We did most of our shopping early online from a variety of companies because we were worried about shipping and low stock issues. But I did need birthday presents for my mom and mom in law since I forgot to take care of that ahead of time. I was able to order them from Kohls on their pre-black Friday sale for curbside pick up at the one closest to me. Thankfully, I had gift bags in my closet. I was happy to not be near any shopping areas yesterday.

A man cold is a very, very dangerous virus because it can make the wife crazy 😂

I was also just thinking about the cabin fever bouts that settlers suffered when they went west and lived isolated. Super common. That would have been clinical depression from poor diet, isolation, lack of light, dire situations, and often loss of spouse/baby due to lack of assistance in childbirth. Not fun times!

And anemia was so common in "the good ole days". I have an issue with being unable to absorb iron and potassium well. It isn't fun, and during those times depression is a thing. I have to work so much harder to get rest while still exercising to help the depression and trying to get those levels up without a blood transfusion. It had always been with us. In my family lineage there were five suicides during a 30 year span 1890-1920, and a great grandmother with post partum depression so severe that she never recovered, and was unable to even take care of her own basic needs for the rest of her life. Women " never being right" after giving birth, PPD, was well noted even back to Ancient Greece and Egypt. All kinds of depression. But life was a matter of survival so people sucked it up, dug deep, and those who simply could not function were kept hidden as much as possible from society. It is not something new, nor at epic proportions compared to the days of old.

Rosie nailed it!

I am sorry. Yes, dinner for 18 is a big huge deal and a lot of work. You are not alone. I struggle with things like this. I am best off at the piano providing gorgeous banquet music than doing the meal thing! You don't always have to host. It is okay to take a year off and just be home with your owns immediate family.

Just seven. I did not host. M.i.l. did and wanted to do some of the cooking. So she did the turkey and stuffing with supervision. Mark's sister invited herself up, and I mean she was not invited, flew to Michigan, rented a car, and just showed up. So that was a thing. She is not a pleasant person, and then though 62 years old and by definition, an adult, had an epic tantrum toddler style. The tantrum was because she was insisting her mother go with her to Morocco and pay for the trip...you know, the 85 year old with P.A.D. that is rapidly getting worse, 65% hearing loss in one ear, 100% in the other uncontrolled high BP, bad kidneys, and early stage dementia! We put it to her in no uncertain terms that it wasn't happening and that she was not getting money out of her elderly mother. Mark and his brother are now co-captaining her financial ship because she is starting to fall for scams. She did agree to that. There was no coercion of any kind. When we narrowly saved her from an online scammer, she asked both of them to take over. It really scared her. And the diva had that epic melt down in front of my mother who is grieving the loss of her dear friend. Mom handled the drama well, but I felt terrible. I have been spending a lot of time with her, the reason I have not been around the forum lately, and tomorrow I am going to go help her decorate her house, and then do some online shopping for clothes. She has lost a lot of weight, and wasn't a big person to begin with, so her clothes are falling off hers and she keeps trying to alter them. She is an excellent seamstress, but Yikes, one can only take in a garment so much before it looks even more awful. She loves my potato soup, so I am going to make that for lunch. She is very much looking forward to clothes shopping but nervous about online. Though I am not a fan of amazon , returns are easy with them, and I think that this is the way to go for now. It isn't safe to take her into stores. Hospital overwhelm is so bad here that the national guard is coming to set up tent triage, and handle injuries/accidents. No in store shopping for us. It was not a fun Thanksgiving. We will have a nice ham meal on Dec. 4 which is m.i.l.'s birthday and try to make it up to her and mom.

