Community Chat

[DeLaney]

Happy Thanksgiving, ALL! Guess what. . . It's not snowing! Raining cats, dogs and wild turkeys, but NO SNOW at the moment! We are awful THANKFUL for that, among so many others things. Mike made it here. Will eat with us, then head back up to his parents before this rain turns back to sleet. Will have to eat again then, but I don't think he minds the turkey coma.

LURKY, I hope to go home tomorrow, so I can do my laundry and maybe make it to church on Sunday. Would just be bad if I couldn't get back to work on Monday. Celebrating your awesome news with you! Hope you're having fun with Smokey and the family today! Looking forward to those pics!

AGNES, great to know your rates will be lower thru the credit union. It will all work out for the trip, God-willing, but I'm sure it would be worth it to your folks to have you there, if you accepted the air-fare as your Christmas gift. Your call, and I do understand. Enjoy that French duck--you and Jacob! ITA with your sentiments on the protests and I'm sorry he had to miss his session. Hope you'll not be charged for it! Maybe sue those laying in the highway to cover it.

Howdy, ANU! Hope you and your Nan whipped up something delicious for your vegan tastes buds! How many in-laws are there chowing down and watching football?

JOY, I hope you're enjoying the seafood. Here's proof that wild turkeys are indeed tricksy critters!

SNAPPY, thanks for your vote of confidence. I first returned to Ireland to begin my formal studies. After two years, earned a scholarship for the next 4, but had to come back and let that go when my brother became ill. Started working here then, gaining experience and a PAY CHECK. It's been very rewarding, but you see then, why I am still not salaried. Don't treat patients myself yet at all. I'm managing the office, arranging referrals, scheduling testing, in-patient treatments, etc., since the previous manager retired. Learning lots, tho and am offered a position once I'm licensed to practice. . . Yes, there is a definite time limit for posting on these message boards. Usually set from 20 - 30 minutes, after which the site's server "times out". This starts from the moment you open a thread until you hit Submit, rather you are typing or not. So even while just reading. That's why our posts are lost so often. If I couldn't copy and paste, I would refresh the page before starting to type, then make numerous shorter posts, rather than the one longer one. Hope that helps you--so frustrating starting over. Blessings to your family today!

Selah, stay off your feet! Hope everyone arrived safely and the polar vortex is giving you a break, too.

Check this out, friends. . .

Looks JUST LIKE my Dexter, but THANKFULLY it's not. I am having some issues with keeping him out of Mom's kitchen, tho.

Blessings to HILO, ROWAN and ALL posters.

[snappyfrappy]

Hello friends. DD and I had a good but tiring time with the family today. DD and her hubby had worked hard to have everything set up nicely. His 3 brothers and the 2 wives and one nephew were there plus his cousin. Only our GS and his wife were absent. Had a time to talk with my GS who has ADHD and try to get through to him about several areas of concern. He has a knack for "tuning" me out while being sweet and reassuring, but I tried. Didn't do a thing today, but am aching all over, so am already in my pjs. It's not quite 5 this evening.

Hi anu, am glad to see you today. Hope it was a happy one for you.

agnesann, sounds like you have done all you can to secure your house and the Lord will protect you and your things. Grateful you can get lower interest through your credit union. This is a very important thing that you have to fix, and will be worth it in the end. We will pray you can attend your family's Christmas in CO. Am sure your folks want you there no matter what that takes. Sorry Jacob misses his therapy. We have people all over the down town area protesting. Most of them don't really have a clue why they are there. Just having a good time tying up traffic, and generally making things hard for everyone else. I know that a great many people don't believe in HRT, including lots of doctors, but others do. I'd never tell you it's safe for you, just that it's an option which has helped me enormously.

DeLaney, so glad Mike got to have dinner with you. Thank you for telling me something about your studies in Ireland. Of course you had to attend to your brother and the family needs. Everything you are experiencing now will make you a much more valuable therapist when the time is right. In the meantime, you are surely a blessing in every other area. You will be licensed, I know that. Thanks for the explanation about the time limit here. That's probably my difficulty. It takes time to read everything and make notes before posting.

Hope you are all being blessed this day.

snappy

[SelahG]

He looks too much like your little stinker, DeLaney! You better be careful since the evening is still young. Keep an eye on that bird as it cools after dinner. You can bet Dex will be!!!

It's been a great day though still snowing off and on. Nobody let me do a thing, but the grandbabies are keeping me entertained. Just sent you gals 3 pics. I feel more stuffed than the turkey was. Miserable when you can move around much and they keep telling me, "you gotta try this" and I've got to be fair and try everybody's desserts, right? Hope I don't pop my implants!

I knew Mike would get there! Maybe you should follow along behind his truck? Let him plow the way ahead. Great sales at Nordies tomorrow, btw.

