Nottawayfer

Pipes, Yes, it is part of grieving. It takes some a longer time and some a lesser time to get over loss. You will do it in your time. The great thing about it is that you don't have leader$h*t scrutinizing you and telling you how you should feel or not feel. It's just you and God. :) Hugs, WN

We were always told to be as detailed as possible in anything we did while in TWI. I remember filling out a travel itinerary when I went home for Christmas. I put in every layover and where I was staying and when. My Department coordinator reproved me because it didn't make sense to her. There were too many details. Damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

I thought Bernita had moved to the same town as her daughter (Sha*ron M*rtensen) and her husband (R*b). I don't know if they are still in.

I set up an account just so I could view the pics, but they won't come up when I click to view group photos. :blink:

The Way always tried to pride itself on doing things the "best" way. Work your plan, and plan your work. So much emphasis is put on perfection and doing things right the first time. No wonder Jesus is absent in their lives. My most valuable learning in life is from the mistakes I've made. Life shouldn't be about trying to live perfectly. It should be about actually experiencing and enjoying life and the people and relationships you have. I'm not perfect anymore. But I never was.

Our friend called today to tell us how happy he was to have the Big Black Lab and that he named him Angus. Angus has been swimming in the pool, and our friend is so thrilled about having him that he has called all over the country to his family and friends to tell them about his new dog. :)

We've been calling the dog Shaq. It seems to be catching on. We have a dear friend of my husband's family who recently had to put down his dog a few weeks back. This man is a cancer survivor and never married. His dog was his closest companion. He's been pretty hurt over losing his dog (a chocolate lab my husband gave him 5 years ago). He came over to our house today and played with Shaq. He was in love and so was Shaq. So we let him have Shaq. I feel really good about this because two souls got to become companions and add something to each other's life. He thinks he will keep the name Shaq. He kept saying "Darn, he is soooo big!!!!" Shaq won his heart. They will be great buddies. Because of our friend's cancer, he is on disability and will be home all day to spoil Shaq. He has a swimming pool. His last dog had run of the house. She would swim in the pool and then shake off in the house. This man loves dogs. I think Shaq came in to our lives for a reason.

I think when you find a dog sometimes you end up with a name similar to what he had before. We got this dog from some people who found him wondering around at a campsite in the Hualapai Mountains. The Rangers told them that if they didn't take him home, they would take him to the animal shelter. Our shelter has a 68% euthenasia rate, and I didn't want to see this poor dog put down just because nobody wanted him. I have no history on him or his life before yesterday. I remember when I was a kid we had a dog that used to come and visit us for a few weeks and leave. Then he would come back again. We called him "Puppy". One day Puppy was walking with us to the corner store and a guy passing by us said "Peppy!!!" The dog was happy to see him. It was his dog. He said he had been disappearing. We told him the dog had come to visit us for a few weeks at a time. I guess this dog liked having two homes. We didn't see him after that. It was kind of ironic that we called him something similar to his name. I keep trying to call this big black lab a few things to see if it catches his attention. Nothing yet so far. We are leaning toward Shaq because he is big and black. :)

LOL! Dot! I like Atlas. Hubby isn't convinced of it yet. He did come up with a few good ones though. They are Andre (the Giant), Hercules, and Shaq (as in O'Neill).

He's HUGE!!!!! I think he has to weight at least 110 pounds. He has lovely brown eyes and is a gentle giant. What do you suggest for a name?

The Platigs moved in to the house after Harve became VP, and the Maxsons moved to a trailer.

Hubby and I went to Denver for a few days to visit his biological family. We went to an exhibit called Body Worlds at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This is human bodies displayed for educational purposes to show the inner parts of our bodies. There were healthy organs shown, and then ones which were affected with diseases. There was one body donator which was 5 months pregnant. The way they displayed the body was by opening up the uterus to reveal the fetus. It was amazing and weird. I was actually OK until I saw skin on a face with hair and saw the reality that this used to be a live person. Here's a link if you want to check it out. It's going to be in a few more places in the US. I suggest seeing it. http://www.bodyworlds.com/en/pages/home.asp

WW, do you really want to know the answer or are you asking in jest?

It will show up later mysteriously......can you hear the theme to the Twilight Zone now?

It was probably the reality of things which hit them. The money was probably running out faster than they were collecting it. By that time they had run off all of the good people who got M&Ad for being homo or who refused to sell their houses. But the "reality" was represented as revelation again. That sucks that he used revelation to control people's lives. TWI would do or say anything to make themselves not sound like the bad guy.

I agree Shortfuse. That was all based on lcm's ego and convinving himself it was God telling him all of this. Why did he all of a sudden tell everyone to get a job a few years later if it was God's will? His decisions put a lot of dedicated people in hurtful situations. Sure, lcm said he gave people time to get it together. But think about how much people gave up to go fulltime. They didn't want to default on their Corps commitment. Sure, they could have told him no. But with the cult mentality we all had, it just wasn't an option at the time for most. And those who did have the balls to say no had their reputations trashed on public forum by the big forehead himself.

Thanks Tom. Does that mean you ger your full credit of what you paid without any penalties??

