Belle

Quite the mind picture there, my friend. I can see why you would miss that.

Let's see.....I suppose they couldn't send those poor folks anyplace warm for the winter, could they? Folks from Florida having to tough it out in WA or MI for the winter? :ph34r: Those poor folks don't even own anything warmer than a sweatshirt to have shipped to them. Now, isn't that spay-shul? Looking out for the household, aincha, rosie? How very Jesus-like. Wonderful, just wonderful!

I tried grinding my own beans for a while and got tired of doing that. I can't imagine having to roast them before even grinding them. :wub: I wub my sleep too much! Gimmee quick and easy, Baby! But not instant, please.

Not trivial at all! That's awesome!! I'm tickled to pieces for you, RR. :)

SafariVista, I soooo wish I was kidding. But, it's no joke. We were told not to bother wasting our time on people who were going to - gasp! - need help with something. Craiggers spent not a few sermons preaching about how the apostles witnessed to "upper middle class" people of their time. The rich are too rich - love of money, doncha know.... And the poor just want handout. :unsure:

What's that saying, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" or something like that? IMO, I give thanks once the bird is in the hand not while it's still in the bush. I may be perfectly confident that I'm going to get those two birds, but until they're in my hand, I'm still just asking for them. Same thing with prayers, imo. How many times in TWI did we "thank" God for something that didn't come to pass? Just as many, if not more, than when it did come to pass, most likely. I prefer to respectfully ask for things and enthusiastically be thankful for them after I actually receive/see it come to pass.

Ain't it great?!?! So very happy for you, Lori!

I hope so, VeganXTC! It is very enlightening and I'm enjoying reading your answers as much as the diversity of questions. Some of those questions I never even thought of asking the vegans I know but when I read them I think, "Now that's interesting. I wonder what her answer will be...." I have several friends who are vegans and they are beautiful, healthy and have the clearest skin I think I've ever seen. They just "glow". But, like you said, there are extremists among any group, and sadly they are usually the loudest thereby tainting the impression of everyone who subscribes to the same or similar beliefs which is a shame. One vegan I worked with at a former job was obnoxious like that but when she started shopping for a new car she emphatically wanted leather seats. :o Some of the more "bold" guys in the office pointed out the utter hypocracy of what she had been preaching to us and she had to decide just how devoted to veganism she wanted to be. :huh: That's just one, but the majority of the vegans I know (and I do know a good many vegans and vegetarians) are wonderful people whom you would never know were vegan unless you asked them. Even when they turn down meat or something cooked with their verboten ingredients, they just decline and don't go into why unless pressed. I tried going vegetarian a few years ago, but soy products do NOT agree with my body and it was way more work than I cared to put into my diet. I do eat organic as much as I can and can afford and I do buy local from the farmer's market, but I don't exclude anything from my diet - especially the occasional splurge at the local BBQ & Soul Food Restaurant and those days when ya just gotta have chocolate. p.s. Not sure if WordWolf started that method of answering posts but it is by far the most efficient and works great because you can see the statement/question and the reply without having to flip back and forth between posts, so thanks for doing that for us folks with poor memories! :)

How about FABULOUS? A lot of the men I know use that quite a bit.

That is very cool!! I know the guy who invented AstroTurf, does that count for anything? AND, I'm thinking y'all need a judge for this cheesecake competition. <=== Belle volunteering cause she is one professional cheesecake tester!

I remember that, Mo. I also remember praying "if it's Your will...." once after re-evaluating that teaching.... boy, oh, boy did I get my a$$ chewed for that!! You'd have thought I committed blasphemy! Of COURSE it's God's will! He wants to bless us.... How DARE you say "IF it's God's will?!?!?!" Soooooooo glad I don't have so much legalism, yelling and condeming in my life anymore. Ahhhhh, the sweet life outside the walls of TWI.... amazing how many more prayers get answered these days.

SafariVista, I remember hearing about the abuse and thinking how sad because some of it is worse than anything we could imagine. :( I'm glad that teacher got to a phone when she did, though. It sounds like that guy had planned on torturing those poor young girls for a very, very long time before killing them. The police getting there so quickly is the only thing that saved them. Imagine how quickly they could have gotten there if there had been a phone closer to the school house.

Great idea, Roy! I did this a few years ago and it really does help! I also called the credit reporting companies and restricted folks from accessing my credit score - that took the credit card offers I get down to nil... Now the only folks with access to my credit is the current credit cards I have and those I request credit from. Between that and doing practically all my banking online, I hardly get any mail at all. LOVE IT!!!

I can get the pond at work, but not Wavelit. So, I'm happy now. :) Lots of something taking drinks.

HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS, TONTO!!! Thank you for all you contribute to the Cafe!! It's truly a great day when I see you've been online. :) HOPE IT'S A RIP ROARIN' BIRTHDAY! Okay, Lady... you're saying Tonto's Birthday cake was stolen by who??? T-Bone????

Nate, for what it's worth, those were awesome posters you made for that PFAL class! :) And please keep posting! You certainly have a way with words.

SafariVista, it enables them to find the folks easiest to bully and control that way. If you argue back, you're definitely not going to willingly sell your house or turn over 15% of your income. If you actually consider what they're saying then you're not going to either. It's folks who are so desperate for answers that they'll believe anything some smiling person tells them that they want..... provided they have teeth, a job and a car.

Ahhhh - Google Maps takes you the 94 to 90 route, but Yahoo and Mapquest are different - Google's route says it is about 40 hours (2,360 mi) Yahoo takes the driver to I-29N toward Sioux City to catch I-90 avoiding MN altogether Mapquest takes me through southern MN this morning, but I swear it avoided MN altogether last night on my home puter. To go that far into MN, they must be following 94 all the way which seems to be going quite a bit out of the way given that 94 merges back into 90 in MT. :blink:

Hmmmm....I looked up routes on Yahoo! Maps and Mapquest. Both places go south of MN and the trip was estimated at 35 hours. When I plugged in going from New Knoxville to Stewartville to University Place it gave the travel time as 59 hours.... did I do something wrong?

I hear that there were about 35 adults who went WD. One group (8-10 adults) is going to University Place, WA, so that's probably who you had the pleasure of seeing although I'm not sure why they had to go through MN unless they were dropping some other WDs off in MN? There is a group (8-10) staying at HQ and working on staff Must still be having a hard time suckering folks into going on staff... Anyway, this group is going to be witnessing in Sydney. Those poor folks around HQ.... I wonder if they have signs by their doorbell telling TWI folks they aren't interested.

:blink: They must have new bumper stickers and gone around forcing people to put them on their cars and then report back that they did it. I think I would have locked the doors too, Vickles!

Jess tryin' ta help ya. :) If you want everything sugar coated and all the "bad stuff" left out of our posts, this ain't the place to be. We pretty much tell it like it is and that's why you never see any of the women asking, "do these jeans make me look fat?" For what it's worth, most of us started out feeling the very same way during our introduction to TWI. It was once the honeymoon was over that we started ignoring all the red flags waving in front of our faces. I hope you experience turns out to be much different, but based on all the negative things available on the web, I'm not holding my breath. :(

HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO THE COOLEST CHEF I KNOW!!! I HOPE IT'S AS SPECIAL AS YOU ARE! Been cooking all day for you.... Southern Red Velvet Birthday Cake!

MStar, we had all kinds of trouble with MBNA when I was married. They seem to consider customer service to be in the stone ages and don't strike me as caring whether or not folks drop them or not. I hope you get everything worked out to your satisfaction.