Agnes, good hearing from you! Sorry the migraines persist. I'm sure the added stress isn't helping. Until you get in to the doc, try the lavender oil. I'd love to hear Jacob say, "Bonjour" and order for the both of. Did he say, "and the lady will have ... "? Adorbs!!! If you feel uneasy about the key, change that lock as soon as they finish the job. I would. Just to be on the safe side.

Anu, no protestors up here [wonder why?] and Lake Sakakawea is frozen solid. Bring your skates and come on up! Hubby said they have colored spot lights set up. Hugs to your Nan. Know you'll miss her until Christmas.

Time to throw that big community hall party now, Lurky! Congrats on the home sale!!! Have they decorated Bethlehem for Christmas yet? Hung the Moravian stars and set up the big nativity display? So wish I could travel. Going to be loooong winter for me, so send lots of pics. Hey, with the new iPad, you can send us short vids now. Let me know if you need any help with it. You can film the entire nativity display and email it to us! Hope Smokie didn't cop a 'tude ... Know how cats can be.

Happy Thanksgiving, snappy! Sounds like you all enjoyed the feast at dd's. Sorry you couldn't get through to your GS, but I'm glad to hear he's polite with you. Many with ADHD are challenged with having patience. Did you watch football? I will try to stay awake for the Seahawk's game, but no promises. These holidays just seem to zap us, rather we do much cooking or not. Thank you for the well wishes and prayers! Yeah, those disks are GONE, you see, so had to have these implants and they should help greatly with the pain. Spinal stenosis is a whole other thing ... Hoping PT will help, and you're right. It will be time consuming and challenging as time goes on. This only gets worse with age regardless. I'll do my best---want to stay as active as I can in life, until I cross over into the next. Hope you rest well tonight and wake less achy in the morning. Take good care, friend!

Good night all, and God bless us, every one!

[snappyfrappy]

Selah, so glad you rested and just let yourself be "stuffed". Of course you can't play favorites with desserts. DD made the gingerbread, so of course she HAD to eat the first peace just to make sure it was "safe" for the rest of us. Glad you had the little ones for entertainment. I asked my GD's BF today if he is going to be the father of my GGkids!! He said "probably". I told him to marry my GD first. Hope I didn't embarrass her too much, but GS had told me she sort of proposes to him all the time. They are most definitely a couple. Even have bought a house together. That's financially risky, IMO, but nobody asked me. He has a very melodious French surname. Yes, GS loves me and has always been good to me. He promised his grandpa that he wouldn't get in any more trouble, and so far, he apparently hasn't. My DS put several pictures of grandpa in the hall and the bedroom so GS can see them all the time he's there. Well, thanks for the medical lesson. I'm amazed at your sweet spirit and sense of humor during this time that must be hard and painful. So hope and pray that in the end you will feel MUCH better and be as pain free as we ever are in this life. Can you imagine NO PAIN? NO SIN? NO SORROW? OR CRYING"? Ahhhh.

snappy

[SelahG]

That's cute, snappy---asking your GD's BF about the future GGKs! Sounds like something I would do while hubby winced and suggested a round of drinks, or coffee, cocoa---anything to change the subject. Do you have no GGKs yet, or just none from this GD? Sorry that I lose track. More often than not the younger generations aren't marrying and fewer are planning children. Sounds like these two will take the plunge eventually, probably if and when they do decide to have a child. Glad your GS seems to be getting himself together and it's sweet how he respects both you and your hubby's memory. Says to me it was well earned. Nothing being a given anymore. When I was growing up, that was the expectation---respect ALL my elders, regardless, OR ELSE. I won't say that was exactly right either, since some were less than respectful people, even abusive to others. Family dynamics can be so hard.

We have one DIL who is ... difficult---passive-aggressive. Tries to make everyone walk on eggshells around her. Treats her own family the same way. It was her own mother, who after being humiliated by her at a gathering of our two families, who explained her now deceased husband had spoiled her rotten as a small child. She is also the "baby" of 3 girls there, so lots of practice at this "special treatment" routine. It's her way of standing above everyone else in her mind, poor thing. Demanding the center-stage attention by causing controversy. We can all be discussing anything from rice pudding to politics and everyone will be going along, pretty much in agreement---adding their opinions or ideas, and usually some funny jabs ... all but her. She HAS to be different and OFFENDED in some way. Faux outrage? You know what I mean, I'm sure ... Over things she clearly has no understanding of because she never even cared to consider them before. Just any opportunity to become disagreeable. Play devil's advocate or to try to shock. Too obvious for all, and I feel bad for my son. She embarrasses him at office parties and other social events---storming out, or otherwise making an awkward scene. She bad mouths everyone else to the point she has few friends now, even among her co-workers, but everyone is supposed to handle her with kid gloves. All The Time, after deliberately stirring up the hard feelings [drama] herself, to begin with. Manipulation. She'll have to learn the hard way that this world won't change to suit her, and it's not going to revolve around her either.

