I agree with your decision. First, you should be a hell yes for the right man. Second, you have two children that you want to have confidence in your partner to be invested in step parenting very healthfully. Third, you have every right to want something from the relationship you didn't have with your stxh - may he be covered in honey and encounter a fire ant hill (😁). Fourth, pregnancy, birth, and post partum will make a big hit to your financial plans and building a career. Someone can be a truly lovely person, and still not be compatible as a life partner. I am not a fan of stringing people along in the hopes they change their mind about a major issue like this.

This whole thing is just a steaming pile of poo from him, and it ended up with her dead. She probably felt like she would never be free of him because these kind of sickos never relent. My heart is heavy for her family.

I gotta say, ya'll are making me glad that our dd politely refused an invite to prom. From the expense to all of the administrative nonsense, I am thrilled we didn't go through that.

Most trails wind around and do not have markers every little bit because it is expensive, and disruptive to nature. DNR only do minimal maintenance to trails that are not ADA accessible. So in the spring the way can be obscured by mud, branches downed during the hard winter, new growth, etc. Also, a lot of hikers are not on mapped trails either. Depends on what level of hiking you are doing. If you hike through Porcupine Wilderness Stare Park which is huge and dense, and leave the ADA accessible walkways, you can get lost quickly if you don't have a good sense of direction. Ask me how I know! 😠😠😠 Stupid 16 year old brother to 12 year old me, "Let's take a hike. I know the way." Nope. 2 years in Boy Scouts did him NO good. 3 hours of turning circles later I was the one that said camp was on the northeast side of the lake, and I would be the one taking the lead. I looked at the sun, determined the direction we needed to go, and got us back to camp though his bruised little ego couldn't handle it so before we came in sight of our parents (just coming back from fishing), he had to run ahead of me so it looked like HE had been Mr. Responsible.

A church local to me has a public comment section for their live streaming, and then any comment they don't like is deleted pretty pronto by the senior and associate pastors which means they spend most of their Sunday afternoon and evenings monitoring the website because hikes, those guys say a lot of crazy stuff from the pulpit, and the locals do like to troll them.

I am not down with poking penguin with a stick. But it is pretty funny to think about how unscientific looking some scientific research really is.

Accurate!

This. It is crucial when you sail, when you kayak, when you get stuck on a dirt road and your gps/phone has no cell phone reception because if your head remembers that Google maps showed the last town was south of you, it is good to know which way to walk. I would imagine that for those who do not get much off the beaten path, sense of directionality isn't commonly used. For those of us down staters known to hike the wilds of the upper peninsula here with cell phone plans that have no reception up there, we follow trail maps, and have to keep our wits about us. When Mark and I are five miles from shore in the sailboat, we need to know what way we have to go to get back to shore, and there is ZERO cell phone reception on Lake Huron. We have a marine radio and fresh batts for it, but that is something we only want to use in emergencies and to get weather updates. If we were not good with charts, maps, and sense of direction, we would never get very far from shore.

Has anyone checked the credentials of the ME? I ask because I once watched a documentary about MEs. Everyone thinks due to crime shows that their county ME is a true forensic, investigative doctor. But in actuality, this type of highly trained coroner is few and far between. Most rural counties do not have that level of ME, and some literally have just a regular county emergency medical director who does the autopsies. Movies occasionally mirror real life, and in the Jesse Songs movies, the local pediatrician is the coroner/ME, and that is not the kind of thing that is unheard of unfortunately. In my county, the coroner is the county EMS director/doctor. If the police don't like his report, they can send it to the city ME, one county west, who is an actual Quincy/Ducky/Jimmy/Cam/Bones person. But our county has to pay for this service and it is HUGELY pricey since our taxes do not support their ME office. So it never happens. It would not be remotely shocking here for a murder to be inappropriately labeled a suicide or accidental death. Thankfully we tend to be the county where not much like this kind of case happens. Here is an article that might help elucidate why this ME findings might need to be questioned if his/her credentials are wanting. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/post-mortem/things-to-know/how-qualified-is-your-coroner.html

