My Skin Care Routine

Since I have Danny DeVito hands, I make a huge effort to maintain other parts of my body, since my fingernails are always destined to be short. One thing I'm 100% diligent about is my skin. I have a very specific routine that I do, twice a day, to keep my skin reminiscent of Snow White's. 


Every woman  has her beauty secrets, but because my skin care regimen works so well, it seems only fair that I outline it for you here, so that you, too, can have the flawless complexion of a Disney Princess.


And so, here are the five easy steps I use to keep my skin clean, soft, and youthful.


Step One: Start with warm water (not hot, not cold,) and gently cleanse your face with a creamy face wash. Move your fingers in a circular motion, paying special attention to your forehead, beside your nose, and your chin. Then wash away soap with, again, warm water.

All the items I use are for sensitive skin. Because every princess is sensitive.

Step Two: Don't reach for the towel just yet. Now is the time for the magical butterflies. Allow them to beat their wings gently, slowly drying your skin to sparkling perfection. This process takes 10 to 15 minutes (unless you've got the money to spend on a couple of Queen Alexandra's Birdwings...those suckers are huge. And it's more like standing behind a 747 preparing for takeoff, so they don't have quite the same effect as normal-sized butterflies.)

The more colorful they are, the more like Aurora you will feel.

Step Three:  For any residual water, feel free to delicately blot your face with your towel at this point. You should also release the song birds. Make sure you've trained them to sweetly tweet an appropriate song for this moment of your routine, such as "The Hills Are Alive," "I Feel Pretty," or for me, my favorite song from Just Dance 2, "Big Girl (You Are Beautiful.)"

They sing it in rounds. With harmony. Pretty awesome.

Step Four: Now that your face is all dry, you're ready for the next step. You can never achieve a true princess complexion without the help of my secret weapon. Hold your breath, ladies---this is bigger than any wrinkle cream on the market. Ready? It's Fairy Dust.

Shrinks wrinkles, reduces puffiness, and adds a soft glow.

Step Five: Once the butterflies have fluttered away, the birds are back in their cages, and the fairies have disappeared to another dimension, you're ready for the final step. This one's easy. Find yourself a daily moisturizer with a sunscreen in it (SPF 15 or higher), and apply it to your fresh-as-a-daisy face. 

Always remember--the sun is bad. Being a recluse is also good for the skin.

So there you have it. Abby's Five Step Guide to Disney Princess Skin. Don't laugh, it really works. Now, I'm off to feed my song birds and start training them to sing "I Like Big Butts," just because it'll be funny.

A Funny Story (At My Husband's Expense)

I was reading one of my favorite blogs yesterday, and I absolutely laughed out loud. No, strike that. I didn't just laugh out loud, I snorted. So, I thought I would share a similar story with you today. 


Except my story stars my husband, not me, because I would NEVER embarrass myself the way I'm about to embarrass him. **


When we first moved to Charleston, we lived in an apartment complex that had a slight Palmetto bug problem. Now, for those who don't know what a palmetto bug is, let me explain it this way...

Palmetto Bug is to Cockroach as Skateboard is to a Matchbox Car.

Ok, well, if that doesn't explain it well enough, you can go look at the ugly little buggers here, but I won't put a real picture up on my blog.

Why? Because my husband is almost positively reading this, and I wouldn't do that to him.

You see, my husband is fearless when it comes to most things: spiders, snakes, leopards, serial killers, taxes....But when it comes to Palmetto bugs....well....

They make him squeal like John Cage.

We'd been living at this apartment for about 2 months, and every time a Palmetto bug made its way onto our living room rug, Brian would squeal, I would grab a glass and a magazine, and I would scoop up the little bugger and flush him away, thereby saving my husband from the icky insect.


Now let me reference the SIZE of these bugs by saying that I couldn't use regular drinking glasses to catch these things. I had to use a designated wide-mouth margarita glass. And sometimes, their antennae STILL didn't fit inside. THAT'S how big they were.

One quiet summer night, I was curled up on the couch reading a book. My husband disappeared for his nightly "constitutional." The crickets were chirping, the warm summer breeze was blowing through the sliding glass door, and I was thoroughly engrossed in the book. Suddenly, piercing the night air came my husband's warning call...

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"

Which was immediately followed by...

THUMP. Pause.

And there may have been a string of curse words that would make a sailor blush.

I drop my book and, without hesitation, grab the margarita glass kept handy for such emergencies, and race toward the bathroom. As I turn the corner, this is what I see:

I jam the upturned margarita glass over the corpse (just to be sure) and turn to see my hubby, in a seated position on the throne, with his pants around his ankles, breathing so hard you'd have thought he'd just finished the Boston Marathon.  His cheeks were the color of ash, his eyes were as wide as my margarita glass, and you could hear the sound of his heart thudding in his chest.

"Honey, what happened?"

"I reached for the toilet paper, and it was ON THE ROLL. It was LOOKING AT ME! It was WATCHING ME POOP!"

"Did you touch it?"

"Briefly. Then I just threw it."

And he had. Along with the toilet paper roll. He'd tossed bug and TP out the bathroom door, across the hallway, and into the wall.

It looked like a mini crime scene. 

I should've busted out the yellow tape. And drawn a chalk outline.

To be fair, my husband has saved me from MANY spiders, big and small. But, I could never blog about that, because even cute cartoon-y spiders wig me out. So I couldn't do my signature Photoshop interpretation of events. And what fun would that be?

**Dear B, You are my sun and my light, my heart and my soul, my smile and my happy ever after....not good enough? Ok, I'll cook your favorite meal. No? How about, I promise to do your laundry for a week? Wait, I already do that. Ok then, be mad that I wrote a blog about an embarrassing moment in your life. But everyone else will laugh. You'll see. Love, A  PS: If you REALLY wanna be mad at someone, blame Al, cuz she started it.

Sunday Funnies

When I was a kid, Sunday mornings were reserved for three things: 1) the Family Breakfast Smorgasbord--scrambed eggs, bacon, fruit salad, homemade biscuits, cheesy grits and orange juice--2) Bugs Bunny and Friends, and 3) reading the paper with my Daddy.


Now, these memories are from when I was probably about 8 years old, so I don't think I was reading the Finance section of the Salisbury Post. But Daddy would spread the paper out on the coffee table, and I would snuggle up beside him on the couch, him with the sports section, me with the Sunday funnies. 


It's one of my fondest memories.


So Sundays on Abby Gabs will be dedicated to comic strips that make me laugh. And make me reminisce about my childhood Sunday mornings--the smell of bacon cooking, the sound of the tinny music of the cartoon in the background, and the feeling of absolute security and love in those special moments spent with my father.


Without further ado, our first Sunday Funnies feature, and just in time for Valentine's Day: Pearls Before Swine. (Click the picture to see the comic in it's original size, especially if you need glasses to see anything bigger than 24 sized font, like me.)

For more comic-y goodness, visit www.comics.com!