anonemouse

Good luck!

It was a lot of fun, for the most part. I spent the week in a very small house with too many people, with periodic visits from even more people. It was basically a family reunion, even though a lot of the family couldn't be there. It was my parents, me, my brother and SIL, an uncle and his wife and two daughters, another uncle and his wife, and their three kids, those kids' spouses, and their 5 grandkids. Most of the grandkids were monsters or monsters-in-training, especially one in particular. He's the favored child of the favored child, so he gets away with EVERYTHING. To make matters worse, he's a child actor (actually just got signed to a NYC agent) who thinks he's cuter than he is. He ignored everyone that he couldn't manipulate, got away with kicking one of the other kids in the face, and got away with refusing to speak to his mother and father on the telephone. (They had to go back to Atlanta after a couple of days and left him there with his grandparents. He was the one to suggest that they let him stay there, btw.) The sad part is that he's only 5. I can't imagine what he'll be like when he's older.

I never said I was an expert. If simply posting about a topic implies that you think you are an expert on it, there wouldn't be very many people posting on this board. And unfortunately, you can't rely on people to think of what's best or what's right. If you could, we wouldn't need any laws. I would love to agree with you, to think that parents would always put the welfare of their children first. But the simple fact is that a lot of parents don't. When the nightly news is filled with stories of parents pouring boiling water on their children, locking them in closets, even prostituting them, that fact's abundantly clear. And while having more children than you can care for doesn't even begin to approach the level of abuse that I've mentioned, it clearly adversely affects the welfare of that couple's children. And yet there are people out there that continue to do it, just because they want a very large family. Like I've said before, I have absolutely no problem with people having children that they can care for. If you have the time and money to care for 7 or 8 children, that's wonderful. If you don't, though, it is clearly irresponsible to have 7 or 8 children. You don't have be a parent to see that.

I have a couple of opinions here. Like others, I think that there should be a reasonable time limit on alimony. I also think, though, that unless a domestic partnership has all of the legal benefits and bindings of marriage, it should not be considered a reason to discontinue alimony. Admittedly, I don't know enough about domestic partnerships in California, whether they are legally binding, or whatever. If they aren't legally binding relationships, but are still considered grounds to discontinue alimony, what keeps someone from asking that they be allowed to stop alimony payments just because their ex has a new boyfriend or girlfriend? Does that make sense or is it as clear as mud?

Good night!

Good luck with your progress! I am glad to be home. Living with my parents for close to six weeks, after I've moved out and tasted freedom, was not my idea of paradise. I'm just hoping to continue to lose weight. I feel like I can eat forever right now, so I can't wait for my first fill (scheduled for August 8th). I am just trying not to regain everything that I've lost. The parts that I'm struggling the most with are taking my vitamins every day (they have to be taken with food, but I never remember them until I'm between meals) and getting enough water.

My parents have a weekend house at a local lake that the entire family has been going to during the summers for about 50 or so years (the lake, not the house). The rest of the family (my dad's two brothers and their wives/kids/grandkids) got a cabin at the resort that's about 2 minutes away from the house, so we had a mini family reunion of sorts. To be honest, I don't really have a diet. I just try to eat relatively healthy foods (although, my dad's birthday was on the 27th, so we had white chocolate bread pudding and an ice cream birthday cake for desert one night). I had a few cookies during the week, too (my uncle co-owns a Subway, so he brought lunchmeat, bacon, and cookies), but otherwise I tried to stay away from junk food and eat decently.

Well, I'm back from vacation. I've missed a lot of this thread, and I don't remember which page I was on when I left. If you posted anything for me in the last week, please repost it.

Even though there is a size difference when you have your arms raised, they look symmetrical when you have your arms down. My concern would be that if you had one made larger or the other made smaller, they wouldn't look symmetrical when you had your arms down.

See you later! I'm going on vacation for a week, starting tomorrow, so don't worry when you don't see me around for a while!

I really think that Lee's just worded some of his comments badly, and given people the wrong impression. Once they get that impression, they read it into every comment he makes, even when it's not deserved. I think that we forget, in many cases, that the written word isn't always the best means of communication. You can't see a person's body language, which really does give us clues to the true meaning of their comments. You can't hear inflections in their voice that could change their meaning. Sometimes, people just aren't great at communicating what they mean with the written word.

If it is true, then all I can say is "Ouch!"