Grandma is special to us. We like spending time with hubby's biological family. We just don't get the opportunity to do since they all live distances away from us. We are pulled with our visitations because all of our family lives a distance except for hubby's adoptive parents. We've spent time with Grannda previously, but it has never been in a scenario which allowed us to talk to her at length about the past. Hubby's biological mother passed away almost 10 years ago. He never got to talk to her aobut it. It was actually me who was pushing for us to see Grandma. I feel it is God letting me know it's important. I don't regret my decision to stick with our plans, I was just disappointed that I couldn't do both. I will gain about $8,000 a year in salary with the new position if I get it. I am not hurting now because I did get a promotion. The new job I wanted the interview with is another department within the county. HR said we could do a phone interview, but the department head said they don't prefer to do that. It's their choice. They are the inflexible ones. I'm chalking it up to the fact that the timing is not right for me to change jobs right now, or it would have worked out. I've had disappointments in the past, and now I understand and see that God was protecting me. But it took a few years for me to actually see it. I'm sure I will see more about this situation in the future. I would deeply regret not talking to Grandma and then losing her. She's really the last resort on hubby's history. He needs to know what happened and how he got adopted out. I don't want to take that away from him. I was really hoping that someone with some experience with the airlines would show me a way to work the system so I didn't have to pay so much extra to change my flight. That is all hind-site now.

Roy, you are killing me!!! I am laughing my arse off here!

$600 to change flights comes from $100 to make the change and an additional $250 for each to change the return flight. I'm not kidding on this. I called to see what it would cost to come back a day earlier. This is on United Airlines. We got the flight hella cheap about 6 weeks ago for $138 RT each. They are now over $310 RT. If someone knows of a way to get around this, I'd appreciate hearing your knowledge. I think it is a little unfair and unflexible for them to only do interviews one day. She even mentioned she had only one interview left and another person to schedule. So did that mean if the last person to call didn't call in time, they wouldn't get an interview? That doesn't seem right to say they only have 7 interview spots but 10 people to interview does it? I do interviewing in my department. We are a little more flexible with people and spread interviews over a time frame to get everyone who responds in for an interview even if it takes 3 days. Heck, I've been waiting 2 months for them to call me for the dang thing. I guess we could reschedule the trip to go later. We've been trying to get together with the Grandma 3 times over the past year. She lives 450 miles from us but she is actually visiting her kids in Denver right now. We are meeting up with all of them. It's a way for us to visit more family in one trip. We don't get the opportunity to see them much. If you know adopted kids, you may understand all of this with adoptive families vs. biological families and in-laws. You can't visit everyone whenever you want to. Yes, there are choices. I feel keeping our itinerary is the priority. I feel like God is tugging me to keep it. Like I said, I would feel worse if I paid the $600 to come back a day earlier and didn't end up getting the job. I would feel worse if Grandma passes away and hubby never gets to hear her side of the story. She is turning 97 in October. I don't want to take her being here for granted. It's disappointing. I just thought I would hear some other options that I may not have given thought. If it were meant to be, it would happen whether I believe or not. Maybe God has other plans for me. I'm sure I'll find out. Thanks.

I tried Excie. I originally left a message telling the department director if she could interview me Friday or Wednesday. She is doing interviews Tuesday. She said she has a panel who is performing the interviews and that was the only day they could all be there..... I even explained to her that I wanted to come home a day early so I could make an interview, but I couldn't afford to pay $600 to change my plane tickets. She just apologized that she couldn't make an exceptions..... They had the darn job posted for 2 months before they even started the process of calling people to interview......

they are doing them on a day I planned to be out of town. I checked in to getting my flight changed so I could come back early, but it would cost me $600 (which I don't have right now). The purpose of my trip was to visit my husband's biological grandmother who is 96 to get the scoop on how he became adopted. His biological mother passed away, and he never got to talk to her about it. Grandma still has great memory, but she is getting up there. We want to be sure we get to talk to her because she is the only one we trust to tell us what really happened. Hubby's biological sibling was 2 when it all happened, and she doesn't know anything. I had applied for a promotional position over 2 months ago. I work for the county, and this was another department in the county. I was excitedly waiting to get a call for an interview. FINALLY, I get a message on my machine at home that they want to interview me but they are only doing interviews one day because there is a panel of interviewers and all could get together only one day. They wouldn't budge on interviewing me before my trip or even the day after. I am so bummed. I just wish there was a way around it. I am sad I can't changed my plans, but I would MAJORLY regret missing out on time with grandma and forking out $600 only to find out I interviewed and didn't get the job. It seems so unfair. They are missing out on a great candidate, and they will never know they are. Anyone have any suggestions?

Shortfuse, I was never Corps, but I was on Staff during that time. This was a time that we had to take a 10% cut in need-basis pay. I guess that meant we had 10% less of our needs met. Really it was more than that because my needs weren't getting met. Anyway, when LCM edicted the emergency cutbacks, it was explained that they had an unexpected tax payment. If I remember correctly, it had something to do with employment taxes. LCM said if we really couldn't live without the 10% to contact him. Do you think anyone was doing that???? Hell no. We didn't want to be made examples the next day at lunch. Who knows what it was all about. I sure don't trust now that LCM or anyone else in leadership at HQ told the truth about anything. They sure didn't slack when it came to Trustee meetings. The Allens were on Staff at the time. I don't think twi was preparing for that lawsuit anyway.

Why would VPW think things would have been any different than he had taught and set by example???

TWI doesn't have the Sidney House anymore. I doubt that Way historical items are there anymore. There is a historical department at HQ though. I doubt they would be willing to cough up any articles talking about their founding president getting caught with his pants down if there are any. I am sending you a PM Groucho.