She became septic, her white blood cell count dropped to nothing, and her organs are shutting down. She will not regain consciousness to say goodbye. One family member is at the hospital, and everyone else will have a zoom by tablet or notebook or something like that. Mom is not handling this well. I mean, I didn't expect her to either. However, her BP is through the roof, migraine, and shaking. My brother took her to the local hospital where they got it down right away and sent her home. It was surprisingly fast. But they don't treat covid patients, and normally are not busy. I have to pick up our youngest from college tomorrow, a 14 hr.round trip. I found another person from her church who is fully vaxed, covid cautious, recently boosted. She agreed to sit with mom tomorrow. Then I am going to stay with her through Thanksgiving, dh will come and go. So I will likely be offline for a few days. She has some craft things she would like to do, and though they aren't all that interesting to me, I think she needs me to do them with her. If I said that I am pandemic weary, I would be making the understatement of the century. Anyway, everyone here take care! Take care, take care, be safe, and hug your family. Regentrude, I hope you are okay. I am so sorry about your dad.

Good to know, Lanny!

I agree. I should have been more specific. Gun culture around minors. We have gone from school shootings not really being a regular thing, to an epidemic of them, from teens who respected firearms, hunted, and didn't think they should shoot up the school, to an incredible level of gun violence among teens, and specifically ones not in gangs. It has been a big change. Add in practical fetishism about guns, and it is mind boggling.

Yes, and Jbob has to be in hiding if they can't serve a subpoena to a guy running for public office with multiple businesses in town and a house everyone knows. I mean I suppose he could have coincidentally been out of town on business when they tried to track him down, but this is DugagrSmuggar who thinks he is above the law, so hiding out would be consistent with his personality.

Yes, I have questions. Jbob is supposed to be running for office. It should not be hard to serve him a subpoena unless he is deliberately hiding. The Holt thing has my brain in a quizzical state.

Already hate the Perp, and now hating his lawyers. I just watched the video of them going to and leaving the courthouse - pretrial hearing - and Anna is only 26 days post partum with child number 7. She walked like she was in pain. Scum bag had her by the hand walking has fast as he could just dragging her along. Lawyers were taking jolly green giant steps. Four men, and no one helped her up the steps. She tried steadying herself with an arm on Perp's back. He never slowed down, never helped her, and not one of those lawyers did either. It was practically a jog those guys did to get to the parking lot, and he was dragging her. It was obvious she was in severe pain, and began limping with a gait that was practically bow legged. Nope. Just drag the woman along. Perp let the door close in her face both times, no one opened the door for her at their vehicle. I guess he got himself some nice a$$hats for attorneys with the same scrappy idea towards women who have recently given birth that he does. 😠😠😠

Okay, that is better. Everything in our local media/tv news said that she gave him the gun AND drove him to Kenosha. So wow. They have it wrong in a very big way! I will edit my comments.

Gun culture has changed so much in this nation. I am against anything but good old fashioned hunting guns anymore. My dad grew up in a time when every boy brought their gear and rifles to school, left them in the backseat, changed as soon as the bell rang, went hunting, went home, and no one got shot, no one solved their grievances with guns (sometimes fists, but not weaponry), and their guns were never stolen. Look where we are now!

One play per year here unless it is an AP class that requires more. They do maybe one or two novels, and a few poems. The schools here do not challenge the students at all, and spend most of their time teaching whatever they think will make for a reasonable SAT score. The classes are kind of pathetic actually. My sophomore level English class back in the most snow time required the reading and discussion of Hamlet, Midsummer Night's Dream, and one of the kings but I can't remember exactly which one. We parsed the symbolism of a couple of sonnets. But we read Dante's Inferno, some excerpts of Canterbury Tales, a Jane Austen Novel but which one escaped me at the moment, Scarlet Letter, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and For Whole the Bell Tolls. I hate Hemingway! We did a bunch of essay writing and also wrote character sketches. We had a field trip to a local university to see their production of MacBeth, and watched a couple of movies based on novels. When I tell current students that we studied this much in tenth grade, they flip out. It served me well because I took DE English Lit the following and DE History of Western Civ among other things. That literature was helpful. My junior year was my senior year and was only a semester long because of all of my DE credits. I had started part time college at 14. I do think that learning to parse out Shakespearean language is good critical thinking skill training for the brain, and it does expand vocabulary in a way that modern and early modern literature doesn't. The difference in challenge from Shakespeare to Dickens is pretty big!

