Linda Z

Hi Jeff: I never really knew you, but I do remember seeing you all over the place with that camera. I did know your in-laws--very sweet, gracious people. I was sorry to hear of your mother-in-law's passing and hope your father-in-law is doing well considering his loss.

Morgan said: "Ahhhh, but there is a trick to this. Allowing your kids to have consequences for bad choices does not have to make them feel like an idiot." And what part of standing in a public place holding a "Will work for food" sign wouldn't make a child feel like an idiot?

I agree that kids should suffer consequences for misbehaving, but I don't think public humiliation should be one of them.

Psalmie, I'm praying for your surgery and recovery. Instead of crutches, how about a walker? I know it sounds like something only old people use, but a coworker in her 40s used one after her back surgery, and it was a lot easier than crutches. Seems that would spare your armpits (I was on crutches once and know what you mean--it's painful!) and not put so much pressure on your wrists. I once had carpal tunnel syndrome that was so painful I'd wake up during the night, crying in my sleep. A naturopath with the ministry (go ahead, Geo., take your best shot :D ) recommended that I take high-dose vitamin B6 and it was amazing. I'd suffered with it a long time, and it went away in a matter of a week after I started taking the vitamin and never came back. Remembering that prompted me to Google tendonitis +vitamins, and I found this site: http://www.tendonitis.net/ Use your own judgment, of course, but the topical glucosamine/MSM spray sounds like it could help. I think I'm going to order some myself. I get tendonitis around one rotator cuff and have osteoarthritis pain in other locations. I figure it's worth a try. The topical formula is appealing to me because I just might be the most noncompliant pill taker on the planet. Wishing you well!

Our resident meteorologist said: "...probably not a lot of snow except maybe a ton in some of the lake effect areas" Bite your tongue!! I'm not ready. :blink:

Hmmm, if you're who I'm thinking of, I can picture you, but I can't think of your last name!! Ooh, I think I have it. Opposite of not-nicely? :D

Hey, jet, I wasn't criticizing you--just the NASE. I can understand why people think they're a legit organization...they're very slick in their print media and with their PR efforts. They're involved in several lawsuits. I'd be remiss if I didn't speak up when I have firsthand experience and can warn people. Here's someone else's experience with the NASE (from Business Week online): The bottom line is this: Do your homework before signing up for anything!

Galen, go to Snopes.com and do a search for the word "pesticides." You'll find that this same group (Organic Consumers or whatever it's called) has raised a similar alarm before. I went to the Federal Register and read most of the document. The comments you're quoting from that Web site are taken completely out of context.

jetc57 said: "There is an association out there called NASE, National Assoc for the Self Employeed." NASE is an association put together for the sole purpose of selling insurance, under the guise of being a support system for the self-employed. And what's worse is that it's not good insurance. They are the ones who royally screwed me when I had surgery. What they paid came nowhere near the "reasonable and customary" costs of a routine (gallbladder) surgery. I was left with thousands of dollars in hospital/surgeon bills. After I went through this (timing is everything), I read a couple of articles about this group, and neither of them was the least bit favorable. Beware!

I can't recommend what kind of business would be best for you because that depends on your skills, your expectations, and your location. But there are a couple things you have to think about that make working for oneself more of a challenge than working for someone else: taxes and health insurance. And if you have a place of business where customers come, there's liability insurance. And if you have employees, there's unemployment insurance for them. When I was in business for myself (over a period of about 8 years), I loved the freedom of setting my own hours and getting out of the corporate atmosphere. I loved not having to put on pantyhose and drive to work every day. I loved being able to work like a crazy person for a couple weeks so I could take a week off when I wanted to take off. That was the up side. The down side: a greatly increased tax burden, without the benefit of an employer contributing half my social security tax; fairly hefty health insurance premiums (and it turned out the insurance I chose was grossly inadequate when I needed surgery); and no paid sick days or vacation days. For me, those factors were enough to send my back into the full-time employment mode, but that's just me. And if I had deadlines to meet, I had no one to meet them but me--I frequently ended up working waaaaay more than 40 hours a week. Now, I had a very low-overhead business. Once I bought my computer and other office equipment, there was little I could write off each year to lower my taxes, so that might not be as much of a factor for you depending on what type of business you pursue. I suppose I'm getting cautious as I get older, but I'd suggest that you might want to start out with one of you retaining full-time employment (the one with the best benefits) and the other starting the business. Then, if it takes off, the full-time spouse could quit his/her job and jump in there. And before either of you quits the day job, study your local market (or better yet, have someone study it for you) to see if there's adequate demand for the services or goods you'd like to provide. If the market's saturated with similar businesses, there might not be enough customers to go around regardless of how unique your particular business is. I went back to working for someone else 8+ years ago, and I'll admit still miss working from home , especially at this time of year. It was great to look out the window at the ice and slush and hear the howling winds and then walk into my office and start working. On the other hand, it's also great to have medical, dental, and vision insurance, and 4 weeks of paid vacation each year. I'm not trying to put a wet blanket on your dreams, but before you pursue them, please consider the costs of doing business, both in terms of time and money. Then if you find something you like to do that there's a demand for in your area, go for it!

