I'll join you. I love Starbucks so much, I even wrote an English paper about it last semester. :lol: I think they put crack in their lattes.

Yeah, totally forgot to add Taco Bell to my list. I used to love it. Then I switched to a mostly whole food/cooked from scratch diet. We stopped in at a TB while on a road trip. I swear every single thing we ordered smelled like vomit. :ack2: I couldn't eat it.

I don't like McDonald's. Nothing in that place is worth eating. I hate Burger King. All the ones around here are filthy and disgusting. I don't see how they haven't been shut down. I don't like Arby's. Their roast beef sandwiches with that slimy cheese has to be one of the nastiest things ever concocted. Bojangles is also gross. I got a chicken biscuit and a coffee there. Everything, even the coffee, tasted like rancid cajun seasoned grease. Blech. I don't like Aldis. Ours is dirty, full of angry people, and it isn't laid out well. Don't get me started on Wal-Mart.

Same here. Our 401K tanked. Yet, we are playing the same game again. Fun times.

I'm youngish, so this seems pretty far away to me. I'll likely be a grandmother in my 40s. I plan to work until I'm 65-70ish if my health holds out...then maybe I'll just be an old fart artist? I want to be a fun grandma, but I don't want to raise them (no long term babysitting if I can help it). Dh, he'll happily retire, hopefully early. He'll probably putz around with tractors and do ministry work.

I have step-parents. I never called them by anything but their name. Even my beloved step-dad, who was more of a father to me than the man I called "daddy". I think it hurt his feelings, but Daddy and Kevin were two very different things in my mind, and "Kevin" had the more fatherly connotation to me for some reason.

I have mixed feelings about it. We tithe, and expect part of that to help fund missions. Any mission trips our family has been on, we paid our portion out of our own pocket. I consider it part of what we are giving to God and His church. Since that is a personal thing to me, I wouldn't want to ask someone else to do it for something *I* wanted to do.

We are kind of ok. Dh makes a decent wage. We don't have a huge house payment. However, it just seems like our expenses are consistently growing faster than his raises. I keep telling myself that we'll recover when the kids move out. This year has been rather costly for various reasons.

As it stands, I could keep us fed, but could not keep up with our current standard of living. I have admin skills and that is about it. I don't have a degree in anything, but for this very reason, I'm currently in school full time, majoring in accounting. There is a pretty good chance dh will need to retire early. I'm using the next 4-5 years to prepare myself to take over as main breadwinner. All our kids will be in their 20s by then too, so I won't need to make quite as much as he does now (hopefully).

Watching the Challenger explode. Even as a kid, I knew it was pretty significant. My husband was packing his bags to get on an airplane for a business trip when the first plane hit the Towers.

Middle or East TN :) It checks off everything on your list. Plus, after two years residency, any of your high school graduates can get free CC for two years. Knoxville is a great area. Lots of the perks of a city, but easy to live farther out away from everything without being "far away". We live very rurally, but can get to downtown Knoxville in less than 20 minutes.

The coffee pot brewing. My oldest dd walking up the stairs to brush her teeth. A train.

Dh has worked from home for over 7 years. He breaks up his routine by taking his lunch breaks to do something outside, if possible. (We have a garden and some property, so he usually just goes and puts around for an hour). Sometimes I join him, often I'm in the middle of doing something though. I don't talk to him much during the day. He's often on the phone from dawn until 5:30PM. One of the best things he's done was to get a hands free headset. It allows him to be up and moving around more, and he can often be seen taking a call on the front porch.

I think my dh could have been happy with any number of women. He's pretty content if he has his basic needs met (and that isn't hard to do). However, I don't think I would have remained married as long to many other people. I like doing my own thing too much, and I look at most men and think..."man, I'm glad I'm not married to him". I can't imagine wanting to commit to another person at all. I also think it is only because he snagged me at such an early age that I ended up married period..lol.

I put the ridged liner in my brand new cabinets. Mostly to protect them from stains and moisture.

Yeah, I realize 17 may not be considered early...it just is for our family. :) There is almost 4 years between my oldest and my twins, but there are only going to be 2 years difference in graduation years. To me it is early because they've accelerated their education past where they would be in PS and compared to their sibling that did the standard grade levels.

Yes, I have to say, our second decade (23 years so far for us) was a lot different than the first, and much different than we ever imagined when we got married. We've endured separation, illness and death of parents, a sudden life-threatening medical emergency with dh that required very intimate care on my part, chronic illness, and more. Romantic fuzzies wouldn't have gotten us through any of that. That deep love that you develop over time is the glue. It isn't even pretty. It is gritting through tough times, even when you'd rather be anywhere else. It is the knowledge that you would do *anything* to care for your spouse when they can't care for themselves, and vice versa. It is the security of knowing that you can go all day without saying a word to each other. It is the ability to have a fight and know that he's still going to be there for you. It is getting so angry at that person that you can't see straight, and forgiving them just because you love them. It is looking at your spouse (or him looking at you) and seeing the extra pounds, the scars, the tired eyes and worn out body, and loving them a 1000 times more than when they were a teenage hottie. It is shared life. The good, bad and the ugly. You can't wrap that up in a formula for the perfect marriage.

My younger two will graduate early. They skipped 8th grade completely. They'll turn 17 basically the week they finish up their senior year, if things go as planned. One will have DE classes under her belt and is beginning them this fall (at 15). My older dd did DE at the same school, and I feel the younger dd will do fine. She plans to continue at the CC after graduation. My other 15 year old is planning on going away to college, and is unsure if she wants to pursue any DE classes before-hand. For us, they are definitely mature enough to graduate early, and capable of doing the work.

Me too. So many things piling up, it is hard to see the light at the end, at the moment. Mostly dental and health things that cannot be avoided :( My other vent....stupid Spanish class at college. Why did I think taking a semester length class during a crammed in 4 week session was a good idea at my age? Learning a new language is proving to be a difficult task for my older brain. With two more Spanish classes I have to take, I will not be doing this particular form of torture again.

You and me both.

Until they want to stop. My Other was that they stopped when I got tired of taking them. Now that they are driving, if they want to TorT they are welcome to go themselves. I'm just over the driving..lol.

My husband works from home. We homeschool. We get way too much "togetherness". I'm usually more than happy for him to LEAVE and do something without me. I kind of miss the days when he traveled regularly and left the house everyday. I got a chance to miss him a little...lol. We've been together since I was 15 years old. All the conversations have been had, repeatedly. Our quiet alone time together usually consists of talking about the garden, or speculating on what kind of tractor he's going to buy next. But really? The older I get, the more I like not having someone up in my business. If I didn't love the man, I could happily be single. I show my love by cleaning up after him, feeding him, and not smothering him in his sleep when he twitches/kicks for the 5 millionth time that night.

Um no. Someone would probably die. I like him and all, but our togetherness needs a goal..lol.

Have you looked into the Oak Ridge area? That may be too far east...There are a lot of riding/walking trails there, and it is a fairly nice city. We live just north of Knoxville. We also attend Thursday Connection, and highly recommend it. We also use HomeLife Academy for an umbrella. No statement of faith required and they give you amazing flexibility in how you school. No testing requirements either. It is much easier than going through the school district. We've also homeschooled in Texas, and I don't find TN laws under an umbrella to be much more difficult than the complete freedom TX has. The TN Promise program for CC is going smoothly for us so far, and we have taken advantage of dual enrollment grants as well. Taxes aren't bad. No income tax, but a rather high sales tax. It is a beautiful area. I've driven here my entire adult life, so the roads don't phase me...I think you'd get used to them?

You probably are. But no biggie, it was as simple as changing a bag out :)