Belle

How adorable!!! Congrats and thank you for sharing with us!

LOL, Raf! :D--> Ooooohhh! I know! Body Heat

I love zydeco! Goes best with crawfish and cold beer. :D-->

Chris Penn True Romance Patricia Arquette I LOVE Tarantino and True Romance is one of my very favorite movies! :D-->

We had people in our fellowship confronted for having a "filthy house" and for not actively trying to sell their house. --> One woman was confronted because her son was constantly sick and she wasn't tough enough with him. If he was living in a "spiritually clean" environment you know he wouldn't have been sick all the time. --> We actually got a HFC we loved in trouble and removed from FC status because he made a comment one time that craig has "so much more time than we do". He doesn't have a "real job" or have to deal with "real life" situations and that's why he's able to know so much more Bible than us. :(--> I'm so ashamed. Our whole HFC and assistant C's got reamed for a good half hour at a meeting once because at the branch meeting the week-end before someone had worn a coat & tie to the meeting thereby out-dressing the wc leadership of the meeting. Not one person 'confronted' the individual on his inappropriate behavior and for trying to upstage the leadership. The poor guy was trying to show respect! He's not the sharpest tack in the box, but he has the most caring and tender heart. No way would I have gotten onto him for that! Same wc leadership "reproved" my ex and I for offering them free movie tickets that I had gotten for free from work. How dare we put them in the position of having to even consider or be tempted to accept a bribe from us? I didn't think it was a big deal, the local rc and his wife accepted the tickets, came with a group of us who did accept the free tickets I offered. Same wc leadership "reproved" us for not buying Dr Don's tapes of retemories. I said that my ex had already memorized all the verses when they asked me to buy them. My poor ex had to listen to this guy lecture him for a half hour very late in the evening when he had to get up in just a few hours to go to work. Want more? I got 'em!

dmiller, I believe in TWI II that raffles, investing in the stock market, bingo and other similar games were verboten, considered devilish and just as bad as playing the lottery. I could be wrong, but I'm sure someone will correct me if that's the case. I'm almost positive I remember hearing a rant about little old ladies gambling away thier social security funds in stupid bingo halls. I know that one couple in our area refused to buy raffle tickets for a school fundraiser for some children in our branch. I thought about buying a lottery ticket a few times but I was afraid I might actually win and then get in trouble for it. LOL! No sense in buying a ticket if you DON'T want to win. I don't buy them now, but if I ever got the urge to I would without batting an eyelash.

Ya know, while I was reading this thread I was thinking, "That's what they SAY, but if someone did play, won big and ABS'd off of it, THEN it would be okay, JUST THIS ONE TIME." Then lo and behold, I read Radar's post -->

Mr. H, when I first read your post, I thought you had multiple personalities. It looked to me like you were quoting yourself and attributing it to Engine... Whew! I'm glad I mis-understood that one. :)-->

Dude Where's My Car? Jennifer Garner 13 Going on 30

Our prom was the same night as graduation, too, George. I thought it was the weirdest thing when I found out some schools don't do that. I went the last 3 years of h.s., but not because I was popular but because you "had" to go. Some of the dates I had. Some were "pity dates" I think, but by golly I was at the prom. My senior year was "perfect" as far as girly dream prom dates go. I had a huge party the night before graduation and got all kinds of gifts from friends of the family and family members. Got to hang out with my favorite relatives and the next day was graduation. :D--> Came home from graduation, got all dolled up into the beautiful dress my mother made for me. My date came to pick me up and we took pictures....went back to his house to take pictures....went to our favorite teacher's house to say, "HI" and so she could see me in my prom dress. Then, we met our group of friends for dinner at Western Sizzlin - one of the nicest restaurants in town. :D--> Smuggled some booze into the dance, had our pictures made there, danced a little and then went to party in a hotel room we had gotten. It was a great time, a great night and enjoyed with great friends. I've enjoyed thinking back on it. Thank you! I missed our 10 year reunion because I was getting married and had to use my vacation time to go to the advanced class and only had one day left over for my honeymoon. But we had a 15 year reunion and it was nice. Everyone was practically the same and we all picked up pretty much where we left off. The people who came in on Friday partied at our old favorite bar even though it had changed names about 10 times. On Saturday afternoon we had a casual picnic for the whole family. People were there with spouses and kids - it was nice and relaxing. Saturday night was our dance and it was regular dance attire. Some girls in glitzy dance dresses, others in regular dresses and the guys looking spiffy, but no tuxes. I don't think I'll miss anymore of those. WWJLA, I think a dance is a great idea! It will be a lot of fun to plan and coordinate, too! Good for you! :D-->

OOPS. Nevermind. Read in your best Emily Litella voice.

