Yea, it had to do with being an orgasm donor ... you know, like organ donor. Apparently this is how he serves his fellow man. Or woman. :glare:

One of our daughters asked me one day (after playing in the neighborhood), "Mom, what's an orgasm?" Ack! Ack! Ack! Lol. I had seen it myself before, but a neighbor in a somewhat obscure house has a bumper sticker on his truck that has this word on it. It never occurred to me that my daughter would see it and ask about it! I'll take virgin over orgasm any day, lol!

it said one book per household ... could that be why it's not crediting the second book? Just wondering if it's catching you on that technicality somehow. I ordered mine on Saturday. Can't wait to see it.

I did this very thing today ... soaked beans overnight and then low-simmered them on the stove top for about six hours. They were great!

I hate it when an internet company doesn't include tracking info. for their packages. That is all.

Here's where I'm at from reading this thread: Don't use a Rival. Maybe a Hamilton Beach or other brand. Euro-pro says they don't have lead in theirs. Consider using a s/s roaster instead of a crock pot.

There are reusable bags that stand upright on their own; they are shaped like an opened paper bag. I have a three of these. Trader Joe's sells them ($2.99?), and I got two of them free from the grocery store (expired promotion leftovers). Have you seen these anywhere?

Oh, I'm so, so sorry Doran. :grouphug:

I just pulled out the ballot and looked ... it does say to have it postmarked the day by the day of the election. This is probably true all over our state, so millions of ballots could come in after election day. As more and more locations go to all-mail balloting, it seems that eventually we may not know by the next morning who the winner is .... unless, like some have said, the deadline is having the ballot turned in the day of the election, not just postmarked.

I'm pretty sure ours have to be postmarked by the end of election day ... that's how I've always done it anyway, lol. But perhaps the rules changed when they went to all mail-in voting.

She didn't make a huge deal over a cookie. She asked her daughter before she went and sat down to just say "We don't celebrate halloween," the daughter did, and that was that. Nothing huge about it .... perhaps *I* mistakenly made a deal out of by asking for thoughts here. And waaay back in post, what? 4? I kind of said that -- I oughtn't judge this mother or family's actions since I have no idea what their story is.

What about the whole mail-in ballot thing? Won't that (eventually) start making it impossible to determine the popular vote winner the day after the official election day? In our state many of the counties are now all mail-in -- so those votes will continue to come in up to a week or so after the election. Hmmmm ....

Oh, hey, hi everyone! What's going on? I go to bed with less than 30 posts in the thread and come back to [*blink blink*] 100+ ... wowzers. Here's the deal, since I started it: We did know ahead of time that the kids could wear their costumes. I didn't take my son to the lesson right before yesterday's, my older son did, but I do now recall my younger son saying that day that they said it was going to be a party. SO it wasn't spur of the moment. I guess I assumed it would STILL include a lesson, with maybe an activity at the end or something. *Anyway* ... it wasn't emotional abuse at all, this mom's decision, just a sharing of their family standard and her helping her daughter in phrasing/telling the teacher that she wouldn't be taking part. I think at that point we still assumed that there would be a lesson eventually. But once we realized there wouldn't some of us started bowing out (self and at least two others included). To me emotional abuse is "You're a worthless fool, don't talk to me, your father can't stand you, I don't care if you do this or that make up your own mind, why would you wear that? do you think it looks good? Never mind I'll do it myself, shut up," never telling your kid you like them and love them, etc. Not "This is the way we do things as a family and here's help in how to handle this situation."

Yeah, that's one way to look at the day, lol! It's funny, the two gals leading today's class -- one of them was handing out cookies, then the frosting, then (of course) the sprinkles. The kids are totally engrossed in this and all the while the *other* one was at the board trying to get kids to name the notes she'd written on the board and the songs that she was playing (probably so she could say they DID actually get some music instruction today). I'm sitting in the back thinking, "Nice try, sistah -- work with kids much?" (They're former students themselves). Ah, well. It's really no big deal and next week we'll go back to plinking out Hot Cross Buns.

It's the fun, funky me I wanted to be about 10-15 years ago and am trying to become now, lol. They don't have a "laugh lines" option in avatar-making! :lol:

Yeah, I kinda commented on that in the follow up posts (see the convo with Jean in Newcastle). I do get that for the reasons described above. Now I'm starting to get more peeved about having paid for .... decorating cookies and Fantasia 2008, lol.

