green

Omigawd, grrl! I am so pleased to hear from you. For sure that mind-body disconnect is proving to be a very big problem for me. I really have no idea where I am or who I am when it comes to my envelope.

Curling is not like hockey but people do like it. Hockey is a real cult up here. People not only love to watch it but many of them also play it. Lots of men play hockey with friends and work mates and of course Canadian kids play hockey. This involves a lot of time, money and commitment on the part of the whole family. There is the cost of the gear and the membership fees for the kids and then the time spent ferrying the kids to their practices and watching them play. This used to be something that came with having boys but now some girls get into hockey, too. The coaches are guys who volunteer their time; they are hockey nuts as well but this game is a passion for the people who care about it and things can get out of hand. Parents get into brawls while watching their kids play hockey. Occasionally these brawls end up in the courts. And sometimes the parents will even turn on the kids' coaches for enforcing rules which the parents don't agree with. There was a case recently up here of an upper middle class father who physically assaulted his son's coach because the coach wanted to bench the kid for missing a couple of practices. The local news will run stories on the worst cases of these dramas; the ones where hockey parents get down with each other and lose control. Of course the whole business is totally Jerry Springer or whatever but it is entirely unstaged. Because I am not a fan of hockey nor of any sport, I just don't get the passion or the sense of self-identification that would lead me into destructive behaviour. I don't understand the desire to strangle your son's hockey coach, nor the weird (psycho-sexual and very boring) affiliations conjured up between regular type women - that is to say, women like you or me - and a bunch of guys who drive cars around oval tracks. This being said, it is crucial that we folks who live on this continent recognise that the Brits and the Europeans are every bit obsessed and ill-behaved as we are: they behave badly when it comes to soccer. The game is different - the behaviour is the same. As for curling, this is, I believe, popular in small town Canada.

I find your post very interesting. Of course different cultures do have a different way of approaching death and it is great to learn something new about this. Thanks for posting this.

I guess it's like hockey up here in Canada. Thanks for helping me to understand.

Yeah, isn't that weird?!?! By the way, I've noticed from your ticker that you have lost a lot of weight. Congratulations:clap2: from Green. And, Mandi, before you know it you will be filled again.

I am from up north. What is NASCR?

I've never really had too much trouble with bread but I can run into trouble with chicken if I'm not careful. And sometimes I am not restricted and I figure I better get a fill and then I tighten right up. The band can be very weird....

Well, I am a Canuck and so I did feel free to laugh my face off - initially. Upon further reflection I decided that this video is very disturbing. Thanks for posting it.

I was amused when I read this because I have often thought that this might be the case with our family. I, and the rest of my family, except with the possible exception of my mother who wasn't exactly Christian but was a very spritual person, seem to be devoid of the ability to believe. Just as some people are colour blind and others are tone deaf, it would seem that some of us are unable to make sense of something which resonates powerfully for so many others. There has been a few times that I have regretted this inability to make this leap. My saddest experience came after I became friends with a Christian mystic. He was, of course, courting me for Christ and he wrote me the most extraordinarily beautiful and passionate letters concerning the Scriptures and faith. These documents were hand-printed on white, 14 inch long foolscap, they were usually many, many pages long - the longest one I received was 50 pages - and they were, well, extraordinary documents. I wasn't the only one in this fellow's class. Enclosed with my letters were photocopies of letters he had written to others. I wanted to believe. I really did but in the end I could not. None of it made sense to me. I, however, have saved this magnificent correspondence, how could I not?

My answers are interleaved inside the quote.

In the province where I live, teachers are unionized. They are well-paid and they have a terrific indexed pension plan. This means that there is competition to get into the education programmes at universities. The Bachelor of Education is a one year post-graduate programme up here. The people who are poorly paid are the ones who go into the pre-school end of things. This requires a two-year college diploma and these folks are not unionized. Pre-schools up here are all private, you see.

Bitter, I've been missing your posts lately. I'm glad you're back. s from Green, eh.

Come to lovely chilly Toronto, Canada. This is the land of the V-neck, eh. And our dollars are cheap!