Last night during the Seahawks game, the topic of where to do Christmas Eve together came up. I usually fix a rib roast and we gather here and exchange gifts, and this way each family can be in their own homes for Christmas Day and the other in-laws either visit there, or the children and grands go to their houses that evening. So says hubby, "why change anything? If Selah isn't yet up to cooking, we can do as we did today." All agreed, but guess who? So her hubby [our youngest son] suggested they host in their home. But no, this didn't suit her either. Down the line they went and nothing would do, until DD suggested we meet at up the church [a central spot] then have dinner out. That brought out the "anti-Christian rhetoric" ... she was agnostic, then atheist, then pagan and now some form of Wiccan, all in the span of 2 years---all to get a rise from us and shock her poor mother, who is a Catholic. We did not react with shock or anger, but just boredom, having heard it all too many times before. This brought the looks of constipation on her face that is so typical before a melt down. It was unfortunate, I guess, that I was---at that very moment pouring myself a little prune juice to help counter the effects of my nightly pain pill ... and that I thought to offer DIL a bit---just being polite---her sitting next to me. Could I know some would LOL? Whoosh!!! Out the door she flew---leaving her children, her coat and her Tupperware containers for our son to collect. Exit stage door left.

Ahhh, the holidays ... They do bring out the nesenóva'e [very bad] in some of us!

Praying for tolerance. But sometimes, I think a small dose of the same bad medicine is in order.

I don't know how to begin to imagine The Place with none of things you mention, snappy, but I DO so want that for all---especially my children and grandchildren.

Be blessed. Always!

[Rowan72]

Prune juice, Selah?

How could everyone not lose it to laughter? I would have shot out the door so fast to howl under the moon!

Remember Christmas Eve before last, after your daughter broke her wrist skiing, yet carried on as best she could, pitching in--even babysitting for that sil, while she shopped, etc. Then--never to be outdone--in hobbles your dil, claiming she'd just been to the ER, after falling on the ice--wearing some kind of leg brace and the oh-so obvious smudged eye-pencil bruise on her forehead. It even glittered!

I forget now what prompted the hissy-fit that ensued that time. The wrong brand of pine-apple juice in the punch? She neglected to fake-limp during her storm-out routine and the leg brace popped open revealing the Walgreen's label!

I keep thinking ... hoping ... praying, she will grow up and out of this. Maybe by the time she becomes a grandmother?

Don't say it; I know... just wait until my two marry! I am not so strong in tolerance or good humor as you.

I have just returned from taking Mom and Dad home, after stopping by the museum so they could enjoy my students' beautiful work. Of course Dad then had to meander about the entire museum nitpicking. Pointing out inaccuracies in many labels identifying Native artifacts and the "misrepresentation" of the different Peoples in various historical paintings. I reminded him, that at least the warriors depicted did not have visible vaccination scars on their biceps, as those in the old Westerns. "Small progress" he muttered.

Now I have my sights set on some serious online Black Friday shopping. Not finding much new here, so best to move along before all selections vanish out there.

Loved reading about everyone's Thanksgiving festivities! When is Joy due back from the beach--lucky duck! Agnes, I hope your unlucky duck was delicious and Jacob enjoyed the fine dining experience. Snappy, maybe you gave the boyfriend just the little nudge he needed. Hope you are blessed with those great-grands very soon.

Happy shopping, or relaxing while enjoying those left-overs, friends!

[snappyfrappy]

Hi Selah and Rowan, sisters and birds of a feather! Sorry you have that drama queen to deal with all the time. Pity the poor hubby and even the kids. Someday, someone will cross her path or some circumstance, and she will be forced to see herself as others see her. Or so I imagine. We had one family member around whom we had to walk on eggshells for many years...she refers to it now as her very long adolescence. One day there was a blow up between the 2 of us, and it was so terribly painful, but once she got over it, things changed for the better and have never gone back to that since. Yesterday we were together with my new SIL's brothers, their wives and the one nephew who is a teenager. No drama, just kindness and catching up on what's going on and of course eating. Selah, I know someone will have pity on you and help this Christmas. You can't be doing too much right now. There's such a sort time between yesterday and Christmas. I didn't draw the name of any of my grandkids, so they won't be getting anything from me. It's almost hard to imagine that.

I really like GD's BF. Don't know why they don't get married. He just turned 30 and she is 29 and wants babies. My older GS has been married for 7 years, but they don't want children at all. The other GS is the one with ADHD and is NO where near ready for marriage. He would love to have children. He gets involved with women who have them. The current GF just gave birth last week, and has a 5 year old and had another one who is dead. Don't know if there's a hubby there or not, but if there is, he's in prison. Told GS to get out of that relationship ASAP, but she called and he told her he'd be there. He's a rescuer, with a huge heart that always gets broken.

