None of the above. It's from a computer game called Portal 2. It's a turret. My dd is going to be so proud I knew that on sight.

Assigning general foodstuff is really the only way you can get a variety of foods when you have a large gathering. Back in the 80s I was a member of a church that would have a quarterly potluck for the whole church. We had three Sunday services that we full to the brim. The potlucks easily had over 500 attendees. Everyone was assigned what to bring via the alphabet assignments i.e. A-G brought appetizers, H-M brought main dishes, so on and so forth. The church provided the meat, normally a ham or roast type deal. It sounds like it's lazy but it's really hard work to make sure that the letters are a good selection of the population of the church. The church I went to had a huge Irish populations so the letters M and O could not be in the same food category or else easily half the church brought the same dish. I used this system at the church I currently attend when I was activities director. There was a lot of complaining until the day of the potluck. Some women went out of their way to bring one small thing of what they were assigned and several HUGE servings of what they wanted to bring. On the day of the potluck they all saw their favorite foods, in plentiful amounts, and a wide varsity of foods to eat. The huge servings that weren't assigned went to waste because there were already servings of that food (Jello based dishes. Really, who makes jello in a large fridge drawer?). Everyone was very happy with the spread and amazed that they were happy. A few people said it was the best potluck they had ever been to, which is saying something for LDS folks!

While it isn't typical of most kids I don't see it as being bad. Some of us deal better with "gross" things than others. For example, I am the resident bat catcher. My dd dives under the covers and screams, my mom puts a hat on and runs. Just call me "Catch and Release".

This sounds like an un-winnable situation. I agree, arrange a time to see the cousins sans the in-laws. Have a great Christmas with your own family. If it really gets to you, fantasize about giving your MIL one of these gifts - http://jezebel.com/5962688/passive+aggressive-gifts-for-your-horrible-mother+in+law

Being able to be weirder is one of the perks to aging. I'm looking forward to it, and to all the horrible fashion faux pas I'll get to make. In response to how to be a certain way, I don't know. One of the things I notice as I age is that I see the world differently: it's through the eyes of experience. It's not bad or good, it just is. The other day I saw a picture of Justin Beiber and all I could thinks was "pull up your pants". This coming from a woman who sold fetish gear as fashion statements. It sounds like what you need to do to combat what you see in your mother is to do volunteer work. Do time with a soup kitchen, read the newspaper, and fight having a jaded heart. The biggest issue I see challenging senior citizens today is the issue of pride. It sounds like your mother has the same issue. She's not able to keep the house up herself, which had been a point of pride for her I'l bet. Not being able to keep the house up means it doesn't look as good as she wants it to, when then means she won't hire people to come fix it, which means it gets into a worse state. She gets into a worse state because of not being able to have people over, and the whole cycle continues. Back to to the question - keep yourself from becoming too wrapped up in pride.

This is my issue as well. My ex was always suicidal from Thanksgiving to New Years, so it didn't help matters. After he left us I decided to reclaim Christmas. It takes a few years, but it worth it to me. It sucks to be unhappy at the same time every year. First I decided what I wanted to celebrate in December. Was it Christmas, Solstice, or what-have-you. Having settled on a wanting to take part in Christmas as a Christian I then decided what traditions I wanted to raise my dd with. I read about the history of the traditions and settled on a mix of Christian and ethnic holiday celebrations. We have decorations, which my dd has always loved and now does, a tree, and midnight Christmas services. I only give gifts to family that lives in the house due to my economic issues. I let go of the guilt that is pressed on me by the marketing of secular Christmas. It doesn't all happen in just one year. It's little bit by little bit but eventually the good overcomes the bad and the month of December is no longer cringe-worth. Reclaim what you want and make it your own : D

Contact them. My mother is the daughter from the first marriage. She has two half-brothers and two half-sister from her father, and one half-sister from her mother. She's the oldest of the lot of them. Her father was not part of her life at all, his choice. His sister, her aunt, kept in contact with us and told us all about what was going on in his life. The story was that his second wife didn't want her daughters to know about my mom and the first marriage. When he died my mom decided to go to the funeral. I went with her as emotional and physical back-up. She looks just like her siblings, and just like their father. After the funeral we stood around a bit and a man walked up to us. He thanked us for coming and asked how we knew his dad. Mom was gonna blow, but calmly said through the Marines (that's how her parents met). Her half-brother asked her name, and she gave it. He started crying, and called over all the siblings, crying her name over and over. Then they all started crying and hugging her and saying that they had known about her for years and always wanted to know her. Not the reception we had been expecting over the decades. Everyone has been super wise and left the past in the past. We're all pretty tight on Facebook now since distance separates us so much. For all of the children involved it has been healing. None of us know why my grandfather kept everyone apart, and his second wife isn't talking. We've decided we don't care and make the most of today. Not all reunions are this wonderful, but it's worth taking the chance for it.

