You need advice on the laws of your state so I have no words of wisdom to give except this: he is being an absolute ass now, and has been a total ass your whole marriage, so expect that despite thinking he has reached his full potential as an ass, he has not yet achieved his full ass abilities. Steel yourself for his behavior to amp up even worse. I am so very sorry you have to go through this. Hugs

Yes. Everyone hears "trafficking" and assume some sort of mafia, sex ring. But the reality is that a huge amount of trafficking is child labor in sweatshops night shifts at meat packing plants, etc. The public needs to be better educated on this. The lifting of child labor protections like in Arkansas where employers do not have to prove the age of their minors nor show parental consent for them to work. This makes it so much easier to enslave children.

His wife really should cut and run. One of these days he is going to end up in jail for fraud, and if she isn't divorced from him with her finances disentangle from his, she may end up in the slammer too. It is nuts for her to stay with someone like that.

Terabith, I have issues with broccoli. My mother always cooked it to a grey mush pulp, and in college it was never served cooked, only just fresh on the salad bar. My in laws didn't cook nor my dh so I didn't have much of a background to figure out if there is a way that I would like it. I found a way. I cut most of the woody stems off, toss all the crowns with olive oil, garlic and a little salt (not a lot of salt, just for the flavor), and roast in the oven under the broiler on low until it catches color and is tender but still bright green. I have no idea if that will work for you, but I thought I would toss that out. Polenta, cooked cornmeal mush, is high in B6 and folate as well as a source of protein. I cook it with savory herbs like basil, thyme, and garlic, and then top it with a variety of roasted vegetables. You can make it with almond milk instead of cow milk. You can also put honey and cinnamon in it instead of savory herbs and serve it as dessert with a little coconut milk on it.

Aptly put! Saraha, here is my take for what it is worth. Whether deliberately or through ignorance, your inlaws are committing abuse and neglect, of your mil. And it is legal. Sigh. They are also intent on roping you and your dh into it. You can't make them do the right thing for her, and you can't change her situation. So my recommendation is that your dh tells them he is out. Done. Stop engaging, stop participating. You can't fix it, and your dh is going through so much right now that it is very important that you disengage from the train wreck, release it to the universe, and take care of each other and your children. The others are going to do what they want regardless. At least you can hold your head high knowing you upheld a moral line in the sand. It may feel like you are obligated morally to continue, however, you are not. Let it go. Ignore the texts. Do not respond to requests for help. And that stupid HHA is not going to listen to you, so if they insist on keeping her, your hands are tied. Walk away.

So what you are telling me is that I could replace my coffee with ice cream! Message received. 😁

Why.am.I.not.surprised.

Awwwwwww! So adorable! 😍

I don't like to do it. I have had to talk myself into it. I had misgivings about pulling the cucumber plants, but they were spent and for the best to not have them hanging on and pulling nutrients from the soil. I just keep reminding myself that when I pulp the plants, I then have the opportunity to weed well - despite being raised beds, the birds keep dropping seeds from unwanted things into the beds so there are weeds, just not as many and easier to get out since I don't have to be on my hands and knees to do it - compost and fertilize, allow the soil to rest and rebuild in the hopes of good crops the next season. But man, I do not like doing it! Anyone wanting landscaping fabric for little projects or to line planter boxes like crates and you don't care about it being the uber high quality 10 year stuff, Dollar General here in the north USA is having 50% off the lawn and garden so a 45ft roll is $3.50. I picked up two. I have two large places that I am going to till with my mini tiller, lay the fabric, and pipe rocks and logs on top to kill the grass roots. Next year I will take the fabric up and seed some cone flower and zinnias in those areas, and hope they pop up. They are annoying spots to mow/edge, and I hate grass anyway so less to deal with makes me happy. I don't need any kind of super sturdy agricultural fabric for this job.

That looks great! I am getting prepared for apple butter making this weekend as well as dehydrating apple rings. I did get 5.5 more quarts off the tomatoes. It is cool, had been for a few days, but we get a warm up tomorrow and some sun for 3 days. I think I will have 5 more lbs of tomatoes, but the rest probably done ripen because we have another cool down coming. I will probably pull the plants Sunday unless the weather forecast for next week improves. I pulled a jalapeno plant today. It was hard to make myself do it. They have been so prolific. I need to pulled the rest as well as the red chilies. Those red chili plants are my favorite thing and they are still blooming! But I am just not in need of more and there is no way Michigan is going to have enough heat left in the season to ripen the babies. The last Saturday of September, the poor things ALL must be pulled so I can winterize the garden. I am adding compost, fertilizer, and radish seeds, and letting the radishes sprout, and then die from frost, and then turn under as a kind of cover crop. Their roots are supposed to help crumble and aerate the soil which I desperately need.

Dawn, can you also sue all these idiots for your attorney costs, plus interest while the money was tied up since it was a fraud, plus damages? Make this a $40,000 lawsuit or something? If you could, an attorney might take it without retainer in exchange for 30% but then even after that is deducted from $40,000, your take would be $28,000. This seems VERY reasonable to me given the level of fraud from the owners and their agent plus the incompetence of your agent.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight! Moo, Baa, La La La

Oh my freaking gosh!