Okay, I just have one question. If you make yarn out of dog hair and make a sweater out of the yarn, and if you get caught in a rain storm, will you smell like a wet dog???

Atta girl, Vixen! We knew you could do it! And congrats to Vixen's mom. Your training has paid off!

I, Neanderthal? Eileen (I Lean)? That's all I've got. I hope I'm wrong so I don't have to post pictures!

What a madwoman. I feel for her kids, too. George, that's not zeal, it's insanity. She was completely out of control and scaring her children half to death. If her husband has any sense, he'll take the $20k designated for him to spend on his family and move them far away from this woman. As I watched that video I tried to put myself in the same situation if I'd been at the height of my twi involvement at the time. I think I'd have been offended by the occult stuff, and if I'd been uncomfortable enough in the other family's home, maybe I'd even have left. But to come home screaming and ranting at her family...that was just NUTS. It's interesting to note that this show always does everything within its power to create conflict between the two wives and their families. They put together slobs with neat freaks, vegetarians with cattle ranchers, and nutso fundies like that woman with wiccans. They WANT people to act angry, stupid, bizarre. Boosts their ratings. People enjoy crap like this for the same reason people watch Jerry Springer. To be fair to normal, loving, non-nutcase Christians, I've also noticed through the years that whenever talk shows and reality shows pit a Christian against a non-Christian, they always pick the goofiest Christian on the planet. No wonder some people think all Christians are maniacs.

I still like the photo, and I still think the Doberman was doggie-thanking the firefighter. Who's to say that she didn't know that he had saved her human family?

Indeed, it's a wonderful part of GS. When I've needed prayer, I've been very comforted by knowing that fellow GSers were praying. And though I seldom post in the prayer forum, I regularly stop in there and pray for the needs posted there. And coolchef, I'm glad everything went well for your wife!

Good point, David. Here's a link to a report by the Palm Beach Post, with many eye-opening stories: http://www.palmbeachpost.com/hp/content/mo...ousing1207.html Several reports I read put the average wages for these workers at between $7,500 and $8,000 a year. One report says they have to pay rent for shacks or trailers as high as $800 a month. Reminds me of the old Tennessee Ernie Ford song, "16 Tons." "I owe my soul to the company store." Many of these people flee to the U.S. because they think they can make a better life here for themselves and their families. That's often not the case. People are being bought and used as slave labor right in our own back yard, so as much as I feel bad for the people Mark speaks of, I'm horrified that this stuff is going on here, too. So Mark, do you know if it's possible to buy chocolate or cocoa that isn't made from cocoa beans picked by slaves?

What about the fruits and veggies that are picked/harvested right in the old U S of A by migrant farm workers? I have to wonder if they are much better off than slaves in other countries. I understand the objection you started this thread with, Mark, but it almost seems that to avoid eating the fruits of someone's slave or almost-slave labor, we'd all have to grow all our own produce. Am I wrong? Has the lot of migrant farm workers finally improved enough that they can make a decent living and be housed in safe, decent surroundings?

If you're peeking in here, John, happy birthday! In honor of your b'day, do you remember this? Ya gotta have heart Miles and miles and miles of heart You can take an ancient Syriac course, But don't put the horse before the cart. First ya gotta have heart.

Out of the mouths of babes, huh? I liked them all, but I liked this one the most: "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." I see lists like this a lot and sometimes wonder if kids really said them, but I'll bet they did. Kids have such a sweet, honest, uncluttered perspective on life. The funny thing is they can say something so profound and in the next breath call one of their sisters or brothers "a big booger head" or something equally stupid and vulgar. You gotta love 'em! Thanks for sharing those, Roy. They made me smile and sniff a little, too.