I believe that the grooming discussion is because she was 14 when she began attending church there and he was 28. He "befriended" her immediately according to family and friends, and by 23 she was married to him. Pastors who have ethics and respect are careful with how they interact with teens. If a 28 year old pastor had gotten chummy with my own 14 year old (or any 28 year old), he/she would have ended up on the wrong end of my husband and the church board. My aunt's church removed someone from a position of authority in the church when it turned out that he had bargained for his wife's "hand in marriage" when she was 15, and he was 30! They were from out of state so this was not something the church knew until after he was allowed to work in the youth group. It was reported by concerned parents that he seemed overly interested, overly affectionate, and overly enthused with the young teen girls in the church, and rhen later on it turns out that he tried to get one of those girls to sleep with him. Given what we know of predators, there were probably more than that propositioned by him, but the teens were scared to tell anyone. I think given the timeline of the relationship of JP and Mica, the fact that he was senior pastor and wielding a lot of spiritual authority because of that position, and she was such a young teen while he was almost 30, they end up having an affair when she was still so young, followed by what is now known of the state of their relationship ending with a dead woman, people are fairly confident that she was groomed by a predator. It fits rather classically into the circumstances accepted today as grooming. Obviously, law enforcement has not used those terms. At least, that is why I think the term is being used.

He didn't. Independent and Holiness Association Churches are not part of mainline denominations. They have no oversight and the church itself or rains the pastor or determines his/her fitness for duty. Really, any dingdong can start and pastor a church so long as it is independent denominationally or belongs to one of the tiny denominations that have no ordination requirements. Remember Joshua Harris who had zero training and was made senior pastor at something like the age of 23 with Sovereign Grace Ministries? Very very common in ultra conservative, non denominational churches.

Technically yes. But there is a very broad "religious exemption" which tons of parents claim even though their church leaders don't actively preach against vaccines. There is no burden of proof about one's faith. So a lot of kids are not vaccinated.

Agreed. I really think we need to be brutally honest and know what we face as much as we can IF it jumps. I also agree that IF we could vax farm workers, people who raise a backyard flock of chickens, it might make a big difference having that pool of folks to follow. That said, in my area, that community is absolutely not going to go for it. Corporate, factory farms might be able to force the issue. But family owned in this region tend to be very anti-vax about most anything except tetanus, and if exposed, rabies. It think for diphtheria, pertussis, mmr, HIB, etc. we are down to a 53% vax rate in this county and the two adjoining very agricultural counties.

Oh my word. I smell a really massive rat here!

Oh I know a LOT of people who won't get it. My brother, his dingbat "essential oils and Reiki cure everything" wife, their anti-vax youngest daughter, their "vitamin c cures all diseases except cancer and then all you have to do is starve yourself so the cancer dies" eldest daughter, the entire church they to to that was anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-anything, and the source of major outbreaks multiple times in that county, half the church two blocks from here, and well, my entire county only had a 58% covid vax rate. So there you go. Petri dish central. 😷😷😷

Brazil though he speak NOT the language! For sure.

Oh. That is different. Okay, then definitely look for something that can have easy upgrades to insulation, a lot of insulation, and you also want to consider ventilation and dehumidifier options because while Asheville is not humid like the coastal plain, it can still get rather sultry in the summer. You will want to check out options for where to dump tanks, and refill water, and what you will do for electric. It takes a special electric hook up if you are going to be parked at someone's home and using their house electrical system. Carefully consider the lay out. If you are alone, how much will you use fold up tables and such? Would you rather for go table and counter top space for storage? There are a lot of layout options. Also if staying alone, you might be ale to convert a bedroom area to a single bed instead of a queen and get more storage that way as well. Something else to consider might be building a set of stairs for the door instead of just the metal fold out ones that come with it, and those could also be part of a more permanent little porch/sitting area which would make being outdoors easy.

Also, you can boondock at National Forests in their designated drive up sites if you can fit your RV on the flattened, turn out provided. This is free, but you have to move on the 14th day. No amenities. Large RVs will not fit. Many national forests will have actual campgrounds, but more than half do not have showers, electric hook up, or flush toilets just potable water and vault toilets. The campgrounds run the range of $14 a night to $35 depending on the amenities provided. State parks for out of state residents are often higher than that, but also provide more amenities in exchange for the higher fee. Some distilleries and wineries allow boon docking in their parking lots so long as you agree to buy something in their gift shops, and do not use their bathrooms. Casinos can be very generous about free overnight parking in the hopes people will come inside and spend money. KOA, Jellystone, and other private campgrounds have been running in the $55-75 a night range. Several years ago when we still had our 3 boys at home, we had the opportunity to pick up an RV that was mechanically great but needed some remodeling/fixing for VERY low dollars. We thought about buying it since we were capable of doing all the work ourselves, and then towing our minivan for driving, and hitting the road for a couple months with the kids, and keeping it for future vacations. We added up the cost of the RV, the cost of supplies, the cost of campsites, fuel, and the total was so huge, we could take many, many road trips with just the mini vans, stay in hotels, and use our camp stove and supplies to cook at rest stops and city parks, then grab deli food for the hotels at night. We couldn't believe how much RV life costs! We did eventually convert the minivan for van camping. He and I do that regularly at the National Forest Campgrounds here in Michigan just to get away from it all, and that is great. The minivan gets 24 mpg which is a far cry better than rv or pick up truck pulling a trailer.

