Bramble

Heehee--the only nekkid group in my area requires study(even written stuff) and initation and memorization etc. They are Organized, Serious nekked.

I know that around here the UU church is pagan friendly, and I know some pagans that attend because they have a very good comparative religions Sunday school for kids. The UU church here is always involved in our Summer Solstice festival, along with the sherrifs dept to keep all the scary protesting evangelicals away, heehee.

My husband's parents talked with deprogrammers in the seventies, when he was a wow, but they would have needed a second mortgage on the house to pay for it. Instead they refused to come to our TWI wedding!

Well, I'm glad we gambled on the life insurance. If something were to happen to husband or I the surviving spouse would be able to pay off the house and help with college expenses for the kids. When my dad died, the life insurance helped us care for my mother for the rest of her life(she outlived him by three years and had a terminal illness,) and we didn't have to sell her house and all she owned to do it. We were able to keep her at home with care until the last 4 months of her life. As her health condition worsened the year before her death her care was enormously expensive. Even with the life insurance we ended up owing 30k(paid out of the estate.) She spent the last months in a very nice hospice, not the local nursing home(she required 24 hour nursing care.) That wouldn't have happened without the life insurance money. Oh--and my dad's illness and death pretty much took all their savings.

When a decision needs to be made, the Way teachings do pop up--I spent almost all my adult life there, so that is just an unpleasant side affect of that long, bad decision. I decided some time ago that TWI didn't know squat about life. They new lots of itty bitty details about words,they knew how to motivate people by fear, not about life outside TWI. So when a decision comes up, followed by the TWI thought, I guess I 'de-renew' my mind. What needs to be done? What do I really want? WWNPD--what would normal people do? What can I afford? what does Hubby think? After I make a decision, if it turns out to be not the best--oh well. Maybe there is something to learn from it. Maybe not. Since leaving TWI, I've been pleasantly surprised at how well we have been able to handle life.

Yup, but the rest of us one income families, who were actually living on the 40k with out dipping into our enormous savings account sure got alot of grief about our crappy money handling and believing!

We knew a guy who was very highly regarded due to his believing for financial things. Great house, no debt, new cars, wife at home, made it to all the ministy stuff,had his own business. Everyone should be like him, right. What we happened to know, because we were old timers, was he inherited a huge amount of money during the fog years...none of the TWI2 corps folk had a clue. They thought he was actually living on his income. Yup, it is pretty easy to live on 40k a year when you have 200k in the bank!!

Funny. I'm a 9, the performer. I was a drama minor in college. Often would like to get involved in community theater, but it wouldn't be so great for family life, since here all the rehearsals are in the evenings.

Good come back, moony! Were any of you told that the proper time to begin using the wooden spoon was when the baby began crawling? I was, but didn't do it. One kid crawlded at 6 months! I often felt children were seen as adrain on the ministry, until they were old enough to take classes. We were reproved for having kids close together in age. I guess it was ministry business!

Yup, I've thought about that alot. In fact, this was a major issue for me leaving Christianity entirely. My husband was never abusive or domineering, but I had seen other marriages where the husband was not like mine, and the misery those wives lived in(yeah, I'm talking about the 90s). I know that those women had no supprt system in TWI that would help them at all.

When my kids were little I used to babysit corps kids for c-night, later c-morning. One thing I do remember about the kids I sat--their corps parents were not good friends or anything--was how solemn the kids were. I remember a children's fellowship with one of these leader's kid--the kid was so anxious when we were finishing up. He kept suggesting that we sing a song or something(we were letting the kids play while others finished the craft). Sit still, be quiet, and do nothing was a highly prized skill for young children in TWI.

What about Sauerkraut? Ever had that on pizza? I like that almost as well as pineapple!

Wow, thanks for wanting to help. We are in the process of setting up an account, either with the school district or separate. I will let you know in a PT when we have things set. We are also contacing several foundations etc.

Alot of times, I don't feel my age. Like you, Belle, I kind of feel like the girl I was before I got so involved in TWI. After the first year out, my interests all seemed to revert to what they were way back then. Since I was in TWI 20 years, I often feel out of step! When I talk to people my age it is like I lived in a cave or something. My sister is always astonished at all the movies I haven't seen. I didn't watch TV or read, or listen to popular music during those 20 TWI years. Who is U2? Madonna? I only realized recently that my niece used to dress like Madonna! So when I do social things, overhear people chatting, I often feel like I'm in a foreign country. I run home and google stuff all the time. I'm sure people think I'm odd! Hobbies have been a great help for me. I didn't have time for those much in TWI--we ran a twig, later we didn't run one but had kids and the mess of the nineties to deal with. Hubby and I took a gardening class together, met some nice people. I took a writing class and am sporadically involved in a little wicca type group, made some friends in both those places. But I confess I often feel more comfortable with people online, who all have a specific interest in common, then with groups of living people! I'm good at 'on topic' not so good at OT. I suspect I am doing now--in my forties-- what I should have done in my young adult years, and didn't. It is weird seeing your husband do the same thing. Who will we be in ten years??

