Our black lab was Buddy L. Johnson. Not sure where the Johnson came from, my oldest son named him that. I added the L just for fun. Our current dog is a pug/Jack Russel named Tobias McKeon Pugglesby, aka Toby. We also had a Chihuahua named Skippy, a Chow, Husky, Retriever named Lexi, and a Chow/? named Missy.

Well as the OSF theater is practically in my backyard, we go a lot. This year we have seen: The Imaginary Invalid Animal Crackers The Whitesnake and just yesterday we saw Romeo and Juliet. Last year we saw: Pride and Prejudice Imaginary Invalid (loved it) Measure for Measure 12th Night

I voted peanut butter and banana. That's been one of my faves since I was little. One of my earliest memories is being in a restaurant in Sacramento, Tiki something or other. There was no peanut butter and banana sandwich menu like my mom and the other adults in my house told me there would be. I started to cry. The waitress asked what was wrong and someone told her. The chef made me a peanut butter and banana sandwich. My all time fave though is sprouts, cream cheese, and avacado. Yummy!

The last time we went to a Compassionate Friends meeting a woman had her little dog with her. The meeting was at a hospital even. In the cancer wing! :confused: She kept apologizing for bring dogface with her, but then added, "It's her birthday so I couldn't just leave her at home!" :glare: I so badly wanted to tell her to take dogface home but as I'm not the one running the meetings didn't feel right.

Not ok. Totally ick. When Andrew was four we were renting a house that didn't allow indoor pets. My brother's girlfriend's grandparents came to see my brother, girlfriend, and their new baby at the house. They brought the dog child with them into the house. At first they were holding it but then put it down and let it run around. It went into the living room. I told them to get it out and they said, "Oh we don't mind if it messes in here!" Um, no, but I mind. Whe the great-grandma started to spit her chew into the baby's bottle I gagged and left the room. They were not allowed back after that.

Kept him busy. He was in Scouts, Tae Kwon Do, soccer, youth group, school (homeschooled but it was still keeping him busy) and he had lots of chores. He did cop a "stinkatude" as we called it but most of the time he was too tired to do much. I also spent a lot of time doing what he was interested in. For us that meant learning to play his Star Wars Lego video game. For the most part he had outgrown it by the time he was 18. He still had a bit of the stinkatude but it wasn't as bad as when he was 11-13ish.

I stopped loaning things to people after one person told me that when she borrows things from people she considers that they gave it to her and doesn't feel like she has to give it back. When I heard that she had a book and a cookbook of mine. The next time I was at her house I went in when she was busy, found my books, and took them back. Her bff was there and said, "I don't know if she's done with that or not!" I smiled, said she was, and put them in my van. Someone did lend us a couple of Abeka books when we started homeschooling. I used them for a couple of weeks, tried to give them back but she said to hold on to them until the end of the year. By then we knew we were moving out of town so I gave them right back.

Haven't read all the replies, but we are currently being accused of being the freezer. Maybe we are, but in our defense we have tried to explain to the one feeling frozen why we don't want the relationship to stay the same. It seems like we have the choice to either agree with her and her actions or in her mind we are being "curt". In another instance there is a person who has time and time again shown that she cannot be trusted. She won't leave us alone so it looks like we are freezing her when we are really just trying to protect ourselves from her craziness.

Anyone remember the Sunshine family dolls?

:grouphug: That's me too. My son who was an Eagle Scout wanted to get a tatoo of a three headed eagle on his shoulder blade. In our troop all the boys who reach Eagle get a tatoo of an eagle somewhere on their body. It started when the former Scout Master retired from Scout Mastering. He surprised the boys with a tatoo of the Fleur de Lies on his shoulder. My son died before he could get his eagle tatoo so now my mom and I want to get it for him. I do have two ear piercings and am seriously thinking of getting a third and one nose pierce. I am not an any way trashy or low class. I only know of one person who has judged me to the point of never speaking to me again and thinks I'm going to h*ll just based on my piercings alone. In the last month I not only got a job offer for the summer (that I accepted) but the same people are requesting me to come and sub for their teacher's aids next school year. One of my son's friends has lost a lot of friends in the last few years. She has designed a tatoo that has special meaning for her. It's a series of footprints around her ankle with "It was then that I carried you" written above the footprints. Since I'm a needle chicken I'm probably just going to have a tatoo type artist draw and color the three headed eagle and then frame it and display it with our eagle/remembering Andrew collection. ETA: To answer the original question: No idea why the negativity about tatoos. Several of our close friends have them and we (dh and I) could care less. My brother has a few on his back and arms and regrets it. He said Andrew (my son) could not get one at all.

We have a window right by our front door. If someone comes to the door I will check to see who it is (sometimes) and if I don't know them will just shut the curtain and walk away. Crazy bathchair woman has taken to coming by without asking first so now I usually don't even check, I just ignore if I'm not expecting anyone.

