:iagree: Thank you for keeping us updated! This is so EXCITING!

I was raised Christian and my interest in astrology has always made me feel vaguely guilty, lol, but it can apply so well to some people. Dh is Aries and I'm Cancer. We were made for me to say, eh, it just doesn't matter that much, as long as my family is safe then, I'm okay. He's more of the this is the way it should be sort of person. What are you Rosie?

We married in '99 (I was 19) and it's funny, because we have almost the same thing you have, lol, except that I am willing to take a no to keep things moving. We disagree about tons of things (New Orleans Jazz or New York Jazz was the subject of a four week discussion), but none of those are important enough for either of us to want to leave. The analogies you came up with were really great and they let me find our analogy :) well, not an analogy, but a really good super crystal clear example... This September will be our ten year wedding anniversary. Our plans are to drop the kids with my parents, pack some necessities in the book bag, turn west and ride. Dh has a nice little Yamaha and we're going to ride it as far west as we can get in two days. Then, wherever we're at, we're going to stay for a day and then turn around and go home. He drives, I carry the pack and lean when he wants me to lean. On a bike, you have to move how the other person moves and the driver has to make the calls on when to move. Sometimes the passenger can stop an accident by moving abruptly, but for the most part they have to move with the driver. That's us... I give us a vague heading (west) and then he anticipates the turns, I lean with him. So, thanks, because I hadn't realized that our favorite thing to do was so much a mirror of our relationship.

I finally got to read the headship link you posted. It was definite food for thought and made me relax a bit... I mean, I can identify with Sarah more readily than someone more... obviously pious, iykwIm. I've known women, like my sister, where they took the captain stance, and it suits them, it fits them and their situation very well. I couldn't do it, but it does work for them. What do you do when there is a stalemate, as so many pps pointed out? What if neither of you will/can budge? Does someone dominate, or does it just end there, with nothing going forward on that particular front?

:lol: One of dh's favorite gifts from me was a set of business cards :lol:

One year my dh spent 6.25 in a quarter machine to get me a specific dragon fly ring that broke as soon as I opened the little plastic capsul... At first I wanted to strangle him, but then I realized the effort he put into it and I was touched. 6.25 for a dinky little quarter machine toy that broke, but it was clear that he went through all that because he loves me and wanted to make me happy. That being said, I wonder how long your dh poured over the various boxes of silverwear trying to figure out which one you would like. It's the thought that counts. Finally, yeah, I'd be irritated too, at first... just remember he took note of what you said, he thought about you and your needs and wants. Ask him for a second present if you want, but tread carefully, making him repent having even tried, well, that would a lot worse.

My dh is a mechanic, lol, otherwise I would've had NO idea. If you had wanted to change this tire (just so I better understand what popped off and what stayed on), are all the parts that would have been left on, once you removed the tire, still there? If so, take a look at the lug nuts (I could be spelling that horribly wrong, but I'm going to guess your dh will know what I mean) and see if they're stripped. If so, they're easy to replace (and cheap!). My dh always tells people to stick with a car that is tried and true. IOW, if this go getter has gotten you this far with few problems, you'd be better off taking care of it, than commiting to a new car that could have ten million recalls in the next few years. If you want, you can pm me and I'll have dh tell me what to ask, what to point out, what to look at, etc.

Did he recently have the tires changed, or are the rims/lugs SUPER old? This is not a really difficult problem to fix (most likely, I should say) and is more likely due to not tightening the lugs properly or else them having gotten stripped. An easy way to check is to watch someone else drive your car. Pay attention to the wheels and watch to see that they remain straight up and down. Wobbling, even a little bit, means the lugs are not tight, and if it isn't remedied that leads to a tire flying off. Thank goodness everyone's okay!

I am such an OCD planner. I have everything ready for the Bears next year. By ready, I mean planned, and I've already set up a couple of speakers, lol! I'll probably chuck most of my plans once my Scouting magazines start coming in. They have the best plans in there and things I would've never thought to do. IOW, I recommend Scouting magazine. It's so much easier than planning. If you wanted to email ideas, I'm the Bear leader this year and I do not mind sharing at all!

Omgoodness, I do the exact same things, lol! We've gone by McDonald's when the parking lot was overflowing and I say, they're just hanging out in the parking lot, it's actually closed. And I can't stand it when I go to run some laundrey and realize there's a load in there from yesterday (or even further in the past), that now stinks. I don't limit the kids tv... if it makes you feel any better.

I'm not sure that there are many unilateral decisions. I try to submit to my husband, according to my understanding of what 'submit' means. Now, that does not mean that I call him at work in a panic over whether or not to give the kids juice, or that I clear any and all purchases with him, or that I have to get permission before I take the kids on a day trip. I do, however, seek his input on matters of the household and things that I am unsure on. examples :) household matters: I want to switch everything to cable, the cost is about the same and only having one bill is, imo, easier. He doesn't, it's too new, too untried (in our area), and since the cost is close to the same as what we pay now, he thinks, better safe than sorry. Well, until I convince him otherwise, we aren't going cable. things I am unsure on: I want to buy a new science program. I already bought Adventures with Atoms and Molecules, but I found something I believe I will like better. Dh is reading a free version of another program by the same author. His will be the last word. Now, my sister bridles at even these things, so I'm sure there's going to be people that think 'door mat!' IMO, these are easy things to submit on, they don't matter overly much to me and if there was something that does then I would do my best to convince him. I think the captain analogy does work rather well. The captain doesn't just pull their decisions from thin air, assuming they're a good captain, they get information from everyone else and use that to make a decision (normally following the advice of those fact gatherers). I don't know enough about sailing or boating to compare us using that particular scenerio (who's second to the captain???), but I can say that dh calls me the gatekeeper. You have to go through me to get to him, most of the time. If you want him to do favors, you may as well ask me, because I know where we're supposed to be when, what's going on and whether or not he'll be free. The final decision is his, but I'm the one that presents it and normally, he goes with what I want to do.