Highway--congradulations! You probably have alot to raise! Since we just found out we are just starting to plan. The school district has some funds earmarked for things like this, which should pay for the plane ticket. We'll need to raise $2500 by May 4 for the tuition, plus the previous goal for the class landscaping project, another 2k, plus the class trip etc etc. We are doing a talent show, Friday bake sales, a pizza card from a local pizza joint and a multicultural carnival with a raffle. Earlier this year we did a theater production with video sales--good money raised on that. My child will be sending letters to various foundations and civic groups, also. We are also investigating a scholarship, which would be lovely. Hubby and I will have to get this kid some clothes--they have to wear office type clothing, sheesh. Kid owns jeans, t shirts, flannel shirts and basketball shorts (we don't have a dressy lifestyle.)

Just found out my oldest was nominated by the school to attend a Congressional Youth Leaders conference in Washington DC. We got the acceptance packet today. It is a wonderful opportunity. Really cool. Once in a lifetime type deal. It is about 4 times more expensive than the wonderful opportunity we fund raised for last year! Fund raising is becoming my life.

SAHM--stay at home mom I agree that she will have to take action for herself. Hopefully her husband isn't the type to set the ministry dogs on her by tattling on her. That's something my husband never, ever did. I did have a tentative plan made for a quick exit, if things went south. Sometime's things seemed so out of my control, back then. My husband always acted like he loved me, but we had been surprised by more than one weird divorce in our area. And I knew what our HFC thought of me. My parent would have given me money if I needed it. Plus during one of my trips(just kids and I) home, I got in contact with an old employer and friend, who would be able to employ me and help house me and kids temporarily, if it ever came to that. My plan was to go visit my parents and disapear out into the far boonies(Eastern Montana), where my friend ranched and had a bar in a small town. Not much of a plan, but there it is.

I was SAHM during my TWI years. I liked it--I could plan my own schedule, etc. I got out of the house alot, and my hubby and I didn't really do the 2by2 thing or the one week in advance schedule, just between us, though we faked it for the HFC. We lived way across town from our HFC's who would have been the only ones to notice. I wanted to leave TWI a few years before hubby did, and like your friend I did not want a TWI sponsored divorce. That, plus the lack of money did make things really stressful. The library was actually something that kept me sane! I could take the kids to storytime, so legit, plus no one else in the entire two branches in the city went to the main library down town for storytime. I could check out any 'forbidden' thing I liked and read them during the day, or when Hubby was gone to fellowship until 10pm. It was a small thing, but it sure helped--plus it was free!

Sometimes the water was soo hot! It wasn't bad for me, but I only took my little ones there once--it hurt them, and I was afraid of scalding! So we washed them with baby wipes the rest of the time.

My husband was one of the wows who got me in the word. We got married in a ministry wedding. We left TWI in 1999--twenty some years involved for me, longer for my husband who is several years older than I. One of the reasons we left was because our LCM clone HFC didn't like me--but he loved my husband. We dealt with the stress of this situation for years before finally getting out. Why anyone would want to drive a wedge between my husband and I will never understand. Envy? Just evil? Drunk on power?

I think of this now more as a journey than a destination(the One True Household etc) I hope in 2 years I will have more knowledge, more insight, more ability to live a good and rewarding life, more ability to take care of the people and situations in my life than I have at this point. Will I ever look back at these days with the same anger,sadness and hurt I have when I look back on my TWI years(latter years)? No. These past few years, postTWI, have been full of freedom,learning, growing, healing, restoration. When I look back, I won't be looking back at an ugly, stressful, depressing, fear motivated life like I had those last years in TWI.

For Y2K prep we got alot of free information from the Red Cross on how to store water etc(don't store plastic jugs of water next to your kerosene, for instance.) But we did the really smart Y2K move--we left TWI and moved home to the boonies. Now we're in the neighborhood with all my feral mountain men relatives--the ones who's kids learn how to butcher their own deer after they shoot it, field dress it and hoist it in the truck. Plus--lots of wood around here, and who doesn't heat with wood?

O the Oklahoma girl on American Idol is pretty good!

My husband quit after smoking for twenty some years. He used a patch system he got at Wal Mart--it gradually decreases the nicotine. It worked very well for him. He had tried several times before with no success. For him the patch made a difference. Your body will thank you for quitting!

Andrea--our area quit doing children's fellowship. All my kids were too young (not 4) then when they got to 4, they quit doing them at branch meetings! Children's needs could be met in the teaching. Huh? Weird for me--I had taught children's fellowships for years, but my own kids got 'homeschool' children's fellowship, because the branch felt the teachings were too important for a children's fellowship crew of 3 or 4 adults to miss. Branch meetings were awful for moms with toddlers--they would have to be out in the hallways or wander around some lobby of a hotel, because they were always so long. But you couldn't stay home! As far as using the wooden spoon--you used it(TWI2), or you weren't in the One True Household of God for long.When you were at a TWI thing, you carried it so everyone would know you had it handy--no hiding it in your bible case! We went to a methodist church for awhile--by then my kids were school age. But I watched the moms of young kids--they'd go to this nursery room at the back of the church, with a big window. The little ones could play, or cry, whatever, without disturbing anyone.The moms and dads could hear the service...I envied them!