I have n iPhone with Verizon. You do have to buy the data plan, which for me was only $10 a month. We have texting blocked by Verizon. I use very little data, and even my cell phone is rarely used so it doesn't cost that much. Here are the ways to set up parental controls on an iPhone - http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4213

Dogs like that don't do well with being separated from "the pack". My dog is like this and we had to take here with us everywhere we went for a good five years. One winter, she suddenly became okay with us not taking her places. I'm not sure if it was hatred for her coat or if she finally understood we wouldn't abandon her.

Women, you need to up your game. How was I a mean mommy today? I DANCED IN PUBLIC. The Cabbage Patch, in the car, to a Twilight soundtrack song : D

I do know of one person who has ten warning points, so I am assuming that they will be used. Personally, I don't want to find out how to earn them. It may be a good reminder that I shouldn't be on the Internet when my doctors change my meds around ; )

The books are not anti-Christian according to my dd who has read all but one of them.

Ferrets are wondrful pets. However, IMO, your daughter is too young to have a pet ferret. They require a lot of thoughtful care.

I agree - have a day when you and all the kids clean up the toys. Throw out what is broken, give away what the kids don't want, and put away half the toys to be rotated out every few months.

My dd had legs too long for the seat when she was three. Toddlers don't do well when you're grocery shopping for two hours and they have to walk the whole way.

They do have a garden but are not very good at tending it. The reason they have disposable dishes is because they have tile floors in the house. When you have tile floors anything dropped on it shatters and shoots all over the room. Everyone is allowed one plastic cup a day and they are labeled. Canned and frozen veggies are less expensive than fresh.

I find that not having any credit cards, bank accounts and a very bad credit rating all help prevent identity theft.

We don't start decorating until AFTER December 1st. Back in the old days Mom wouldn't let us decorate until AFTER the midnight service on Christmas Eve. Do you know what kind of tree you get after midnight on Christmas Eve? Yeah, horrible ones.

I will NEVER buy from Melaleuca. They have horrible practices for selling products, and are a pyramid scheme. Back in the day I was on the board that all of this happened on. Yes, I checked into the story of the dead boy and found it to be false. It horrified me that a company would stoop so low in order to make sales. http://www.snopes.com/medical/toxins/resolve.asp

As a Mormon I'm suppose to believe that the church is the one "true" one, but I don't. Truth is subjective, IMO. For me, the LDS church feels like home for my soul. I have a lot of theological issues with some doctrines, but I believe in working on them. My parents are both Episcopal ministers. On one hand, the Episcopal church feels like home. It's what I've known my whole life. Even when I don't go to Episcopal services I know everything that is going one and a national and international level. On the other hand, it's not home for me because the services don't fill me up.

If the argument is resolved then I can be okay within an hour. If it's not, I will be upset for longer. If I have an argument with someone and they either a) walk away or if I B) go to bed with it all unresolved I *never* get over it. Not ever. Period.

As an outsider looking in and not knowing everything I have a few observations. The letter needs to be tightened up a bit. You need to clearly state that you're worried about the backward slide your son seems to be doing in the classroom. It's good to emphasis that you don't blame the current teacher. It'd be great to attach copies of the test results he had from before, when his performance was higher, and the most recent test results. Personally, I'd step away from comparing him to his friends and classmates. Keep the focus on him.

I agree - her period may have unexpectedly started and she needed to run up to the corner store to get some pads/tampons. Don't judge until you know the full story.

I agree, time spent is great. Being a shoulder to lean on or and ear to listen. I have a dear friend who is far away and going through her THIRD deployment. She did the majority of a pregnancy and a whole child birth minus her husband. She needed help figuring out how to get the roof fixed, getting through the anger (he signed up for the second deployment without talking to her first), and she needed child care to just be able to get out and have a breath of fresh air. I did what I could from here. I'd send little gifts, email her, like her posts on Facebook and the like.

I was in this situation last year. Do look into local organizations, but they may be booked full up. What we ended up doing was skipping gifts for Mom and I and got a gift for the kid. Family sent gifts to her too, so it wasn't all horrible. The kid, in fact, did great. It was, however, very emotionally hard on me.