Oddly enough, city girl that I am, I have eaten horsemeat. Just once. It's a long story but I'll try to condense it. In 1968 or 69 I was visiting a commune in N. Mexico where my friends lived. Some of the guys gathering wood for winter, up in the mountains, hit someone's prize horsey with their truck. :o They had to pay for the owner's loss of the horse anyway, so they said, "Then give it to us and we'll use it for meat." They did. I had a little bit, and it wasn't bad. Not gamey at all. Oh, and the occasion was a Native American ceremony held in a teepee just before dawn. An elderly medicine man "blessed" the children with cedar smoke, fanning it toward them with eagle feathers, and then gave each of them a box of Cracker Jacks (that still makes me chuckle all these years later). Meanwhile, the grownups sat around the inside perimeter of the teepee munching on cold (but cooked!) horsemeat and fruit. That was only one of several surreal events I experienced at New Buffalo Commune (outside Taos). The hot spinrgs where the skinny dippin' scene in Easy Rider was filmed was on New Buffalo's land. That's where we took our baths. :D

White Dove: Hahahahahahahaha!!!! Digi, it's great to see you here. My dog also has an obsessive streak. If I'm sitting on the couch watching TV or reading, she won't leave me alone. She sits right next to me and paws at me every second that I'm not paying attention to her. I've tried scolding, saying a sharp NO!, turning away from her...nothing works in that particular situation. I love her, but it's a pain. If I tell her no or move her paw away 100 times, she's back for number 101. I did manage to train her to stop this behavior when I'm in bed. She used to sit down right next to my head, put her face close to mine, and do the pawing thing. After months of consistently responding by turning my face to my pillow, putting my arm over my head as if I'm going to sleep, and telling her to go lie down, she's learned to let me be. And she stays at the foot of the bed even when she can see that I'm not really going to sleep yet, if I'm reading or watching TV in bed. I'm guessing it's the consistency and the fact that I don't give in. That's harder to do on the couch, for some reason. When I'm there, if I try turning my back to her, she just paws at my back or hops on the back of the couch and gets in my face from the other side! I'm hoping you get some suggestions that I can try, too.

Happy Happy Happy Happy Birthday!!!

Dylan "happened" when I was a young, questioning, searching woman, and he was an important influence on my life. As a girl coming out of the 1950s, I wanted more than the latest appliance and a house with a white picket fence. I wanted justice and truth and love and adventure. He was such a part of all that for me. One of the things I was so happy to see in the documentary was that Dylan seemed so together during the Scorsese interviews...lucid and peaceful. I've seen him when he wasn't like that and attributed it to too many drugs or too much booze. There was a time when I was embarrassed for him, the way he stumbled around and slurred his words so badly that he was hard to understand. It was a relief to me to see him clear and sharp like that. Odd thing is, I was almost afraid that I'd see things about Bob Dylan in the film that I didn't like, but much to my relief, I didn't. He was so personable and mellow. The fine wine version of his younger self. I am old enough to remember that unbelievable time of music and changing culture. It was exhilarating. I'm not so naive as to think it was all peace and love and brotherhood, but those things were prominent in our minds and in the music. The times truly were a'changin'. I think we're due again!

MStar, I've watched that documentary twice. I loved it! My two favorite scenes: He's in London, I believe, on tour, and he's getting lots of criticism for selling out to rock and "abandoning" the folk scene. He comes on stage and the crowd sounds a bit hostile when they see he's got his electric guitar strapped on. He says, "This is gonna be a folk song" and then starts singing "Electric Leopard-Skin Pillbox Hat!" The other one is during the news conference, when a young suit-clad reporter asks him how many protest singers there are. Dylan, with a trace of a smile, says, "136." And the doofus reporter asks, "Do you mean about 136 or exactly 136." And Dylan, without skipping a beat, says, "It's either 136 or 142." I was laughing my butt off! Scorcese has managed to capture Dylan at his most articulate best. He must have really gained Dylan's trust, because Dylan really gives some straight answers (unlike with the misguided reporter and his dumb question!) It was also fascinating to hear all the interviews with so many other musical greats in this documentary. I agree, MStar--one of the best documentaries I've ever seen....up there with Ken Burns's stuff even.