ballotpedia

http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/North_Carolina_Same-Sex_Marriage,_Amendment_1_(May_2012)

He Promised NOT to Steal Our Kidneys, Just Get In!

I was tickled my ten year-old “lucky pants” still fit and I could wear them to the concert.  But…there are no pockets on the butt?  I don’t remember them not having pockets.  I spun around many times in front of the mirror.  Did we not have pockets on our butts ten years ago?

Ten years ago my butt didn’t need pockets but this new, old butt needs pockets to break up the junk in my trunk.  Confuse them is what I always say, use ruching, scarfs, a cardigan, a blazer, blinking light on my forehead.  Not not really a blinking light but if I can’t get this tube top you wear around your waist to take off as the “next thing” or a “belly warmer” as I call it, I may start wearing an orange traffic cone as a hat.  My number one piece of fashion advice…distract.  I am always trying to distract from my belly and my butt.

My lucky python plastic pants have no pockets to break up my rear.  They went back in the closet to trigger the memories of when I could run away with a rockband, (The Barenaked Ladies.)  Stop being jealous! 😉

I wore regular old blue jeans.  Here we are having drinks at a fine establishment (pool hall.)  Notice that I am not dancing on the bar, (if you don’t know what I am talking about wait for it at the end.)

Here we are with one of those mustache pacifiers all of the babies are sporting on Pinterest.

The problem came up when we went to leave the pool hall.  We had a driver pick us up at home and drive us 40 minutes to the concert.  He dropped us off by the coliseum so we could walk around and eat and have a few cocktails.  He would come back later and get us.  We just had to walk several several blocks to the actual venue.  This is not a problem.

The problem was when the husbands were paying the bill and we girls walked out front and stood under the awning we saw the impending doom that was heading towards us.  It was the ugliest thunderstorm and it was about to unleash on us.

I have feathers in my hair!  They are going to get wet.  I want to look good when the band begs me to run off with them.

Why the hell didn’t I wear the PLASTIC python pants?  The lucky pants are waterproof!

The other girls began walking to try and beat the rain but I saw the sprinkles the size of saucers.  I stayed and looked around at the people at the tables under the awning.  I looked over at a bushy, bearded kid in his early 20’s and said, “Do you have a car?”

My girlfriends are now dodging back under the awning.

He laughs at me.

I’m like, “No, totally serious.  I will pay you twenty bucks to drive us there to the concert.”  I point to the coliseum.

My girlfriends are now laughing at me.  I ignore them as I am negotiating a deal.

I ask, “What kind of car do you drive?”

He says, “An old explorer.”

I say, “Oh good, then the guys can come too.  Do you promise to not steal our kidneys?”

He says, “I will NOT steal your kidney.  I will pull around and get you.”

Just then the husbands come out and look up at the sky and voice their dismay over letting our driver leave and announce there are zero cabs around.  Then they take charge and tell us ladies to make a run for it.

The entire last paragraph was said while I rolled my eyes.  Thank you Captain Obvious.

Men don’t wear tight jeans and platform, high heels.  They certainly would not be able to run in them uphill in the driving rain and they would not mess up their hair that they put all the cutest little feathered clips in.

I tell the husbands that I have this sweet, hippie kid taking us and I am paying him $20.

Then men start walking in the rain.  They yell back for the girls to come on and tell me I am not getting into a car with a stranger.

The other girls start running after their husbands.

I do not.

I yell out that I am a good judge of character and he promised to NOT steal our kidneys!

The men yell back that it is crazy and for me to hurry up.

I yell out I will take my chances with my cute hippie.

The rain turned into a monsoon.

My husband yells, “I am going with Abbie!” and runs back under the awning.

The the rest of the men follow.

The hippie kid pulls right under the awning to get us.  As he drives past us we read his license plate…

“TREES ROC”

No one kills people or even steals kidneys with a personalized license plate that reads, “Trees Roc.”

I looked at the guys.  I said, “I told you so!”

The Hippie Kid had to move his tennis racquet and golf clubs to make room for us all int eh suburban.  I think he is a tortured soul.

My feather clips gave me hours worth of entertainment.  I clipped them onto unsuspecting people at the concert to give the a “rat tail” and then took their picture.

Sometimes you just have to trust someone.

Or not, judging from my photos of strangers.

How about you?  Do you get out and pretend your not a mom or a dad once in a while?  It’s just for a few hours!