That dress is awesome! Now I want one. 😂

I don't really know how Jill will process her mother's contribution to their abuse going forward. I know for me, I eventually had to acknowledge that while my mother was a victim of my father's misogyny and obsession with my brother, and then the cult of IBLP, getting out of it, and then his eventual pull back into some religious fundamentalism and ill treatment of my sister and I yet again, she also had choices she could have made. She really did. My mother was very capable of drawing lines in the sand, of taking care of herself - the local hospital wanted her in their billing and accounting department and she could have left him and had a job with good pay and full benefits - and standing up for us, she wasn't willing to do it. She preferred to maintain the status quo even when we were being so badly hurt by it. She waited until my sister was 13 years old before she gave him an ultimatum on the physical and emotional abuse of sis, and the emotional abuse of herself. And he backed down and kept to himself because he did not want to be divorced. So there is a point at which the victim is an accessory than the abuse or converts to being an abuser. Right at that line is where for me, I eventually realized that I had to process this, and as a result, my relationship with my mother forever changed. Once I crossed that Rubicon, there was no going back. She is a woman I view now with something akin to tolerance and a feeling of obligation to assist in her old age - dad is gone so that aspect of the whole thing no longer complicates matters - but not really with love. I don't love her. I am kind to her. I am probably kind more from the standpoint of filling my own emotional need to role model things for my kids, and to also not muddy the waters for them because they view her as a very loving grandma whom they are quite attached to, and I am not looking to cause them pain. I can honestly say though, I won't feel anything when she dies. I was relieved and happy when my dad passed sad to say. For her, I won't be happy she died, I simply won't have much of an emotion at all unless some sense of relief. I could see Jill eventually processing her mother's "accessory to the crime" actions, and eventually landing in a similar place. She will have the added bonus that as the outcast kid of a huge family, she will not have any responsibility for them in old age, neither will Jinger. That is actually a really good thing for them. It is super hard to be one of three, and the other two put everything on you so you are expected to be your abuser's keeper.

Wow! Note to self, do not buy property in NC. Here, that would not fly. Earnest money is low, and the offer is always contingent on whatever the buyer and seller agree to, usually inspections, and the earnest money refunded if any significant defect if found that was not disclosed by the seller. I think the last time we purchased here in Michigan we put down $1500 earnest, and then waited on inspections. One place turned out to have massive problems that the seller did not disclose so we just pulled the offer and got our money back.

I love it! That is so cute!

I am so glad you are closer to home, and receiving help. Rehab and PT are grueling. But I am holding out a lot of hope that you come around very well.

Thank you! I am tired. I have had three weddings this summer after a dry spell of a few years of none. It is what happens when your kids all get into that mid-twenty-mid-thirty marrying age or all of their friends get married. I am ready to just putter around my raised beds, get them ready for winter, make a Halloween quilt, and slow down for a little bit.

I will be doing some quilting this coming week, but what I have been working on all the way through the summer was on event planning and decorating for another wedding, a young woman, former rocket set on our rocket team who is LGBTQ and has been abandoned by her own parents due to religious differences. She is very precious to us, a wonderful human being whom we love very much, so when she asked us to step into that parent role, we accepted. It was a great honor, and I am so glad that everything turned out well. Lots of work. It was mostly live flowers transported in 5 gallon buckets, but also silks for the arbor because I didn't have the ability to do that out of live flowers the day before due to lack of refrigeration for something that size along with everything else. I didn't have room to do the bridal bouquets, so I asked a local florist that I know well if I could purchase all of the flowers through her, and then work with her to design and assemble the bouquets, but leave them In her refrigerator until time to transport. She was happy to do that for me. So here are a few photos. They are not good ones. Mark has WAY better ones. But, they all had the happy couple or their bridal party in the background and also with some close up. I don't have permission to post those so you have to live with my on the run, crappy, not great cell phone pics.

Same. My dad's "talk" with my 13 year old brother was , "Do you know why we are taking the boy dog to visit the girl dog?" Brother: "Geez, dad of course!" "In Dad: " Okay then". That was that. Nothing else. I got even LESS from my mother. I had to go to my grandmother when I got my period because I had no idea what to do, and my mother made it very clear she could not handle any discussion of anything related to the reproductive system and sexuality. Once my father got involved with IBLP, it got even worse, and NOTHING of any kind was discussed, just always "No. no. No. This family does not do x, y, z and you will be severely punished if you do any of the things on the no list." And for four straight years, the NO list got laid longer and longer. I left home at 16 to attend college with my cousin, living with my dear aunt and uncle, lovely people. That was when was given the information I needed to function as an adult. There is "protecting from harm" and that is one thing. But the "sheltering to keep you ignorant because we live in fear and think controlling your every thought, emotion, and choice is the way to go" leads to a hell of a lot of depression and young adults who profoundly unprepared for life.

We are getting hit with it. Northern Alabama, 1250 ft elevation, no flood zone, and thought the valley get tornados, but not really much up on the mountain. When we applied for our current insurance, they told us the house was super low risk so the premium was very reasonable. Now that insurance company is pulling out of the whole state because of the the gulf coast. I am very scared of what our premium will be, and even more scared that more insurers will pull out of the state, and we won't be able to get insurance. I am very concerned.

Not in all states. Neither insurance company is willing to do anything without the police report since there is no emergency repair required.

Our honorary daughter had emergency surgery for her gall bladder. Same day as she was admitted seen at the ER. I just went back and looked at the Cleveland Clinic diet that she followed and no legumes was recommended for a while, then add back slowly. So no peas in that meal I suggested above. Green beans or carrots would be a better choice. Also no nuts for a spell. I remember my hdd referring to her meals as, "Sadness on a plate". It also said no chicken or turkey skin, so that is another food prep issue. I think canned chicken, and then something like meals made with canned salmon or tuna would be for the best if the aide is not going to be reliable for food prep and cooking technique.

I have that same problem. They seem to be coming so fast, that I can't keep track.