Recipe: Go find a couple ten - fifteen years younger than you with no kids, a sense of adventure, and well matched to you and your dh's personalities. Make them your vacation buddies. My brother's oldest son is only 14 years younger than I. He grew up to be an awesome, amazing person, and married a wonderful woman who has just about all the same hobbies and interests that I do. He likes all the stuff Mark likes. They decided not to have children, and have careers with ample vacation time. So we started taking annual vacation together four years ago. One of the best decisions we have made!

Hugs! I hate the whole moving process.

Spot.On.

Wow! That is narcissitic at its finest with a dash of megalomania! Good grief. Thanks for posting. I really wasn't aware of the issues with him.

I might post from vacation, or I might not. Spruce Pine, NC. This is the good vacation. The not being a mom or Marmee vacation where there are four adults just going cheese and wine tasting, playing cards, seeing some beautiful scenery, a gentle kayak trip, some short hikes, sleeping in, and eating gourmet. I am sooooooo ready for this!

My grandson has some shelves in his rooms for the ones he wants to keep together. Then he has several tubs with lids that the Legos are sorted into for building, and those are in the closet.

Build them? Okay, so the adult males moved.out and took their prize Legos with them. But every once in a while I see new Lego kits that are so cool, like the Christmas Carol Dickens set or the flowers, or the James Bond car, and I say, "Aren't these cool?" which my adult children take to mean, "Mom would love to build these Legos". This resulted in me being gifted the Dickens, the flowere, and the car at Christmas. That was fine. I love that my kids put thought into these things, and along with the Legos I got new sewing snips, replacement gingher shears, etc. They are great kids! But, it has now morphed into something that has scared the tar out of me. They all went in on a Lego kit of one of my favorite Van Gogh paintings, StarryNight. This darn kit is something like 2000 pieces. It is still sitting on the shelf. None of the kids know I haven't built it yet, and Mark has been told to keep him mouth shut about it. Now I had a crisis. ALL of them will be home Aug. 5 and 6. With four of them, a daughter in law, and a son in law traipsing around here somebody is going to notice it isn't done even if I hide the box. " Mom? Where your Starry Night?" 😮 I leave for vacation at 3 pm today. We don't get back until July 23. I will have 13 days to get ready for company/grandsons AND build that darned monstrosity! 😱💀 Legos can kill. If you never hear from me again after July 23, you will know I expired in a pile of Legos.

If it stops raining, I will take a photo. I cleared out some of the lower branches that were dragging on the ground around the basil plants. There wasn't any fruit on those, and I felt like there needed to be some air flow and light in there. So it doesn't look as dense near the basil. I definitely want those tomatoes. But, I am also freezing quart size bags of basil leaves for my kids who like to cook with the stuff, and can't take time and energy to fuss with plants. I just found some of my old jelly jars, so I am going to transfer the basil leaves to those. I really hate using the plastic bags if another solution presents itself.

This is absolutely gorgeous!

These are awesome!

I should be expressing my deepest sympathy, but to be honest, I am up to my eyeballs in Tomato Forest, and am kind of glad for the company! 😂

I had to stare at it too! Gotta be honest, now I want to make this for Halloween. I wonder if I can still get watermelons in Northern Alabama that late in the season.

JB is just such an ego idiot. The amount of money and support the subreddit threw behind the female candidate was substantial. On top of that, this subreddit fundraised during Josh's trial for an organization that helps abused children. It was a serious chunk of money they raised for this organization. And they have done that again since then. So they spend a lot of time calling out the Duggars and IBLP, and when they snark, they can be brutal, yet on the other side of it, they put their action and money where their mouths are and try make it have meaning. But ya. Two grown men sharing bunkbeds. So eye roll worthy. And there is JB who can't put two and two together to get four. He expects the voters to have complete confidence in an uneducated ding dong, barely of age who requires 24/7 chaperoning with a father who is more concerned about "virginity" than anything else. This stuff is so bizarre that if it were not true, it would make a crazy, comedic novel. However it isn't funny when the idiocracy turns out to be reality!