I'll check it out! BTW, the link needs to be "dot orged" .... you typed .org in the post but when you hyperlinked you put .com so it doesn't work.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's a Disney flick related to the original Fantasia (the teacher said it had "classical music" in it and I seem to recall that about the original). I actually think THIS is something I will be more likely to mention to the program organizers that I'd prefer not be happening without prior notification (and that I'd prefer, um, music LESSONS instead actually).

Our "special" thing was trick or treating, lol -- we'd never gone before and boy, howdy it was a lot of fun. Just a bunch of laughter and smiles, like I remember from when I was a kid. The kids worked hard on their costumes this afternoon and kept putting off and putting off getting dressed for bed. It's been a very fun day! Glad you had a good time, too.

Nope, not in this case. While I can see that that could happen, I saw the mom coaching the girl in the back when she realized what was going on, so when the girl sat down and the teacher offered the cookie the girl said "I don't celebrate Halloween." And it was just a round sugar cookie, and the frostings were vanilla and chocolate -- no real Halloween focused things at all. That's why I kind of didn't get it. But I understand sometimes making it easiest by just drawing a hard line and not crossing it. Now when the announced that 15 minutes into class they were all going to join with the other classes and watch Fantasia 2008 for the rest of the time, that's when I just kinda went "Hunh?" and *we* bowed out. I've got better things to do than to sit and watch a group video with a bunch of kids, lol.

Won't you be .... my neighbor? [*sung in my best Mr. Rogers voice*]

Yeah, I know. And I have to realize that we've been all over the spectrum in what we've done as a family, from the pretending we're not home thing to the Harvest Party at church thing to handing out treats but not trick-or-treating thing to -- this year! -- trick or treating for real, (but no scary costumes! lol). I guess my disappointment for the girl is actually judgment of the mom, so I best not go *there* eh?

So, we were just at our kids' group music lessons and the teachers basically canceled the lesson and handed out cookies to frost and decorate. Some of the kids were in costume. There was one girl in the group who wasn't allowed to decorate a cookie (by her mom) because they "don't celebrate halloween." I *do* get that some people choose not to participate in this holiday (believe me, I do -- we turned off the lights and closed the curtains for a few years there). But ... decorating a cookie? Why is that seen as "celebrating halloween?" Couldn't it have just been .... decorating a cookie?

At the beginning of the clip I thought Ellen was going to say things to embarrass the *clerk* -- it didn't occur to me until she had him say, "Dennis Quaid is here!" that she was going to embarrass *him* the whole time. Hilarious. Makes me want to search for more Ellen videos where she does things like this; she cracks me up.

Great thread! My list is very similar to yours, but on these two we do it a *little* differently .... I don't mind if our kids are going UP the slide if there's another slide available for others who want to go down. I guess it's the "unschooler" part of me, lol. The point of the thing is to play, and well, they're *playing* albeit in a different way. I don't tell them to stop if it's their turn and they want to go up. And the older the kids get, the more I don't mind them off in a different area; I do keep the younger one or two with me. Ugh! I'd never experienced this in a major way before but this summer we stopped on the way home from walking to the store. There's this BIG grassy ditch thing next to this one business (no water in the bottom) and the kids were having fun rolling down; it was hilarious to watch the toddler try it. I was on one side of the ditch with a parking lot on the other (the business was closed; no cars). Well, this big truck pulls up and this older lady gets out, pulls out her grandaughter and sheepishly her daughter (the child's mother) gets out. Grammy goes on and on about how Precious needs playmates and can she play with our children for a little bit? No problem. But then she proceeded to not let her g'daughter DO anything freely (without the "Be careful!" etc.). And yet here I was letting my toddler do all these things. At one point I caught myself saying "Careful, Dude" to my toddler, but then promptly realized (inside) WTH? and so stopped doing that. Grammy chit-chats this whole time and eventually my toddler makes it up to her side and is standing on the curb thingie, balancing, falling off sometimes. Grammy goes helicopternuts and starts saying "Careful! Careful!" to Dude. And I just laughed and said "He's fine!" She was just shocked at me. She didn't say anything, but I could tell she thought I was a bit woo-woo. Good grief. We were in an area where there were NO cars driving by, with grass all around, no water, etc. I still laugh inside when I think of it. But then I feel sad for that little girl, and the mom, too (I don't know the story but the Grammy was a bit overbearing and gossipy-judgmental too -- indicating to me that her daughter's a *cough* single mom *cough*). I hope the dd puts on her big girl panties soon and takes the parenting back. I've enjoyed reading these threads -- learning about this whole helicopter parenting thing has been so eye-opening!