Didn't eat breakfast. We have farm chores this afternoon and throughout the weekend, plus school work, plus working in father figure's old business to get it ready for auction..which we have been working on since August...he left us with a real disaster there. Ideally the stupid lawn needs to be mowed, but so does MIL and mom's too. I don't see how we are going to fit in three lawn mowings on top of all the other work. I will be glad when that auction is done, and the doors are permanently locked, keys handed over to the bank or the new owner. Just ready to be done.

We did something similar, except that two of my bridesmaids were expert seamstresses as well as my mom and my grandmother so we didn't have to hire it out. The final cost of fabric, patterns, and notions was about $50.00. They could wear whatever white shoes they wanted that weren't flip flops, and I didn't care if they wore necklaces or not. Some did. Some didn't. I don't think anyone bought a necklace just for the wedding. It was whatever they already owned. I said "no gifts", and their flowers were provided so they just had to drive here, dress up, stand there, smile for photos, eat, and enjoy the day then go home. Two of them stayed in my room the night before the wedding because they lived too far to commute between rehearsal and the ceremony. I really don't get it. If you are rich, and want a Princess Kate wedding, then for goodness sake pay for it all! Otherwise, stop being a jerk. That's my philosophy. I would not mourn the loss of this woman. Whatever she may have been before marrying into money, she has allowed class superiority to dwarf her character.

Wow! So freaking stupid and narcissistic and ...... Just no.

OP, I think the aunt needs to get the pole out of her keister. I feel bad for your sons, but maybe it will turn out to be for the best because that kind of drama can run in families. It is kind of laughable that she is trying to control each near eighteen year old to such a degree. The girl can talk to them if she wants here very soon.

I think I want to go to Quill's party! 😀

What happens here is that mamma does indeed move in or a child moves in with the elder essentially abandoning his or her own family regardless of previous plans. It is not good because the elder that had insisted on being independent is not happy about the intrusion and loss of privacy. The family resents grandma because they have essentially lost a much needed parent because they cannot afford a respite care person so mom or dad can be with the family. I have many friends facing this. We face it next year. Dh's job needs him to work in Southern Michigan, way too far to commute daily. We are dependent on his income and health benefits. My mom and his mom cannot afford to move, and even if we bought or rented a place with enough bedrooms for the boys and for them, refuse to move. MIL is almost deaf and has serious kidney problems. My mom has health issues and doctors now in Royal Oak. She can't do the city driving. It causes too much anxiety so I have to do it or hire a driver. Since it is eighty five miles away, it is expensive to hire a driver. And I have to go back to work somehow. So I will live here and apparently work some sort of Harry Potter magic that looks after three homes and yards, and manages the elders needs, and my job, and ...My fear is that my grandson is going to grow up never knowing me. Dh will be renting a room from a colleague and when he doesn't have weekend software releases, come home Friday night leaving again Sunday night. People make a lot of claims of this or that is not going to happen. Then x,y, z intrudes - often called reality - and bad things occur. I am not the only person I know who will live separate of their spouse and kids in order to manage elder care. I know some moms doing it now. Some were homeschooling, but they placed their kids in PS and dad single parents. Older teens try to make up the slack where they can. My mom, for the record, is not a bad person. She is unfortunately from a generation that seems to believe they are entitled to age in place. I see this all the time. They just do not seem to comprehend that their own kids cannot quit their jobs, send the kids to boarding school, uproot, etc. I don't know why this doesn't sink it, but it doesn't.

Ouch! I am sorry that happened. For what it is worth, I really think your instincts about the situation are correct.

Okay then. Amusing at least!

Gas station tv is the worst. Installing it should be a crime with stiff penalties attached. So yes, this should be banned. Dog fleas. We should ban dog fleas. Says the woman whose dog needs another dose of Frontline and none of the local places have any.

This is what my doctor says, as well as our friend with Doctors without Borders. The health concerns the DOB doc deals with often revolve around lack of adequate sanitation, clean water, enough decent food so nutritional issues, and injuries lots and lots of injuries. Life spans are shorter in his country, barely topping sixty. They see very little cancer. I suspect a combo of not living into the age span when cancer becomes so prevalent, and also possibly genetics ie not of European Descent. The six highest rates of cancer are in the US, Australia, and European nations with the exception of North Korea. The lowest rates, by a startling margin are in Africa, the Middle East, and Nepal.