Thank you! My fur baby is 12.5, has a hard time keeping the hair on his haunches and sleeps a lot. Today he was just crazy clingy. I try to be patient because I want to keep him close and be tuned in so if he starts to suffer, I will know right away. But oy! I tripped over him twice, had him go between my legs and nearly knock me over, couldn't keep him off my lap when I was folding clothes on the bed, and he whined every time I used the bathroom unless I let him come in with me, and then he had to be plastered up close. It was a little too much dog love when I needed to be productive.

Well yes, the Kellers are another kettle of fish, and a lot of it rather stinky. They were pretty radical, and that whole "scheduling fifteen minutes thing" is hero worship of Susannah Wesley who birthed 18 kids two of whom are famous in Methodism, and this was her method of "parenting". Fifteen minutes and a LOT of beatings. Methodists don't really hold her up as much of a hero of the faith. It is not surprising that IBLP quiverfuls would just adore her! 😠 The problem with IBLP is that it requires the setting aside of free will so that once the parents convert to it, the kids upon adulthood still do not exercise will. But that doesn't seem to work. The Bradricks? Married Kelly to Doug Phillips favorite intern, four babies in four years, Kelly nearly hemorrhaged to death with the last one, they became disillusioned, moved, got divorced, and Braddock ran off and let the kids. She is in Washington State, and he is on the East Coast. Jeff Botkin? Two spinster daughters, and one of the boys utterly rejected the family, married a lovely woman who has an engineering degree, lives a fairly secular life. Voddie Baucham (sp?), his prize daughter, Jasmine, college degree, career, not quivering though she still has some very fundie beliefs. RC Sproul Jr? Adult kids abandoned him, trying to get custody of their minor aged sibling. Duggars? JBob's favorite Jill? Not quivering, admits to spacing their children and using BC, enjoys alcohol occasionally, estranged from family, wears jeans, colors hair, children in public school. Josh? Speaks for itself. Jana? Unmarried reaching spinster age. Jinger? Living it up in California, admits to spacing their children out, wrote a book about rejecting some of her parents' IBlP beliefs. Maxwells who were just as crazy off the deep as Duggars now have a daughter in college, the very thing they railed against like nutsy tantruming. Pearl's? Shoshonnah legally married the one that daddy Pearl bragged about not needing Tennessee to "bless" the marriage with a license just so she could legally file for divorce to get away from the guy. Ma and Pa not happy! Doug Phillips kids? Joshua married, one child, not quivering. Some of the girls have goner to college, worked as models, hold secular jobs to support their mother because he doesn't support the family anymore, and ran off to Europe to do Cinematography for a Burlesque group, and posts photos of him with all kinds of young women. Meanwhile, Beall lives in a hovel, cleans houses and sells plasma to try to make ends meet, and posts on Instagram all the time not divorced but no Doug in sight, kids doing their own thing. Bates's also have kids with issues. They miss the fundamental truth that religious belief is personal. You can try to oppress their personhoods, shelter them, beat it into them, manipulate them, gaslight them, a host of knocking the religion into them, but in the end, they choose. And for the ones that do not follow, all the parents have done is ruined their relationships with their kids, exacted horrific emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical abuse on their kids, and in the case of the Duggar girls sexual abuse as well. The system fails, miserably, on a fairly regular basis. It is why IBLP doesn't really grow. It keeps trying to replace those that flee with new converts.

The wedding was bumped up from Dec. 11, so I guess they wanted a chance to have wedding spotlight before the trial Agreed about Anna. My guess is that since Perp can't be around any children but his own, either it is the Rebers, Josh, Anna, and kids and no one else for TDay or Anna goes to JBob's for Tday, and Rebers are stuck with Josh alone. I am not sure what journalists are going to cover the trial. Cameras/filming are not allowed in this case. I would like to find updates from a reliable source with a deep legal background instead of all the sensationalist reports there will inevitably be. I am not sure how to find it. I would prefer written articles/synopsis over having to watch YouTube videos with ads and graphics.

My dog. He is being very clingy! He is old though so I am trying to be patient!

