I rarely wear makeup, and I've always been that way. I don't even wear makeup to work. No one comments on it. My husband likes me better without it, and it feels odd having stuff on my face and lips.

Most likely, but it depends on what it is. If it was a family issue, I would expect it to be shared. If I was talking with another married lady about TeA or a womanly issue, I would not expect that would be shared - or that little detail would be included.

I'm from this younger generation...which probably explains why I see no problem with this attitude. As long as I'm working hard at work, I should be okay. Why would I need to be married to my work? Especially if I'm working a part-time (or "part-time") position as a waiter or grocery store clerk? Why should they have the final say over my life, instead of me? (Think employers who refuse to give time off when it's requested within a reasonable time, even though they have the employees to make do.) I know there are some jobs which require odd hours and long hours - jobs having to do with building and maintaining houses etc. come to mind, along with doctors, police officers, and firemen. Other jobs, like teaching, require work outside of work by their very nature. That makes sense to me, and if I had a job like that I'd be happy to do it. I know what I'd be signing up for and I'd think it was worth it. But the employers who ask/force the employees to work long hours with no break many days in a row so that they won't have to hire more people (especially bad if the employees are technically part-time), the employers who refuse to give employees enough hours to live off of because they don't want to pay benefits, the employers who ignore the very dangerous conditions instead of fixing them, the employers that ask/force employees to work off the clock once they hit 39 hours...I find all of these actions reprehensible.

:grouphug: We live in a right to work state as well, but I've never had a relative work in a factory. Treatment like that is inhumane and should be illegal. Actually, it probably is, but no one's doing anything about it. I'm glad your husband was able to find another job.

It is employers like these which give people reason to think that some employers are basically abusive. I can't think of a single good reason to force your employees to work every single day. Unless the employee is volunteering because they really need the money and the employer is okay with paying the overtime - in which case, it's not forcing. All the other reasons I can think of involve the employer being a jerk to their employees so that they can make more money.

:grouphug: Was A involved in the situation with J? Unless you want to keep up with A's life/family, I would delete her. If it comes up later, you can say that you restrict your Facebook to close friends and family. No reason to let A see any of your personal stuff, either.

What a difficult situation to be in. If I was her, I would be terrified and not know what to do. I think she needs to talk to her husband. She needs his support, he needs to be informed, and they need to make whatever decision they make *together*. It would be a VERY bad idea, IMHO, to have an abortion without telling him. Also, I noted that he wasn't accepted to graduate school...meaning that, while he wants this, his chances may or may not be that great. It may be a mistake to put that possible future ahead of the more concrete one facing them. (FTR, I'm pro-life. I think I'd be saying the same thing if I was pro-choice.)

My grandmother passed away not too long ago. Two of my sisters were out of town, and had commitments which meant they would not be able to come back any earlier than later that day, as they had planned. My mother decided there was no point in telling them until after that commitment had finished - so she told the rest of us and said we could not put it on Facebook yet. I was the one who told my sisters once they were done. After that, all the close relatives had been informed and we were free to make it public knowledge via Facebook. My guess would be that OP's mother assumed everyone had been told and wasn't thinking about people possibly finding out via Facebook. I can see that, and I can understand not being happy about the fact that it was posted on Facebook so soon and you may not get to your kids before Facebook does. :grouphug: So sorry for your loss.

I went to a college which requires *ALL* of its undergraduates to take 2 years of core classes - including theology, history, philosophy, English (2 years of reading classics and writing about them - remedial classes were on top of this if they were needed), math, science, politics, economics, a foreign language, a "fine arts" type class, and I feel like I may be forgetting something. This core curriculum taught me how to think, and I got so much out of it - even the philosophy classes! So, I think general education requirements can be a very good thing if done right. I do think that PE and computer classes tend to be useless. I don't know if there is a tool to estimate future monthly loan payments. I never heard of one when I was in college - I found out what my loan payments would be sometime around graduation. I'm on the standard schedule - I could apply for other loan payment methods, like the one which caps your payments at a certain percent of your income. I'm not sure how they figure out how much I should pay per month, actually.

I'm sorry your DD had a bad experience. :grouphug: I agree with pps that it sounds like this is a store-specific issue involving people doing things they shouldn't, not a company-wide issue.

My bachelorette party was the night before my wedding and was attended by close friends. We played a couple of funny games, I had some sort of sash, and they bought me lingerie and I opened it. I was 20 at the time and there was only one married lady at the party! (..I think we had alcohol as well, but not very much and drunk in moderation.) I like the lingerie idea...is there a way that you could help them with shopping for that, or otherwise explain that it's perfectly okay in that context - in fact, it's a good thing? :) Or you could shop for pretty pajamas that are attractive while not being lingerie. Those might get more use! I love what AndyJoy described - pizza, fun things like a carousel, and then shopping for lingerie. Hehehehe. Going to a park might be fun too - that was one of our favorite things to do at that age.

:iagree: If an employer cannot understand that current and future employees have other life situations and commitments besides just their job, then that employer has issues. When looking for a job you never know when you will get hired - but you have to keep planning your life as usual. I would hope that an employer would be happy to give the new employee time to honor prior commitments, as it would have been impossible for he or she to request off any earlier! My husband recently got a new job - he started after working for one more week at his old job. He had to ask off a Saturday that had been committed to a side job for months. They scheduled him to work that Saturday anyway, but other employees worked that instead - and if no one had wanted to work it, he would have gone to the side job anyway. He'd told the managers multiple times that he needed that day off due to a prior commitment and *could not* come into work. It would be different, perhaps, if his commitment to his variable-schedule job had existed first. I too had a job in high school, and they were wonderful about working with people's schedules. There were a couple of times when I was unable to come in because of commitments that I had told them about and requested off for, but they had scheduled me to work at that time anyway. I didn't get fired - far from it! I worked there until I went off to college. I would send a reminder email to the lady, explaining that "since we agreed I will be starting on the 26th and I have a prior commitment for the 19th, I will not be able to attend/only be able to attend x amount of the training."