True. Our mutt that was part border terrier and part who knows what else was the best and sturdiest dog we ever had. Lewis is pretty good because he wasn't a puppy mill dog. Just a product of an accidental meet up of two neighborhood sport spaniels that were also unrelated. Our basset hound was without a doubt the absolute worst. Really. I think he was nothing but a genetic disaster!

Yes. And to be honest, I am not seeing anyone locally dying in their old age of diabetes or the complications of that. Really. Everyone is getting cancer. Everyone. Lung cancer in non smokers, liver cancer, pancreatic cancer, brain cancer, prostate cancer that metasticizes to the bone, bladder cancer, kidney cancer, it is astounding to me. It seems that when life spans get past sixty, cancer just starts ravaging the populace. Cancer centers, oncologists, radiology, hematology, these are the specialties growing here. And then the Alzheimers. I know no one struggling with an elder because they didn't eat enough salads and walk enough miles. They are all struggling to take care of either parents with cancer, or parents with dementia. There is the occasional stroke victim, but in the tri county area there is exactly one dialysis center and it is only open part time which makes me think that pretty much most of the people with diabetes are keeping it well under control. But at the oncology offices, the waiting rooms are packed, and new oncologists are moving in every year. Maybe my area is a superfund area, and it's being covered up by the government or something. Wouldn't surprise me! We are only 70 minutes from Flint and the lead crisis for goodness sake!

My mother in law's King Charles Spaniel is a healthcare nightmare. She is a beautiful dog, and very loving. A great companion. But YIKES the vet bills, and she would not be capable of long walks. My niece has three King Charles - all from different litters, different breeders - same thing. She's rich so she doesn't mind the vet bills, but honestly, when this one passes a way and MIL wants another dog for companionship, we will not be looking at that breed for certain. Our sport cocker spaniel has been a lot healthier and sturdier. Now he is a bit of a barker, but we never had him neutered. My own spaniel growing up got very overweight after being neutered and his energy levels waned, so we chose not to. Lewis has a LOT of energy for walking and hiking because of this. I suspect though he barks MORE because of not being fixed. Does anyone know about springer spaniels? They are still not a particularly large breed, and being another hunting dog, I would think pretty sturdy for walking and hiking as well as for Scottish weather conditions.

Dd is 26 with a husband and child and lives in New York State. She does day care for a medically fragile child so that she can be home with her own son, so she is a pretty busy beaver. We talk on the phone, and we try to see each other twice a year. The distance is simply something we have to accept and deal with. 2nd eldest is commuting this semester while he gets more PT for his leg. He has a very serious girlfriend, so as you can imagine between school, homework, campus job tutoring, TA work, and the girl, mom and dad don't get a lot out of him, LOL. 3rd son is away at college, in the dorms, 17 credit hours, in the rock climbing club, etc. He's a busy guy too, and loving his life. We text a couple of times per week, and talk once in a while. I am okay with that. I went to college at sixteen - as in lived in dorms in another state - got married three weeks after college graduation, moved out of state with DH and that was before texting, skype, email, facebook, and cheap phone plans so I only talked to my parents once per month for five minutes to keep our phone bill within budget, and saw them once per year either the alternating Christmas or Easter between my in laws and my parents. Then we lived on the west coast for a while and couldn't afford to come home even once per year, and they couldn't afford to travel to us. So that five minute phone call once a month was it. I college, I talked to my parents once per month because no cell phones and the one and only phone on the dorm floor would let you call out, as in off campus, but you had to call collect which was expensive. I didn't go home at midterms or Thanksgiving because neither break was long enough to be worth the very long drive, and so they saw me at Christmas and Spring Break. I worked the summers in the music department so usually they didn't see me then either. I think these experiences helped me adjust to the change in relationship with my own kids. While I would love to have those super close, spend time with each other relationships with the kids, the reality is that life takes over, and they are adults and need to get on with their own lives. We do keep very private facebook pages - as in the only friends we have are each other, sibs, and their cousins - with settings private, so we do share photos and thoughts once in a while, especially photos of DD's little boy because my grandson is the sweetest, best ever grandbaby! LOL, until another one comes along and then there will be an obvious, unbreakable tie. That said, I do think it is important to their personal growth that I give them space, and not pressure them for frequent conversations and such.