This is my previous post about my lucky pants…

https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/05/02/dancing-in-lucky-pants-on-bars/

My Lucky Pants…

“Do you want to go to the Van Halen Concert?” my husband asks me over the phone a couple of weeks ago.

I am thinking about where I will be at mentally Saturday with the three boys and the never ending “hillbilly hand-fishing” swamp clothing I have been washing and and say quickly, “YES!”

Then I scramble, as I have to act like I know something about Van Halen.  I need to be worthy of a big night out.  Like, I know that I have listened to a lot of Van Halen and that they were a hair band from the 90’s.  The music all kind of runs together for me.  It’s the music we listened to while drinking crappy beer, down a country road with a make shift bonfire during my teen years. It doesn’t matter!  Mamma needs to get the heck out of the house.

“Valerie Bertanelli!  Valerie Bertanelli!  Wasn’t one of them married to Valerie Bertanelli?”  I shout this as if I have Tourettes to Jim over the phone.

“Oh yeah, your right.”  Jim sounds impressed that I could rustle something up to say.  He knows me so well.

“Well you better be careful he doesn’t try and scoop me up because I am totally his type!”  

I am already thinking about getting “The Pants” out to wear.

I have these pants my sister bought me somewhere on clearance as a joke.  I showed her.   I wore them to her bachelorette party ten years ago. They are awesome.  They are python and plastic and PERFECT for a Van Halen concert.

And they are lucky.  Not in a “get lucky” way but in an even better way.

They are my Lucky Brush with a Rockstar Pants.”

They are the pants I had on when I could have thrown caution to the wind and run away forever with a famous rock band. I even tell my kids the story.  It is good they know I have options.  They even know I was married at the time AND they were already born.

These kids have to hear it every time one of their songs come on the radio and my kids friends moms have to hear my kids tell the story when it comes on in their SUV.

These pants have made me a legend among sixth graders, in my community, on my street and living in my house.  That is why they are better than a “get lucky” anything.

You usually don’t get to tell a sex story on a mom blog but my lucky pants are giving me, yet another, chance to tell the story about how I almost ran away with…

“The Barenaked Ladies”

Don’t be a hater.  You know your just jealous and I am pretty sure at least one of them has “A Millions Dollars” by now.

It was Toledo, Ohio and I had orchestrated my sisters “Princess Barbie Bachelorette Party Bus.”  We were club hopping in the “Glass City.”

We ended up at a Banana Joe’s.  It is the kind of fine establishment that ENCOURAGES dancing on the bar.

I don’t know about you but I was sick of people telling me to “get down” off of bars.

So there I was rocking my python print pants and bronze high heels on the bar and the DJ starts playing, “If I had a Million Dollars.” by “The Ladies.”  It was a different version than the song you hear on the radio.  I was the only one who knew the words.  I knew the words because I had recently walked in a walk-a-thon and won a radio station copy of one of their CD‘s with live cuts on it.  The same live cut of “Million Dollars” that they were playing.

During the song a guy called me down off the bar, (here we go again, I thought I could dance on the bar here) and asks me how I know the words to this version and he asks me to come and hang out with him and his friends. He points over to a table in a corner off to itself by the bar and the group of guys waved me over.

Just then I realized the bachelorette party needed to book it out of there.  I had an entire night of bar hopping and the next club was holding parking in front for us to pull up in the “Barbie Bus!”

I told the guy he was too cute and his friends looked really nice and that normally it would be fun but I had to go with my group.

They yelled, “No stay.”

I said, “I’m soooo married and I have twin babies at home and y’all are too sweet.” Then I hear someone yell, “Oh my God it’s the Bare Naked Ladies!!!!” and everyone looks and points at the table of the “too cute, super sweet guys.”

Then I realize…

HE IS A LADY AND THE REST OF THE GUYS WERE LADIES TOO!

I walked towards the piano bar at the entrance where the “Barbie Bus” is waiting out front for us. But first…

I hopped up on the dueling pianos by the front window and

danced to one last song!

These pants are legendary! I dug them out and tried them on.

See…

Have you saved an article of clothing just because of fond memories.  What luck has it brought you?

If you want to hear more click the “Follow Me” button above.  You may even enjoy one of my former stories like…

Unicorn Horn or Extra Finger? https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/unicorn-horn-or-an-extra-finger/

• Van Halen and Kool & the Gang celebrate good times in Nashville (blogs.tennessean.com)

Related articles

• “Esquire” Magazine Lands Eddie Van Halen Interview (wncx.radio.com)

My “Lucky Pants”

“Do you want to go to the Van Halen Concert?” my husband asks me over the phone a couple of weeks ago.