BJean, while his comment about the 11-year old is ick-worthy if you don't take it in context with the entire post that he made, it really isn't that bad if it is taken in context. Here's the original post: Yep, feeling great! Except for a stitch in my side that I've had all day, anyway. I was actually one of the lucky few who never had gas pain.

But she was responding to the question of why so many white women are marrying black men. The stereotype of black men having larger "packages" is very well-known. It's not a far leap to think that she was referring to the stereotype with that comment.

Before I forget, here's this week's updated spreadsheet. I'm not going to have time to post tomorrow, and I'll be gone for the week, so I'll go ahead and say "bye" to everyone now. I really hope I remembered to add all the updates that were posted or sent to me. EDIT: Crud! I can't believe that I forgot to add the spreadsheet! I have been SO scatterbrained this week. I looked for the keys to my apartment for two days before I found them lying on the passenger seat of my car, where I THOUGHT I had already looked.

That sucks, Lynette. I agree with NewCC, you should tell them to let YOU decide if you can go to a party or eat something. I started crying tonight over the thing with my dad. He had to lecture me yet again when we were waiting for my mom to get out of Wal-Mart and then again when we were ordering dinner. Telling me that he didn't want to see this surgery go to waste, etc., etc., etc. And you know what he did at dinner? He ordered a great big hamburger and onion rings. AND he ate 4 slices of my mom's pizza. I managed to hold it in, but later started crying when I was talking about it with my mom. The hypocrisy is what really gets to me, because he manages to forget that while I went to the length of having surgery, he belongs to a gym and goes every night. So much for letting something go to waste, huh?

It's good to be back and see all the familiar folks! I've missed being on LBT!

So wait, I can't make a comment on any topic regarding children, just because I don't have any of my own? I think any person in the world has the right to add their two cents, simply because of the fact that for that person to exist, they were someone's child. I may not have had the experience of being someone's parent, but I have experienced being someone's child. Forgive me for thinking that people should place the well-being (mental and physical) and welfare of their future or existing children first, not their own selfish desires for a large family. I want ALL children to experience childhood, not what amounts to premature parenthood. And do you not think that people should only have children that they can care for? Or do you think that it is perfectly okay for people to have as many kids as they can, without thought for how they will be feeding them, clothing them, educating them? Is it alright for people to have children that they can't afford to feed, can't afford to buy even thrift-store clothing for, or can't afford to send to school?

I don't want to offend princess_n_thep, because I really don't think she meant her comment in a stereotypical way, but I do want to use her comment to make a point. Everyone is jumping on Lee because they think he made a racist comment, but no one has said anything about her statement, which furthers a racial stereotype.

I'll ditto Lynette about not crushing my pills. I take them either whole or split in two.

Pretty good. I drove back to Tennessee today. My air-conditioning in my apartment started working again, I think, but since I was going to be away for several more days, I just turned the whole thing off, just in case. I've had a stitch in my side, right around where my port incision is, off and on all day. I first noticed it when I woke up this morning. I think I just over-did it yesterday.

Hi, everyone! I've not been around much for the last few weeks, but I just wanted to say hi to everyone. Everything went fine with my surgery and all, and I've just been staying with my parents (damn dial-up!) since then, helping out at their business.

If anyone wants free samples of Matrix 5.0 or Nectar protein powders, all they have to do is contact Syntrax by phone or email, and they'll send them to you. They come in little 1/2 serving packets that you just mix with 1/2 cup of water. So far, I've tried the Matrix 5.0 Cookies and Cream, and it's pretty good. I've got the Apple Ecstacy, Strawberry Kiwi, and Roadside Lemonade flavors to try, also (I got my packets from another LBT member). Here's the Syntrax link (there should be contact info somewhere on it): SI03 INC.

Now, you all know that I am usually up for a good debate here in RnR, but I have to agree with BJean and Mark here. I admit that I haven't been here much for the last few weeks, but from what I know of Lee and from what I have read of his postings here in RnR, I think his posts have just been taken the wrong way. You guys know that I'm always willing to call a bigot a bigot, even to their faces, but I don't think that's the case here.

You know what's making this day absolutely perfect? When I got back up here to my apartment, I found out that my air conditioning is apparently on the fritz. The auto setting for the fan won't work. I can get it to come on initially when I turn the air on, but once it shuts itself off, it won't come back on. I had set the temperature at 78 when I left several weeks ago, but when I got back today, it was about 87 degrees in my apartment. I don't have time to have my landlord come look at it, so I am just going to have to leave the fan going full-time while I'm here and turn off the unit entirely while I'm gone.