No. The front of the house is the main entrance to the church building that we renovated. But, we ran out of money before we got the front entry done. It had had a roof leak and though the roof is done, we have yet to tackle replacing the buckled wallboard with drywall, redo the floors, and replace the ceiling. With two in college and a third entering next year, it isn't likely to get done because I will be going back to work so won't have time to tackle that - something I thought I would do once youngest graduated homeschooling - and will work until dh retires. The house also isn't really worth anything anymore because the market tanked here and never recovered. So investing heavily isn't going to do any good. It is possible we'll never use the front door.

I would let it go this time. But, it is okay to talk with dh about never again because for you guys $1000 is a lot of money, and this is essentially family money that you need. There can be no habit of your husband working for friend in friend's for-profit business and not get paid. We do not do "business" with friends. We were burnt in the early years of our marriage.

Well, I have some conflicting feelings, but one thing does come back to me. This is a serious act of public service, and it involves intensive training. Maybe this will mean that they can join fire and rescue or first responder groups when they leave prison. I don't want to see any of them hurt. I don't want to see ANY firefighter hurt. But if they know the risks, volunteer for the training, and do an honorable job, then I think what should happen is their slate is wiped clean, and they get a second chance. So often prison is about punishment and not rehabilitation, nor does it help people who already feel no place and connection in the community find that connection. Serving so honorably may be one way to help them feel included and valuable to the community, to settle in to a mindset of positive living. I think that done properly, it could be a good program.

This is very true. What most people experience is not "grandpa went for a walk, had a heart attack, and it was all over." Mostly it is something a LOT worse than that. Additionally, science shows that while healthy lifestyle is a factor, it is a small factor. Everyone wants to believe so strongly that they can avoid stroke, heart disease, diabetes, renal failure, cancer, autoimmune, whatever if you just eat right and exercise. Well, that isn't the case. It is all about genetics. Most of us have nothing more than an uphill battle against our genes, like a salmon trying to swim up Niagara Falls. We hedge our bets here. We hope that maybe, just maybe our genes aren't too bad so we exercise, keep our minds active, try to follow the latest nutritional advice which is a lot like chasing dandelion weed blowing in the wind because it changes so often and there is so much conflicting information, we take high quality multi vitamins with minerals, try to eliminate pollutants from the house, don't smoke, rarely drink.... And most likely we will fall victim to our genetic heritage, plain and simple. Sigh.... To listen to a local pathologist talk, most of us are pretty damaged from environmental pollutants that prevent our internal organs from remaining healthy. So you try. You do your best. But in the end, it is a crap shoot!

My sister in law has two. They bark incessantly and nothing ever worked training wise to decrease that. They have serious back problems, and dig in her garden which necessitated them putting in a dog run, and sinking it down quite a ways in the soil so they can't dig out of it when no one is looking. They also can no longer go camping. None of the local kennels take Dachsunds because of the incessant barking combined with the bad backs which make them nervous about walking these dogs. They can't take them along because well, barking and digging. A half mile walk is about they can do with them, and the one is getting worse so pretty soon I think "around the block" will be it for him.

We ran out of coffee grounds, and were so busy yesterday that this fact was overlooked by the three adults living in this house. College boy adult is now sick. So I have a caffeine headache, he is sick, and there is a full day of work and scholarship applications to be done today with the senior. You can imagine the general MOOD of the house, can't ya!

Especially the ones that have side effects that take thirty seconds to read of at the speed of light to get them all in...paaaaalease...I will just keep the disease! Do not interrupt Madam Secretary with these things.

Yes this. Wrong. They are just wrong. Douche commercials. Wrong. Banned. The end.

I just googled those mums. My eyes hurt a little now.

I have a new one. I want to ban my dog from barking every time he hears the word "come" in a sentence. Lewis, you dumb dog. That word gets used when people AREN'T at the door. Not everything is "Come in". Cute keeps this canine alive, I tell ya!

In my area it does not make things better, it results in a fender bender which ties up traffic forever!! This because Michiganders have no patience for people who zip up to the end and then attempt to ram your car to get in. The rage takes over, the car with the right of way does not move, and zippity do dah car does not react and swerve back, he nails the other driver and gets a ticket. So no. It does not help. It makes everything worse.