The joke was that when Jed and Jeremiah moved out as adults, they moved in together and the home had two bedrooms, but they put bunkbeds in one room and continued to sleep in the same room. When it was shown on the show, it was kind of weird actually. So Jed got named bubbles Jed. Then The Sun, a ridiculously lazy excuse of a gossip rag, kept labeling Jeremiah as Jed over and over again so eventually Jeremiah got nicknamed Jed2, The Other Jed, etc. over on the reddit forum.

We have harvested our first green beans, first carrot, several more radishes, and first scallion. Cucumbers are trying to take over the world. I am afraid to leave on vacation tomorrow because I feel like I will the victim of a horror film on my return, and those things will have eaten the entire yard. Is it okay to prune them? I have pruned the tomatoes so they have some air flow, and because they cannibalized two basil plants, and one marigold. I wish they would stop worrying about growing and now actually make an effort to ripen some tomatoes! Still getting peas. Every time we think they are going to die back and stop blossoming, we get overnight coolness which seems to revive them.

Beautiful!

For sure.

Agreed. Also, the heavier the vehicle, the faster they burn through tires and brakes because of the mass, and longer, harder braking is required to come to a stop. Strict regulation of heavy vehicles could really reduce pollution. It won't help climate change at this tike, but we can and should improve air quality. Where I live 1/3 of the vehicles on the roads are heavy pick up trucks for pleasure use and commuting, not for businesses. I have no problem with my local farmer owning a truck and grabbing his feed and whatever with it. I have huge problems with all the people who give their teenagers a pick up truck for high school graduation. Not to mention the gas mileage is crap, and that is a huge problem.

I made barbecue sauce last night for our pork cutlets. I have one word. Secret ingredient is Very Old Barton Bourbon. The bourbon makes it. Well, and a bunch of other stuff, but definitely the bourbon is a must.

I haven't heard much about Brandon. I really think the top dog is probably going to shake out to be Waller. Picking the most skivvy person in the running would be totally on point for this organization. On top of which he is younger, AND he positioned himself well. His fil is Keller - another utterly depraved sicko - his sil is the long suffering Anna "at least I have a husband because god hates divorce stand by your man" Keller making him Duggar adjacent. His racist fil made some pro-slavery statements a couple weeks ago at Waller's church while the service was being live streamed. Waller is a known racist but went running immediately to social media to "apology non-apology, we don't believe that" c.y.a. However, he himself has those same effed up ideas from the wisdom booklets which his own kids are being "home educated" with so it was nothing more than show. Of course he has to c.y.a. Can't injure his chances. JB, always the infinite ego, hasn't stopped vying for position simply because he can't see the handwriting on the wall. He will keep it up to the bitter end. But it is always that way with people whose primary motivation is narcissitic power tripping. Just my opinion of course. Who actually knows? I certainly don't attend IBLP board meetings or anything. I still have some contacts on the inside, and they give me a hunch, though nothing concrete, that Waller, Bates, and Duggar are in the mix, and Waller because he was Gothard's preferred slime ball thus has more support.

Well, at this time, there seems to be a three way volley for leadership between Bates, Waller, and JimBob. $94 million is at stake in terms of who controls the assets of the organization. It also appears from Jedediah's travel vlogs, and other social media, that his father is plying him with a crap ton of money, trips, new r.v., you name it. Jed is the one that ran for representative and got round house kicked to the curb by a female. Clearly NOT a popular candidate. So I have a guess that Jed may be the new golden child. Joe and John David are involved in "Medicorp" which is a disaster charity that is nothing more than a grift. They show up after hurricanes, when out water bottles, street preach and hand out ChickTracts (just what people with demolished people need, not soft toilet paper) 😠, and plaster their web presence with pictures of the "team" eating tons of Chick-fil-A. They have actually been kicked out of disaster areas for getting in the way of real workers, and being a nuisance. So they live off all the fundie money donations. JD does the flying, and that doesn't exactly fill me with confidence because he crashed the plane with his wife and kid in it. The reason for the crash? He had known for months that the fuel tank gauge wasn't working - admitted that - and took off without bothering to fill the tank. It went empty soon after take off and he had to dead stick in. They walked away from it! He is so damn lucky! At any rate, I think the LLC is very likely set up for Jed or one of the boys to take over, and since all the adults who live off the JB wagon train have to sign contracts beholden to him and the LLC, Mr.Narcissist, in the now long and much earned absence of the paedophile former golden child, has someone groomed to take his place. IBLP is also very strict about women not having money of their own, not having bank accounts of their own, not being in charge. If any Duggar is angling for control in IBLP, they will toe that line even if they are not being strict bout other things. Ego and greed plus being used to controlling their women will continue to be the norm. JB wasn't popular. But he was the poster child, honeycomb of IBLP because once they were on t.v. it made major, positive press for that religion. "Look at the Shiny Happy People." He may not have been liked, however, he was very well tolerated because of the agenda being pushed. Make the cult seem like a donut with sprinkles. Bates had a show too, just not as well publicized as Duggar, and on a different, less popular network. Waller was Bill Gothard's right and predatory jerk who wad even named in the lawsuit for having witnessed multiple acts of B.G's harassment and sexual aggression, and not doing a darn thing about it, and telling the women to just suck it up. A trio of slime all jostling for the money.