We were ahead even before we started hsing. The other parents in my den (even my assistant leader), leave everything to be done during the meetings. I've had to start assigning homework, just so the parents would do the family sections with their scouts. I DO worry that my ds is at an unfair advantage over the other kids, but then, as the pp's stated, why SHOULD I hold him back? That's why I took him out of school in the first place, so he could go as far as he wanted to, without assuming the burden of dragging his peers along with him, or else, being tethered to them, because they won't/can't go any further any faster.

Or maybe she could put a bee in the bonnet of someone else who WILL do that. For me, it's hard to "turn in" a friend, but my sister will do it in a heart beat. I agree, the Health Dept. would probably take quite an interest in this.

My sister and I joke that there's guilt in our DNA. Dh does not mind my more passionate side, but in the end I feel like I put down my defenses too much, which sounds silly now that I think about it... I guess, I put that with farting, lol, something that should be kept discreet, and it's like I'm living off of deviled eggs and cabbage (iow, I cannot be discreet, gentile or ladylike). As for the meanness... I can normally catch myself before the things that pop into my head go flying out of my mouth. I don't know WHY I think that way and it DOES make me feel bad. I'm just glad I can keep those things to myself. :grouphug: Thank you for understanding :)

I am not a people person. I don't like new things, new situations, new clothes, new furniture, etc. They all stress me out (how will I screw THIS up). I'm not nice. 90% of the time, my initial reaction is condescending, rude, low or just plain mean. My mom does not like me. I cling to dh because he understands me and loves me anyway. I absolutely love sex. I revel in it. That makes me feel low, bad, dirty, etc. Oh, and I'm super lazy. Given options, I would stay in bed all day.

Throwing Iris Johanson under that bus ;) Those are the only books I get rid of (besides the ones my youngest destroys)... normally, I don't even like to pass them on... :iagree: That's our problem. I have books everywhere (and yes, there IS a shelf in the bathroom)... I also have very sad stacks of books on my dresser, awaiting the day when I can afford some actual tall shelves, or wall shelves or something.

We're still in Cub Scouts, but I've started using the religious emblems books as part of our day. Since we don't get to do merit badges, we just cover some of the stuff in his book for class. He's a Bear this year and things are so much more interesting! The only problem I have is that I'm his den leader and it bothers me that he could earn his Bear badge over the summer while the rest of my den will be starting on A.1 in September.

Is it a 4 cup (translate into one mug of coffee, but for some reason sold as a 4-cup pot)? If so, I believe it's three to four table spoons... we still have the scoop that came with the pot, but I think it's about a table spoon.

I stilled played with Barbie's for the first 3/4 of my 15th year... I had a few girlfriends, but when they moved to other things, we stopped hanging out. My mom didn't really care. The last 1/4 of my 15th year I had a boy friend and was sexually active. Woohoo, I matured :glare: I don't know what you can do, except to start treating her more as an adult (the chores are a great idea) and hope that she doesn't bloom too quickly once it starts. :grouphug:

It's always educational (for the teacher anyway :tongue_smilie:), sometimes it's so much fun you wonder what the catch is, other days are the catch. I have yet for a truly ho-hum day. For the most part, it makes me feel closer to my kids and there's a sense of being the very essence of parenthood (I'm not just raising my kids, I'm raising my kids, iykwIm). Even the bad days carry their lessons :)

:iagree: I don't know how much furniture I've had to get rid of, because my family and friends all think we're the Salvation Army.

I was just joking... although, being able to be perfect (assuming I wasn't knocked off and replaced with a robotic alternative) would be nice.

The thread Nakia posted (with the article linked), makes me wonder how responsible we are for the changes we see in our spouses. What he said about a woman looking beautiful after 40,or ugly, bitter, resentful and worn, being due to her husband's treatment of her resounded for me. I know men and women that changed, radically and (imo) horribly, because of bad marraiges, where neither person was willing to put the other, or their relationship/marraige, first. I disagree with your eta. There's also a wrong way to load the dishwasher, a wrong way to fold towels and a wrong way to make beds. My way is the right way and that is why I leap infront of dh to do those things first. Food for thought. They DO seem to address our weaknesses. :iagree: In every group it is the most vocal (and often irrational) that get heard. Feminism is not evil, learning that women are not helpless victims is not going to destroy the planet. Being a doormat is not being a good mother or a good wife. The fringes of any group can be scary.

I would think that when you're in bed you're at your most vulnerable, not necessarily on a spiritual level, but a physical level. Showering and driving, while modern vulnerable situations are not as ingrained into humanity as sleeping. You sleep at night, when there are predators that are strange and different, it is dark, your vision is hindered. People have been fearful of the dark, night and sleep, since there has been people, dark, night and sleep :) Sleep, being a time when your concious mind and the control of your body are given over, left passive and unable to defend itself, sparks a less modern frame of mind. Also, there are corallaries between darkness and being out of God's graces. If you wanted to draw spiritual connections between dark, sleep and night they would go to lack of God's presence and death. Spiritually extremely chilling ideas. Either way, it would be prime time to scare the beejesus out of anyone.