Will you pull a trailer, and then unhook your pick up to do all of your errands, drive a regular rv and pull a car for that purpose, or drive the rv everywhere? I ask because it makes a big difference. I have recently been to Asheville, and driven around the city twice in the past year, and can say that parking an RV in most places just isn't going to work. Wal-Mart in the burbs, fine. But most medical buildings and what not? Nope. You will need other transportation.

I am very worried about raw milk. It is being toted heavily here among certain very conservative groups as the "cure to what ails you". It is very tricky to sell raw milk in Michigan. It isn't legal to sell, but it is legal to own a cow and not pasteurize milk for personal consumption so there are cow share programs where folks go in on owning a cow " boarded" on a dairy farm which allows them to pick up x amount of raw milk from their cow each week. We also have hobby farmers who keep belted Galloway or other smaller milk cows and do not pasteurize the milk. I feel like this is how bird flu is going to jump hosts to humans, and the kill rate is going to be like Black Plague of history levels. Just put the raw milk down.

Oh good grief. Highly likely this pair was making a run for it.

"How do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food" and the other titles from that series have lovely artwork, funny little rhyming stories. My grandsons love them. Human parents with dinosaur children, and the thrust of the series is teaching manners and good character traits. The artwork is absolutely adorable. We enjoy reading them to our grands.

I think it is a bubble thing. They already function under certain false assumptions about the bible, and within a sphere that believes certain things about the USA and christianity. Their beliefs are not supported by trained theologians/scholars and most of the best seminaries are very cautious about who can enroll there. So untrained or "bible school" candidates make the best pastors in their minds because they are "uncorrupted" by theology, seminary, and scholarship. Like the church in Missouri several years ago that advertised to come to their church if you were tired of your pastor preaching about ancient languages and societies (I forget the exact wording, but this is the jist), and come to their church where the pastor preaches from the true Bible, the KJV.

He would be 68 when a child graduated from high school IF he had a child this year. This is not good. He will be potentially retired and on fixed income by then which is fine if he has amazing retirement savings, but otherwise not the best plan for sure unless he wants to work to 70 or 72. Gently, if he says he absolutely must have a baby, and you are not comfortable with that, I would recommend you put him the friend zone and be willing to do something fun once in a while as friends, but absolutely nix any possibility of romantic relationship. Financially, for you, it doesn't make sense. You are trying to get out of debt and build savings, and need to make up for lost time saving for retirement. Taking time off for gestation, birth, recovery, and then child rearing as it is quite likely a sick child will side line you not him, is going to really delay making financial strides forward.

They do not allow this. The only way we know what is going on with mother in law is she leaves lab test paperwork and results laying around so he sees it. They have to be driven to their medical appointments, but tell the staff that I have to remain in the car or the waiting room. It is their legal right, and in my state getting a POA or guardianship only happens with a dementia diagnosis or something like schizoephrenia, and often only when police get involved. Our neighbor just went through this. Her husband was never willing to give her POA, and he has Alzheimer's, wouldn't do it before he was diagnosed, wouldn't do it after, and doctors do not interfere here because it is so easy to get into legal trouble. Last week he ran away because he was mad at her for not taking him to church even though it was Tuesday and not Sunday. He ran into the woods, and she couldn't get him back, then he got lost. Police, sheriff, and EMS came with a tracking dog to find him. Only then, could a social worker get a judge to give her guardianship. He did not want to go to the hospital though he was injured and dehydrated, but the medics declared him "altered mental status" which was what the police needed to force him onto the stretcher and restrain him. Now he is in the dementia wing of our county medical home which is actually a very good place that does an excellent job. But it took this level of horror to get guardianship of him. We would never get it over either of our mothers in their current conditions.