That seems sooooooo incriminating. I do feel like this motion hamstrings the prosecution so I hope they have a lot of other stuff to bring to the table. My guess is that the witness list is going to be really damaging to the defense.

There were some more government and defense motions that were ruled on today. If you want a chart, the Duggar subreddit forum has it. I couldn't get it to copy and paste here. The main takeaways were that the government can introduce into evidence that the computer was made in China. I thought this was odd. Practically everything electronic is made in China these days. So I was confused. I haven't seen Emily Baker's explanation on it, but a suggestion in the comments was that it may have to do with commerce law, international commerce and dealing in CSA materials. I would like to hear what that was about. The witnesses will be sequestered during the trial, and are not allowed to talk about their testimony. The defense wanted that, and though I want the slime to be tossed into a pit like Alcatraz, I can see it. Plus, I think it may lessen the chance of appeal because the defense also cannot claim that the witnesses tainted each other's testimony. Faulkner will not be allowed to say the video is the worst he has ever seen. Seems like he is an expert, and it shouldn't be considered prejudicial. On the other hand, I guess it is subjective because god help the children, there might be something even worse lurking on the dark web. I don't even want to entertain the thought, and I feel bad for everyone involved in that courtroom except the perp who has to contemplate that. The "talk" is that unfortunately for the jury, this will probably be replaced with even more graphic, written reports of the images in order to leave no stone unturned. I didn't see anything in jury sequestering, but maybe that was already agreed upon. Perp has invoked the 5th so I leave you to consider that. I don't think it is a good look for him, but I think with his arrogant attitude and the whole Duggar demeanor, he would be shredded on the stand. The DA cannot introduce statements referring to his admission of addiction to adult pornography because the prosecution cannot make a connection between that addiction and a straight line to CSA. However, it was worded in a way like the prosecution cannot introduce statements as evidence, but it didn't seem to say that a witness cannot say it. So I really do not know how that works. The defense is allowed to enter evidence of third party culpability. And that seems right. However, the evidence is that he installed the partition on the Linux server and they can prove that was him apparently. The passwords were his bank passwords. They can prove he was alone at the dealership when he downloaded the video. They have date stamp, time because this thing is tracked meticulously by the feds because it is so bad. And because the defense wants to claim "someone else did it", the prosecution can introduce testimony of some cellmate at the jail where Perp was held. If the defense claims he is too good a person to do this, then the government can bring up the Ashley Madison and confession to the molestations though he was never charged. So if the defense tries to play the character card, then that opens the door to otherwise inadmissible evidence. There are witnesses on the list for the government concerning the assaults. No names released which makes sense for sure because this whole thing has to be just beyond hideous for them! The deadline to beg the judge for a change of plea is Friday. He demoted his attorney to deputy counsel, and hired someone new. The judge allowed it. The report did not say if there are any remaining motions to be ruled upon. Don't play a lawyer on t.v. It in real life! Just relaying the recent developments. I have to wonder what Thanksgiving at the Rebers is going to be like!

😂😂😂😂😂 Truth!!!

The only anecdotal evidence I have is that my mom's friend who is dying of covid on a vent and will be taken off life support soon had it last November and was like a really bad case of flu, but did not get long covid nor need much support..her husband had it at the same time, and it was like a bad cold. Then they got it again last week. They were never vaccinated. She is dying, and he is going to have to go to rehab, and maybe if lucky assisted living afterward, but the docs and physical therapist say it is more likely he will go to a nursing home. These are the only people I have known that had it twice. I know someone who speculates that she had it in February 2020 when there wad no testing in our area, and it was a bit like bronchitis for her, and she had a positive test last April and needed oxygen and had to lay prone for a few days. But, since there was no confirmation of her theory from Feb. 2020, and she is really susceptible to bronchitis annually, it might very well have just been that. There wad a lot of nasty influenza going around and many folks were having a secondary round of bronchitis with it. When two nasty viruses go bonkers together and there isn't testing, there just isn't any way to know for sure.

It should also be noted that Mark and I are both side sleepers. That makes a big difference in what type of mattress works and what doesn't. So take that into consideration when you do research.