Likewise, my friend. :D-->

When I go to the doctor or the dentist, I ask questions till I'm satisfied. It's not only allowed, it's expected. Is not my spiritual life much more important than my physical life? Then why can't I ask questions? Why can't I get assurances that my spiritual doctors aren't hiding things from me? That they really do have my best interest at heart? -->

UH, LOL! You draw quite a mind picture. :D--> I wonder if they've had to think back over how they "missed it" and "report back" on "what they were thinking" and how they are going to "shut the door" on the adversary getting to them in this manner again. We KNOW they aren't going to include this unexpected withdrawal from the ABS coffers to the "soup to nuts" information they allegedly share.

This kind of reminds me of the venomous letter I got from my ex for Christmas. They throw a "sucker punch" and then run. They refuse to have any sort of conversation, discussion or debate. They HAVE to get the last word in and if they don't hear your question or comment then it didn't happen. That's why they refuse to allow anything other than "bless" conversations.

Always good to clean house sometimes. :D-->

I LOVE seeing the pics, Valerie! Thank you for sharing them and thanks, Sudo for posting them for us to enjoy!

I use the T-1 at work and it zooms, but for the stuff I do at home, dial up is fine. (I'm also too cheap to pay the extra $$) Anything I want or need to do that requires more speed, I just wait till lunch hour at work and do it then.

ROFLMAO! Thanks, Vickles! My uncle was known for telling his parents how awful they were growing up and pointing out every mistake he thought they had made raising him. When he had his first child, my grandmother stood at the window with him looking at the beautiful baby. She leaned over and said to him, "Now's your chance to fix all those horrible mistakes we made when we were raising you." ;)-->

And another thing.... :)--> I belong to quite a few discussion groups and you do have to be pre-approved before posting, but every single one of them allows disagreements, hard questions and even some flaming goes on, but only the die hard flamers who will not quit attacking unkindly instead of having mature disagreements and debates are banned from a forum.

Yeppers! He only THOUGHT he was free to do what he wanted to regarding running a site on his own. So much for "not being affiliated or run by TWI." Rude awakening, for sure. HOpefully he'll continue to awaken! :D-->

Just because someone appears to have it good and the universe is being unjustly kind to them, doesn't necessarily mean that's so. We don't know what goes on in the dark recesses of one's mind or life that we aren't exposed to. Just because someone appears to be unjustly treated by the universe doesn't mean there aren't situations and consequences that we aren't aware of. I, too, believe in karma, ex10. ;)--> I don't know if it works all the time, only in my own particular life and even then, I'm sometimes pleasantly surprised or extremely challenged and lately, I'm more cognizant of how I handle those challenges and expect that if I do it right and just that it will come back to me. So far, it's been working. :)-->

Maybe God was just messin' with them. HE knew there was a gas line there, but thought it would be funny to tell them it was okay to dig.

Learning to keep your mouth shut comes pretty easily since you're scolded and told to "believe God" any time you say something less than positive. Heck, I couldn't even share my heart with my ex because he would get scared that I would say something to get us M&A or knocked down a notch on the "good believer" scale. Once I could see that things weren't going well with the company I worked for. They were laying people off left and right. I could see that my department was next and that my office mate and I were most likely going to be let go. I came home with some stuff from my desk; told my husband what was going on and he nearly freaked out that I was "believing negatively" and that I WOULD get let go if I continued to believe and act on that fear. I told him I wasn't afraid, I could just see the writing on the wall. It was battle between his superstitious way brain and my intuition and ability to realize what was going on when I did get laid off. I was glad that I had made preparations, gotten my resume together and started looking already for a job. Looking back on our marriage, there were many times I kept my mouth shut to keep from appearing like a weak way wife, when I would have much rather been able to talk to my husband about anything and everything. I can talk to my childhood girlfriends about anything and they still love, accept and care for me even if they disagree with me. They may tell me I made a really stupid decision, but they will not M&A me. No matter how much I hurt my family members, they are there to dust me off and pick me up again. TWI is nothing like that and my marriage was a mirror image of TWI relationships at their worst. :(-->

LOL!