Well yes. He has had it out for his father in law for a while. But, them not getting into it too deeply on the docuseries make sense. They filmed her for about eight hours and then cut that down to the small bits they aired. I can totally understand it. They needed to know something of her experiences with the teachings and how that affected her, but they weren't going after JimBob. On the reddit board, one of the producers did an AMA. It was very enlightening about the process of how they went about pulling the dock series together. The one thing to remember is to not be too disappointed if she doesn't throw her parents under the bus hard in the book. She was the second sistermom, and has a bevy of children from JoyAnna on down whom she is not very likely to be allowed contact with, if Jim bob dictates. It isn't just the minors still at home. At 18, all of the adults have to sign a contract with JB to continue to be a part of the LLC and that contract requires them to submit to his authority and decisions in order to keep financially benefiting from his "ministries" and businesses. Since these kids have nothing but a wisdom booklet education, and no formal training, they are for the most part beholden to JB for jobs. Austin is the one that does not work for daddykins, but he came into the marriage working for his own dad. All JB has to say is, "No one can talk to Jill or they will be in violation of your contract", and that is that unless they are willing to break with their dad. Jill raised a bunch of them. Is she willing to go after her dad even harder than the docuseries? Maybe. But I am not holding my breath. I sistermommied my baby sis, and I have to tell you, it would be an utter gut punch to be cut off from her. That would be like my own daughter cutting me out.

I feel so bad for her! I think many OB's can be involved in pro choice. But that doesn't negate the years of paternalistic medicine they learned in school. I feel like a ton of them need to take a step back and evaluate themselves. Even the NP, a female, at my husband's doc's office, is an absolute misogynistic twit. She is literally Dr. Jeckyl with the men, and Mr..Hyde with women. To the point that people in the community have complained to the doctor and to the hospital, lots and lots of complaints. She won't change, nor will she be fired because of a lack of practitioners out here in the sticks. The misogynistic attitude absolutely permeates medical school. I think you are right that he is not doing them correctly. Something is off with it. His failure rate seems to high, and your friend is in a horrible position. 10 kids on a combined $44 an hour is NOT good! My heart weeps for her.

It was smaller because it wasn't a Duggar documentary. It was an IBLP expose' so the Duggar issue was only a little part of it. They were really going after the organization, and as bad her treatment was in an IBLP family, there were many thousands who have suffered a whole lot worse, sorry to say. Her part in it was exactly what I expected since when it was advertised, it was not as a take down of Jim bob Duggar but of Bill Gothard and company.

I understand that. But if the father of that lost child walked in the day after and said, "Give me a vasectomy", there would be no question. This isn't about a doctor being concerned she might change her mind. So what. It is her mind and her body. She has a right to make the decision, and a right to regret it later. This is misogyny plain and simple. Women can't have total control of their bodies until all the men with opinions have been jacka$$es about it. BTDT with the very 1st OB I had. Will not tolerate it again. It is not the doctor's business if I do not want to have more children. He just thinks it is because "guy". And unfortunately, far too many female practitioners have picked up on this attitude and talk down to women because that is the medical school culture. I get what your saying, but the motivation of the medical industry on this is not about the best interests of the patient but paternal/patriarchial attitudes.