My electric bill can be as low as $40...in a 4 bedroom house with 3 adults and 1 baby, when we aren't running the AC (heater is gas). I wonder what causes the big discrepancy between bills? :confused: I should do a no spend challenge...especially this month!

I don't have adult children, but I am an adult child. ;) Why don't you ask her what she would like for her birthday? Or you could get her a gift card to a store which you know she likes. I am bad at presents and I get people gift cards somewhat frequently.

I think scanning the materials, or otherwise transcribing them in full, and then publishing them online, would violate copyright. I do not think that discussing what you are doing this week would violate copyright, unless perhaps you're including page numbers, exact instructions, etc. What most parents do on homeschool blogs ("Today we read this book, did this cool science experiment which involved this general concept and actions, and wrote an essay about this") would not violate copyright, in my humble, non-lawyer opinion.

:grouphug: I thought pre-existing conditions only disqualified you from insurance if you were *uninsured* for a certain period of time? I thought that was the whole point of COBRA - to keep insurance gaps from happening/provide proof of previous insurance, so that when you get new insurance they can't exclude you for preexisting conditions? DH and I are both on our parents' plans, and our parents/parents' employers are shouldering the premiums. So we pay $0, and save $141/mo for my husband's health (his parents' condition for keeping him on the insurance and paying for his portion). I think the actual plans are $1000+/mo for a couple and dependents (mine) and $500-something/mo for couple and dependents (his).

Sometimes blowing your nose just doesn't help. Or, you have two alternatives while in a public, quiet place: 1) Blow your nose multiple times, using several Kleenex and making rather disgusting noises. 2) Sniffle occasionally and dab at your nose with Kleenex. I tend to pick the latter... I still appreciate the comments from those who find sniffling annoying though. :D Reminds me to be very careful about it and try to stop it if at all possible.

:grouphug::grouphug::grouphug: If I had your current housing situation, and *any* relative wanted to come visit with her boyfriend and twin kids, I would say "We would love to see you, but it is simply impossible for you to stay with us at this time. Here are some nearby hotels." They could still visit during the day, of course. I would not offer to help pay for the hotel. I hope it all works out.

I've thought about doing this - wear my wedding dress in some place where it will get irreparably dirty... I've seen some *beautiful* photos of trash the dress sessions - standing knee-deep in water, for example. :) I honestly don't think anyone else will want to wear my dress, and I don't really feel like it's worth storing just for someone to pull it out and look at it for five minutes every 20 or 40 years...It's really just taking up space...

I voted yes - public school, and yes - other. The public school incident I know of involved two male students on a school trip. The assaults which occurred at my college involved drinking. It's awful how poorly some schools deal with s*xual assault cases - if they are even reported. My heart aches for all those who have experienced anything of this sort. :(

I'm the wife of a waiter. In a messed up way, we do benefit from the tipping culture. I say "messed up" because with tips, my dh may earn *up to* $100/shift, which allows him to make enough money that we can live off what he makes. If waiters were paid a flat wage, I don't think there is ANY way they would be paid that much by the restaurant. Never. Ever. Not in TX, anyway. My husband's restaurant had an automatic gratuity policy on the menu, but it was never used. My husband preferred it that way - he thought he made more out of taking his chances than he would have from an automatic gratuity policy. He's just switched jobs, however, so we'll see what happens at the new one.

I think there's a lot of info we aren't getting. With the info we have, this situation could go either way. It could be that the service was despicable, the waiter didn't deserve the automatic gratuity, and the restaurant has issues. In that case, the family was in the right and should not have had to pay the gratuity. It could be that the party was overly demanding and expected to be treated as if they were the only people in the restaurant, while the waiter had several tables and was doing the best he or she could under the circumstances. In that case, the automatic gratuity was serving its purpose - protecting the waiter. Regardless, an automatic gratuity is considered *part of the bill* and as such, refusal to pay it is considered theft AFAIK. So the restaurant was within their rights to call the police. I don't know about locking the doors. Automatic gratuities exist to protect waiters from large parties who don't tip. Another poster mentioned the Sunday morning crowd - that's a great example. Another example would be the party of 20 college students which comes in half an hour before closing and stays for an hour or two after closing. I've been a part of that group, and we've had a gratuity added - and a good thing, too, because college students aren't always the best tippers. Any (decent) waiter who has to deal with that party and stay late because of them deserves that 17% and more. I don't know how much control the waiter has over the automatic gratuity - my guess would be not that much. If you regularly tip more than the automatic gratuity, and you received good service, I'd suggest not penalizing the waiter for something the manager or the computer probably did - just like you wouldn't tip poorly if your steak was burned, as the waiter has no control over it.

Clearly their payment calculations are off - your worth as a stay at home mom has got to be at least as much as the cost of daycare! I wonder if you could successfully argue that? Probably not.

:grouphug: Someone mentioned Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus. Misquoting Truth, by Timothy Paul Jones, argues against Ehrman's view. I found it very helpful in defending more traditional views of the origins of the Gospels. Both books are interesting reading.