My husband came with roses a few days before Valentine's Day. He said that he was afraid that he would forget. He is an absent-minded cat and I was amused. Now, he works second shift and by the time he comes home I am usually in bed reading a book and being kept company by a cat or two. When he arrived home on Valentine's Day he announced that he brought me more flowers, some chocolate, and that a friend of his, a guy to whom he often gives a ride home, had bought me a tub of my favourite icecream. All of this was awful nice and entirely unexpected as we had long ago decided not to make a fuss over birthdays, Christmas, and the like. We tend to indulge each other frequently, you see. smatyas: I am curious. How many bubbles did you pop? gadget: your business sounds fascinating and most fun. It must be a tremendous rush for you and your husband to experience couples experiencing their Valentine's Day. I've got a hunch that many of us would love to hear some of your stories. If you can post a few without breaking confidence, how about it? As for all the rest of us who posted on this thread, it seems like we got the right stuff: love, food and flowers.

Although I don't watch Dr. Phil I would suspect that these poor individuals are not simply victims of their own addictions. Marys' post about the failure of her lapband even though she had been carefully following her caloric intake indicates that this business of how much you eat and what you eat may tragically be only one part of a complex equation for some of us. I believe that the lapband works for most of us. It trims our appetite and if we are wise we also do our part by learning how to eat more intelligently. But we must acknowledge that this business of who gains weight and why is a deeply complex issue and has to do with so much more than simple gluttony although that does play a role, of course. While I do think that counselling will be of use for those two individuals showcased on Dr. Phil, I kinda think that metabolic specialists are much more useful at this point, metabolic specialists and gastric surgeons. Eventually these poor souls will need extensive counselling by psychologists and dieticians. A one shot TV session by Dr. Phil is not really going to help them.

I was gaining weight and this was an upward trend which I couldn't control. I was in a state where I loathed and feared my body and when I heard about the lapband I decided to go for it. I paid for it myself and I have been very, very happy that I have had the surgery.

I have only just seen this thread and so my comments are a little late. My mother died two years ago and this is when I became an orphan. It is a strange state to find oneself in and a painful one, too. My condolences to your friend and to you, Lisah.

One of my peeves is this: why does every sweater or T-shirt have to be a V-neck? I look best in a boat neck or a jewel neck (like Audrey Hepburn used to wear in her films). And I am 57 years old. Nobody in their right mind wants to see my cleavage! And I sure am tired of looking at other long past sale date cleavages. And lets bring back the 3/4 length sleeve while you are at it. This length looks really great with bracelets and yet hides the upper arm tragedies that many of us are afflicted with.

People up here in Canada don't usually put bumper stickers on their cars. I think that we are afraid that we will get rust build-up around them. I guess the only one I have seen is the breast cancer ribbon.

He's a strange cat. I've never met anyone quite like him in my real life. Have any of you?

No, I considered that the manner in which you answered ousooner, by putting apostrophes around the word Christian when you applied to the title to him, as being very disrespectful for this implies that you feel that his Christianity is in doubt. This was a low blow indeed! And certainly it is not up to you to judge the relationship that a fellow Christian has with his God. A more reasonable, less bullying fellow would have said that he couldn't agree on the point which was under discussion and then he would provide his reasons in a measured voice.

Well, it does sound from the above remarks that you would have a difficult time living in a pluralistic society, that a theocracy is really what you wish to see in place in your country, nicht war?

Cusano, you are behaving without any respect towards other people's beliefs. It is my way or the highway for you. You are, in fact, a one-man theocracy. You do not seem capable of seeing that while we are comfortable with your beliefs we do become stressed when you do not permit the rest of us, even your fellow Christians, the same respect. You are quite the bully, kiddo.

Well, that's okay. So now you are a cool kitty and that is a good thing.

Oh, duh, if we are talking opinion, well, here is mine...I really don't feel that anyone should rely on beige in their home decor. Beige is in the way of being a dirty non-colour. Better to rely on white rather than the colour of a smoker's teeth. Here is a simple test which anyone of you can do: take a colour, any colour, and hold it up against something white and then against something beige. Now, doesn't beige look pretty bluddy awful? Black, by the way, is also a fun colour to place other colours against. Another neat thing which you can do is to contrast colours which you like against each other. You will be surprised by the results.