Shellon

I remember that first exam as well and doing well; what a tremendous accomplishment ! Good luck to you ! Please keep us posted, won't you?

Excellent Act2, it does feel good doesn't it? Happy Birthday Monday !

Then again, I fell off the top bunk in the townhouse room I was assigned, so I guess my believing was really bad.

Yup, apparently was that kind of rain and the condemnation matched the downpour because it was the students faults. Seems to me if you got your cars washed, something good got done. I took that class in 1992 and while it didn't rain, our embarassment as a class was being unprepared. I'm still not sure what it is we weren't unprepared for, but our believing sucked nonetheless, according to the powers that spat.

Anyone at the 1995 Advanced Class at Rome City, June? I couldn't go because I was extremely pregnant with Kelly, but my husband went (which was another story in believing with him going across country while his wife was so close to birthin' a baby). Anyway, that was another class where they got their anus's kicked cuz of excessive rain. What was wrong with their believing, they were advanced class students ferchristsake, blah and yada blah. I can still see my husband's face when he relayed the story to me and still remember it as yet another incident of knowing we were in some bad shi+ even though we'd already been in that shi+ for 14 years. I came across his (my husband) notes a few weeks ago on that class.............yikes. It rained alot.

I couldn't use the obvious words, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are we guessing?

We spent our share of time believing for the bills to get paid by God, which always sorta cracked me up, but I played along. We also spent too much time believing for another baby and that one got EVERYone involved to the point where our private life was anything but and of course every lost baby or lack of a baby was my fault cuz surely I was doing something horrible to pi$$ God off that he didn't want me to have that baby. It took 11 years after all; what the heck was WRONG with me, right? We did get the baby and the bills did stay paid but I figure that was 'cuz we worked and spent time alone together as man and wife. Me having the baby probably was some miracle, really, though. I liked the "believing images of victory" since it gave my brain something to visualize that didn't involve another meeting, confrontation or leader to contend with.

Roy, I always so enjoy your great heart and your thinking. I, too, think of what heaven is like, what will it be like, is it like the pictures say, which puzzles me too. For me, my children are such opposites in age (27 and 14) and my grand daughter is only 4 and just beginning to ask a few 'who is God' questions, the answers vary as much, it seems, as the people asking them; not a bad gig for me, really. I do tend to apply most of life's questions as applicable to mothering. I don't know, though. For my youngest, she wants to know if Daddy is, really, in heaven, watching her. That kinda creeps me out a little, but she finds comfort in it. My oldest is still mad at God and her Daddy, so she wonders if that will keep her from heaven. The 4 year old just think Jesus looks like a nice man and hopes that Grandpa North and her recently dead fish are having a good time there. I don't know, though. I may be like you in that I question and find myself wanting in my knowledge of so many things that we're told are supposed to be wonderful and heaven is certainly presented to us that way isn't it? A friend of mine died two days ago and her husband said to me "she's in a better place, in heaven now, isn't she?" I answered in the affirmative because it gave him comfort. I find that to be the standard response 'in a better place' but it works ! I don't know that it's not the truth, either. Maybe, just maybe, if it provides us or another comfort, then regardless, it's the right thing to believe. I sure liked lying on my back in the grass, as a child, thinking it'd be really cool to be sitting on those amazing clouds up there.

32 years today huh? What a WONDERFUL thing; congratulations to you two ! :wub:

written in my blog, but the references will be clear to so many here.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------- We were involved with a religious something or other for 16 years that did an annual camping thing where others, as well involved, hung for a week listening to some creepy guy preach hell fire and brimstone with a personal touch. I dreaded the event for the next year, avoided discussing it, cringed at the planning of it and generally was all over hateful of it. But we went. Every. ..... Year. In 1992 in the planning, we determined that, for the first time actually, we could afford to accommodate ourselves in something other than a tent or sleeping in the back of our truck. We could rent a pop-up ! Still being the cost cutter than I was, I suggested we do so from someone private, saving the deposit fees, using a camper also used by someone we knew and trusted. Brilliant idea in theory, really it was. Arrangements made, camper secured to our truck, angry pre-teen along for the 16 hour drive; we were on our way, traveling in a caravan of other week long campers that were also required to attend this stupidness. Bob set up our new digs while I arranged the outside area, both of us thinking we had hit the big time this year and not to mention we were camping in one of his favorite woods; The Way Woods. While it was, indeed, a beautiful area, amazing scene and in an area of the country we both loved. I awoke the next morning feeling.......odd; that's the only way I can describe it. I just felt like something was amiss, something was wrong, something was going on that I couldn't put my finger on and if you know me at all, you then know that I don't do well at all if I don't know what's going on, especially when I KNOW something is going on. The second day, I was sick ! I mean S I C K, bad. High fever, general overall ohdangwhatthematterwithme, just someone please shoot me sick. Given our current surroundings and circumstances, there wasn't alot of opportunity to address my sudden and unexplained illness, even if we did discuss it with alot of people who either 1) prayed for me 2) asked me too many questions or 3) stared at me too long. I had to attend fellowship meetings, I had to be mama to the angry pre-teen who didn't want to be there, I had to be who I was, regardless of being so sick I was but waiting til the moment of death when I could finally rest. Bob was wonderful in that he tried to take care of me but we didn't know what the hell to take care of and this religious bunch was of the instruction that if you're sick, you suck and you better figure it out and not be a burden to the rest of us. We finally, on day 3 or so, seek out a first aid set up they had that they actually called "third aid" in that in addition to the general band aids and aspirin, they'd offer prayer and condemnation. I'd had my fill of both already and noted no improvement but I played along for dangs and giggles. By now, my fever had several times spiked 104, I was seeing things that weren't supposed to be there, said some stuff that I was later told scared others but was assumed to have the devil in me, so more prayers were prayed, louder whispers were whispered and I was surely at death's door or at the very least going to start puking pea soup at any moment. My right leg was a swollen mess of nastiness and very hot, so it was finally determined that something must have chewed on my flesh but the bite mark made no sense to anyone, anywhere, anytime. The area was turning black and spreading. Black Widow Spider? Nah, I was still alive, mostly. A Rattle Snake? Nope, still alive, I was, contrary to my own prayers. Finally, the 16 hour drive home was upon us and I was way and far past miserable and my husband was way and far past scared and all we could think of was getting our asses home so he could get his saw out and remove the offending limb. Well, ok, that was my wish, not his; he wouldn't agree. The prayers must have worked, as I understood later that, in reality I should have been a goner by this point. Finally ! in an emergency room back home seven days since this nightmare began, a doctor had me on my belly, poking around at the spot behind my knee, talking to my husband while my own prayers were something like "go ahead and euthanize me, sign the papers, I don't really care", but what I heard was "we are going to have to amputate her leg, it's gone on too long and the damage is too great, she'll lose her life" Well, then, aint that a concept. I'd been bitten by a Brown Recluse Spider. I had invaded it's home in the camper, apparently and it was ....ed off enough to show me who was boss. The man I'd married and the doctor to whom he'd dragged my very sick self talked among themselves while I faded in and out, but I did hear Bob say "no, I'll do whatever I have to, just teach me" That instruction involved my husband scraping the ever growing nastiness on my leg 4 times a day of the dead tissue, cleaning the already fist sized hole and packing it with fascinating things and giving me some shot that I still don't remember since we had also been doing fertility something or other shots then too. I refused. My husband, in his usual humor said "then I will agree to take your leg myself and you really don't want me to do that, so we're doing this, so get with me" I got with him and for three months ! he had to debribe this nastiness happening on the back of my leg, before he went to work, coming home during lunch, and again at night before bed. It involved some incredible pain, alot of screaming (usually me, but not always) and still remained fear of losing the leg or the life. Talk about remembering wedding vows..........whoa! Little by little, the area shrunk, healed and the painful treatments melted to twice a day, then once, until finally it was just a matter of me being able to care for it myself and then leaving a quarter sized hole in the back of my knee as a battle scar. If you have a strong gut, google pictures of a Brown Recluse Spider's damage, but remember I warned you. www.shellonnorth.com

I get the abort message all the time, as well. Click on your name and go to your profile, then click on posts in your profile and it'll bring up recent posts you've done and you can then click on a title and find the last post, etc. and then add reply. Or another one, if you get that abort message, click on the last posters profile, go to their posts and then add to it. Slow, strange and inconvenient way to get to posts sometimes..................... But it works.