I was in bed for nearly 10 hours last night. Slept most of that time, but didn't wake refreshed. Poor DD#2 has to go out grocery shopping today. Forgot it's black Friday. It's somewhere close to 80 today, but we are going to get some actual RAIN on Monday. Maybe an inch or even 2.

Do take care of yourself, Selah, and feel better soon.

snappy

[HiLo]

Hi Snappy:

Hope all is well. Did you finish your Christmas shopping? Mostly gift cards here which is what they seem to appreciate most. It seems most unusual for young people to find the right mate these days; your daughter was a welcomed exception!

Ladies on e-mail:

Was able to get on and send one off earlier today. Now the e-mail doesn't work again but know I am still thinking of all of you. Maybe it would be best to change the e-mail server.as I am quite upset just about now. ( Stephen thought it was all taken care of when he worked on it yesterday.)

[DeLaney]

Hi, HILO! Good to see you--hope your Thanksgiving was nice.

Likely it is your email provider's server. Don't let it upset you. Not worth it. When you feel up to it, you might go to gmail.com and sign up there for a free account. Yahoo mail has been problematic lately, too.

ROWAN: JOY is not due back from S.C. until Sunday.

Made it safely home, friends! Shopping online while my signal lasts in the snow. Hope to be back later!

Love and peace to all posters!

[SelahG]

The pine-apple juice contained pulp, as I recall. Yep, Rowan, just you wait ... because it must be literally true; there's at least one in each family, to keep things ... interesting. NOT that our own family isn't already "blessed" with some very interesting characters. I'm including myself there!

Hope you scored some great deals. I did well at Macy's site. Now I have to go through my previous purchases and do the check-offs on my list. Trying to get them all wrapped should be fun. May put a few in gift-bags as I go through them. Dad was likely spot on, but I know that's the last thing you needed yesterday. Hubby's doing the outdoor lights today. There was no talking him out of it, but it's slow going with many warm-up breaks. Will wait a bit yet before getting our tree.

Hi, Snappy! Bet it's nice and warm there today. It's 4° out here and snowing lightly, supposed to be sunny tomorrow and I will try to make it to church, with my dining room chair.

In all seriousness, I worry that this son's marriage won't last, unless [I pray constantly] his wife seeks the kind of attention she obviously really NEEDS, rather than all this negative kind she brings on herself. Hate it for her, as much as my son and the children but it's VERY hard to help someone you can't communicate with. Could be something groundbreaking will happen, as with your relative that will wake her up to the reality of her self-sabotaging behaviors. "A very long adolescence" is a good way of describing it. Sorry you were hurt! It IS hurtful, even when we know better than to take some words personally. Life can be tough enough without the unnecessary drama. I hope your GS will listen to you, snappy. Sounds like he is setting himself up for another heartbreak. We can pray that the right lady will come into his life. Someone who will appreciate his kind and loving spirit.

As to the gifts ... It must feel strange, but drawing names is what your family chose to do, so try not to worry about it. I'm sure you give your GKs plenty of what they really need---loving attention---all year long. My 4 GKs are 5 and under, the oldest being a step-granddaughter, who I love as my own blood kin and never use the "step" word when introducing her, but just to explain here. You know I was married previously and widowed [and lost that firstborn son] and hubby was divorced once---wife left with their baby daughter, while he was serving in the AF. My step-daughter and I get on so well, that she feels like a baby sister to me! She did serve in the AF herself and got much technical training and is now a weapons systems analyst for their aircraft with top security clearance. They live in CO, but visit us often, and usually vice-versa until my back went out. Very proud of her, and her daughter. My oldest daughter from my previous marriage has no children [health-related] but is happily married, living in N.C. You can see why I like Face-Time, etc so much. Hoping they can all get here for Christmas. Youngest daughter is married with one son so far, they live locally in a nearby city. Oldest son lives across the border in Canada due to his work transfer---with his long term gf---no children yet for either. Youngest son and his wife [the difficult one] live locally and have one daughter and one son. So that's us!

We do exchange gifts with other family members, as well as friends and neighbors, too. But I'm not going to stress over it. A bag of their favorite coffee with a nice set of mugs. A pretty throw with a movie on DVD. Those kinds of simple gifts. When they stop by to visit, I'll see them off with these things. Hubby has told the family that he'll be serving Christmas Eve dinner here at the usual time. Those who can make it---those who WANT to come are most WELCOME. Leaving it at that.

Hello to HiLo and DeLaney! Hope everyone has a nice weekend. Safe travels home for Joy and family.