Two weeks ago someone in my Bible study yelled at me for sharing that the way we have decided to handle Mothers/Fathers day in the future is to not go to church IF it's what the person who's "day" it is wants to stay home. She said I was giving the enemy a foothold into our lives by staying home 1-2 days out of the year. The highschool's Thespian banquet is this weekend so I will probably have something new after that. Oh..I do have something but I didn't see it. My husband (ps teacher) and the theater kids told me about it. Last week the high school had a poetry slam. One of the theater girls wrote a poem about how much she loves theater and drama. Her mom is a total germaphobe and imo goes way overboard. Anyway, when the girl was done with her poem she got on the floor and licked the stage. The post about the car being broken into reminded me of something. Last fall my husband gave me a kiss goodbye and went out to drive to work. He came back in a few seconds later and asked, "Didn't we drive home last night?" I remembered coming home with him and getting out of the van so I said yes. He said the van was gone. I looked outside to make sure that the van was indeed gone and it was. He started walking to work and turned back to say, "Call the cops and the insurance today!" Duh. Anyway, I went inside and decided to have a shower and a cup of tea before making phone calls. A few minutes after I got out of the shower my husband called, "Um, I think I know what happened." He had brought me home in the van the day before because I had been working at the school all day. Then he drove back to the school to get his stuff together and come home for dinner. He forgot he had the van because on normal days he would walk to and from work. So he walked home. The van had stayed in the parking lot all night.

BTDT and glad I'm out. :) What finally made the person using us stop is I gave her a card with the name and phone numbers of every agency/program that could help her out. I realized she wasn't interested in seeking help for herself when I gave her the card. I told her I had something for her and started to pull the card out of my purse. She exclaimed, "A car! You got me a car and it's in your bag!" and then was irritated when it was an index card that had all the information she needed to get herself on her feet. A couple weeks later I asked her how it was going and if she called any of the numbers. She complained that yes, she called the Job Council but all they offered her was training and a bus pass! :confused:

I probably would have done the same thing. Sorry that happened to you. :grouphug:

One of my faves.

I'm at the point in my life (homeschooled 12 years, raised one child to age 18 only to lose him in a car crash last year) that when a conversation goes that way I stop and say that my decision isn't open to discussion. I have been told that before. My fave was, "How will the other kids get a chance to pick on him if he's homeschooled?"

That probably would have made it all make sense. I went into it thinking it was going to be a lot different.

I tried to help my neighbors by putting their vans in my garage sale to sell them and did they appreciate all my hard work? No. They screamed at me that they wanted to KEEP their OWN vans and to mind my own business! Then they had the nerve to get upset when I tried to make their front yard look nice. All I did was pull up the newly planted and just growing grass! My whole block is nothing but trouble!

We have food and water stored. My son was an Eagle Scout (Be Prepared) and took emergency prep. very seriously. One of the funniest things we found after he died was canned food stuffed in the chair and loveseat. He had a notebook under the chair cushion that listed what was in each one and the expiration date. In the garage we found several jugs and soda bottles of water, all with a date on them of when he filled them.

If she decides to have the baby and wants to adopt him/her out we'll take him/her. Not joking.

I like! A couple weeks ago we were talking about something during the study. I mentioned that if abortion had been legal in 1968/1969 that my husband and I wouldn't be here. She blurted out an obnoxious question. I told her I wasn't going to answer her because I wasn't done with my point. After I finished she blurted it out again, "Married woman get abortions? I thought only loose, neer-do-wells did that!" and someone corrected her. I do feel bad for her because I'm sure no one likes her. But at the same time she puts it on herself. She needs prayer. More than I can give her I think.

I'm trying to see the humor in her because she is so outrageous it's funny. But in reality, the other day I was ready to just go off on her. During the study she was quoting scripture every chance she got and said, "I have a spiritual gift!" over and over until someone finally asked her what she meant. "The Holy Spirit gives me scriptures for every situation." The leader asked her what the reference was and she said, "He doesn't give me the references, just the scriptures!"

So she goes to the Bible study that I go to once a week. She seems to think that because our names are similar and we both lost our sons, that we have sooooo much in common. She's loud, brash, and obnoxious and always has to make sure everyone knows her opinions on everything. Her son died 30 years ago and was 4. Mine died a year ago and was 18. She's, by her own words, over it. Me, no. Not over it, not sure I ever will be. Anyhoo, the other day we were at the study and the leader asked how Mother's Day went for me. I was honest and told the group that it went fine because my husband and I made the decision to cancel the day. We slept in, made a nice breakfast, and then watched Back to the Future videos the rest of the morning. In the afternoon we did a little shopping and then roasted hot dogs and marshmallows in our backyard fire pit. We decided that the parent who's "day" it is gets to decide if we go to church or not from now on and that for now anyway, I have no intention of going to church on Mother's Day. I had a bad experience at church last year which was less than two months after our son died. Wacky flipped out. "You aren't going to church on those days! Ever? Isn't that giving the enemy a foothold in your life!" I was calm on the outside. On the inside I wanted to pinch her head off. I told her that it wasn't her decision to make, that we did what was best for us, that I don't appreciate being judged about it, and that it was not open for discussion. My friend tried to tell her about the experience we had last year but Wacky would not listen. She flipped out again. The leader tried to calm her down and she kept going on and on about "faithful are the wounds of a friend" and how right she was to bully me into going to church every Sunday and not give the enemy a foothold in my life! The leader finally convinced her that it wasn't her place to correct me on this and she calmed down. She said she was sorry I felt judged by her. I said ok. The leader told her that it is fine to say sorry but if she really meant it she'd put feet on it. I got an email yesterday from the leader saying how sorry she was to have started something and that she has been trying to make Wacky see how she comes across but that Wacky just won't listen and thinks it's her job to let everyone know how they don't measure up to her expectations. Thankfully there are only two weeks left. I told the leader I may not be back next fall if she is there because it's not a safe place for me. The leader said that she may not be back but if she is maybe we'll do two groups. I don't know how the others in the group feel about her but I wonder if they have picked up on her loud brashness too.

I like Lydia and Julia the best. I'd name my next one Julia if it wasn't for our last name.

No. I didn't like it before Andrew died and I sure don't like it now.