Yeah, the funnest for me was the mom of one of my daughters friends. I was checking the family out for my child to possibly spend the weekend and that included questions like 'where do you worship, leave me a blood sample and your fingerprints' :blink: Of course that also led to questions of her own and I mentioned a place in Ohio that we hung with for 16 years and she said "oh, not the Way is it?" Why, yes, yes it is, have you heard of it, I pressed. She had hung out with them for awhile her own self, taken some classes, etc., until it did such damage to her marriage she had to go another direction. They did eventually divorce, sadly, whether twi was contributory or not. It was not necessarily easier to allow her to have my precious for the weekend with this info but it did give us a place to start. Aside: the girls have been best friends for 2 years now and I am totally comfortable with our families together.

ROFL ! !

Putting this one up again.......... http://www.theinterviewwithgod.com/

Thank you and welcome to the cafe, someone will probably treat you to a cup of something soon. I would but I have no talent in graphic whatchacallit stuff. I'll just dance in hopes that your arrival here is a good thing for you. I appreciated your kind words of encouragement, comfort and another's experience. Thank you, to you, for being a good friend to the woman you mentioned, it might never be known to you how much you provided. When Moynihan and others were so ugly hearted to me and my children and my husband's memory, I understood they were wrong, thankfully. And I certainly never wish that kind of loss on even him, much less such lack of spiritual assistance and only harm and hurt to his heart. We've come around to a new normal, it's been 12 years since this loss and we're great. And the poor oversight of us is an additional loss in the lives of some leadership. Hang out here and continue to share with us as you'd like, I look forward to reading further. :)

Oh he!! yeah, my personal favorite are the people in the world who look at me (maybe to avoid having to look at their own selves) and remark something brilliant like "you know what's wrong with you?" then proceed to clue me in. What? like I just got my brain this morning and haven't read the instructions yet. Mean people suck, but once in awhile, they're kinda funny.

dang it, I lost the whole post, more coffee needed (edited cuz I messed up the quoting somewhere)

:) Rumrunner, just my $1.35 worth. Inflation, ya know...........

Wow I'm heavily struck, here, with how unpredictable can be the human condition and the oft strong desire to be right, to be sure to get the last word in, to be sure to one-up another. Not exactly the vision Pawtucket had, I'm sure, when he said something like "lets tell the other side of the story and maybe have some fun doing it". If someone pi$ses me off and I just can't stand it, I fail to see the good in not standing it so publically; I guess I'll never understand that and I'm glad I don't get it. Caleb, in his youthful "I was just kidding" approach and tone after his original approach of "I'll show up on your stoop"..........I think that those of us that have children that are older than 22 might understand that silliness quicker and yes, he did deserve to have explained to him the better way to frame things here. But my question, then, is whether or not like bahavior isn't happening amongst those that were comfy to tell him straighten up and fly right. The bully on the playground that barges into the new playground, making comments that he later states were "just kidding" then gets to sit back and watch as those he is presumed to have bullied go at each other. I think we too often have no idea of another's intentions, and of course we lack eye contact and body language and general knowledge of someone that is merely known to us on a computer screen. Then I've known of two or more people getting together on the phone or an IM and prod each other against another. "you post this and I'll follow with this" and so it goes. For what? To show someone how tough we are, how much more we know than them, we're big, they're small and by God we are going to make sure they remember it? Sad and our new friend Caleb, bless his heart and pass the peas, sees only the bickering and spitting and why the hell wouldn't he feel comfortable to come back with more of his own goodies. I don't know the man called Caleb but I do understand young people that age and I do understand having connections to people of note and just those two combined make for a powerful mix of "pffffttttt" Is that his intent? I'm not sure I care, but as is the original idea of the forum, too, he has the right to express it and yes, the responsibility to accept the consequences of a strong group of people. I looked at his posts through the lens of a mama and more fun, the mama of a 20 something kid that is forever making statements that she might have to swallow whole in a short time, sometimes all the time. She'll get it and so will Caleb, I pray. I know I did when as I matured and understood and got off my '10 foot tall and bulletproof' ladder. But to go at each other in such a public manner...........nah. Sad. Caleb, say what you need to say, just do heed alot of the posters sage wisdom of caution, whatever that is for you.

Hey there Geo, Happy Birthday !

ROFL

We're new around here to cat world, so we're figuring it all out; the kitten is 13 weeks old. Cook an egg? I guess I would, sure if she requested it from the menu