I am thinking about where I will be at mentally Saturday with the three boys and the never ending “hillbilly hand-fishing” swamp clothing I have been washing and and say quickly, “YES!”

Then I scramble, as I have to act like I know something about Van Halen.  I need to be worthy of a big night out.  Like, I know that I have listened to a lot of Van Halen and that they were a hair band from the 90’s.  The music all kind of runs together for me.  It’s the music we listened to while drinking crappy beer, down a country road with a make shift bonfire during my teen years. It doesn’t matter!  Mamma needs to get the heck out of the house.

“Valerie Bertanelli!  Valerie Bertanelli!  Wasn’t one of them married to Valerie Bertanelli?”  I shout this as if I have Tourettes to Jim over the phone.

“Oh yeah, your right.”  Jim sounds impressed that I could rustle something up to say.  He knows me so well.

“Well you better be careful he doesn’t try and scoop me up because I am totally his type!”  

I am already thinking about getting “The Pants” out to wear.

I have these pants my sister bought me somewhere on clearance as a joke.  I showed her.   I wore them to her bachelorette party ten years ago. They are awesome.  They are python and plastic and PERFECT for a Van Halen concert.

And they are lucky.  Not in a “get lucky” way but in an even better way.

They are my Lucky Brush with a Rockstar Pants.”

They are the pants I had on when I could have thrown caution to the wind and run away forever with a famous rock band. I even tell my kids the story.  It is good they know I have options.  They even know I was married at the time AND they were already born.

These kids have to hear it every time one of their songs come on the radio and my kids friends moms have to hear my kids tell the story when it comes on in their SUV.

These pants have made me a legend among sixth graders, in my community, on my street and living in my house.  That is why they are better than a “get lucky” anything.

You usually don’t get to tell a sex story on a mom blog but my lucky pants are giving me, yet another, chance to tell the story about how I almost ran away with…

“The Barenaked Ladies”

Don’t be a hater.  You know your just jealous and I am pretty sure at least one of them has “A Millions Dollars” by now.

It was Toledo, Ohio and I had orchestrated my sisters “Princess Barbie Bachelorette Party Bus.”  We were club hopping in the “Glass City.”

We ended up at a Banana Joe’s.  It is the kind of fine establishment that ENCOURAGES dancing on the bar.

I don’t know about you but I was sick of people telling me to “get down” off of bars.

So there I was rocking my python print pants and bronze high heels on the bar and the DJ starts playing, “If I had a Million Dollars.” by “The Ladies.”  It was a different version than the song you hear on the radio.  I was the only one who knew the words.  I knew the words because I had recently walked in a walk-a-thon and won a radio station copy of one of their CD‘s with live cuts on it.  The same live cut of “Million Dollars” that they were playing.

During the song a guy called me down off the bar, (here we go again, I thought I could dance on the bar here) and asks me how I know the words to this version and he asks me to come and hang out with him and his friends. He points over to a table in a corner off to itself by the bar and the group of guys waved me over.

Just then I realized the bachelorette party needed to book it out of there.  I had an entire night of bar hopping and the next club was holding parking in front for us to pull up in the “Barbie Bus!”

I told the guy he was too cute and his friends looked really nice and that normally it would be fun but I had to go with my group.

They yelled, “No stay.”

I said, “I’m soooo married and I have twin babies at home and y’all are too sweet.” Then I hear someone yell, “Oh my God it’s the Bare Naked Ladies!!!!” and everyone looks and points at the table of the “too cute, super sweet guys.”

Then I realize…

HE IS A LADY AND THE REST OF THE GUYS WERE LADIES TOO!

I walked towards the piano bar at the entrance where the “Barbie Bus” is waiting out front for us. But first…

I hopped up on the dueling pianos by the front window and

danced to one last song!

These pants are legendary! I dug them out and tried them on.

See…

Have you saved an article of clothing just because of fond memories.  What luck has it brought you?

If you want to hear more click the “Follow Me” button above.  You may even enjoy one of my former stories like…

Unicorn Horn or Extra Finger? https://allthatmakesyou.wordpress.com/2012/03/30/unicorn-horn-or-an-extra-finger/

• Van Halen and Kool & the Gang celebrate good times in Nashville (blogs.tennessean.com)