Okay, here goes... Vitamins Feed critters Wipe out bathroom sink/swish out toilet/change hand towel Start laundry Head to Dad's Set up meds for next week with new amounts per doc orders His sugars, breakfast, meds Feed those critters Meet his nurse Call and set up appt with his primary care Start laundry Whoops! Guess I'm doing that tonight... Grocery store (milk, dish soap, coffee, must NOT forget) Come home Work on catechism with kidlets They do school Quiet time (!!!) Clean glass in family/living room Sweep porch Fold already washed laundry, put clothes in dryer Flip mattresses Make up kids' beds with clean sheets (or dump sheets on their beds and let them do it :p ) Back to store, get Dad's stuff Back to Dad's laundry in dryer And this will have to be tomorrow mornin' food/meds/&tc Set up time to have his phone line repaired (must NOT forget this) Ugh, of all the stupid things to forget. Home again home again jiggedy jig Have kids dust their bedrooms Tidy in each room Make dinner Wash dishes/sweep kitchen Finish up cross stitches

Oh, and reformed as far as I can tell...

Christian - Calvinist, Baptist, Pre-Millenial... I think that covers it :p Ftr, I have no problem with Arminian or A-Mill, don't think it's a salvation issue ;)

Well, I didn't get it all done, but it was nice to cross some stuff off :p

Okay, I have no experience with divorce settlements and had no idea that college was a part of it.

I think, once you're adult you pay for your own stuff. If your parents help, then you're blessed. If they don't, then ... well, welcome to the world little one.

I'm going to try. -Take Dad to doctor's appt - Clean bottom shelf of refrigerator - Mop kitchen - Dust children's (okay, so the kids will be doing this part) - Clean glass - family/living room - Make beds - Feed pets, mine and Dad's - Wash and put away dishes - Sweep kitchen & entryway - Clean kitchen sink - Clear/Wipe kitchen counters - Plan/Cook dinner - Wipe out bathroom sink - Empty trash - Do laundry - Read to children - Exercise - Quiet time - Take vitamins/medication (Working on this list) ETA Egads, got home from the doctor's at four... I'd left at ten till seven... so ha! Best laid plans and all that. Hoping to at least get the kitchen stuff done. On a bright note, the kids DID do all their school work, woohoo children!

Try three and if it's too much go back and do two instead :) You'll use three next year if that's the case, so no money wasted.

So glad you have some relief and get to have all this fixed!

Granted, having political candidates visit your church and stump from the pulpit does seem to violate that rule, but it happens.

Actually, the only prohibition put on churches as far speech goes is the endorsing or denigrating of a particular candidate. Political ideas/issues are wide open for commentary. They cannot say, "Vote for so-and-so" or "Do NOT vote for so-and-so" from the pulpit. That's another important distinction. The pastor is a citizen as much as anyone else and still has the right to support a candidate as long as they do not do so from the pulpit. The idea that churches, church members, anyone inside a church, anyone leading a church cannot speak about politics at all is another one of those things that gets repeated so often that people believe it to be true, but it isn't.

The answer to this will, as usual, depend on what type of Christian you are, but fwiw here's what I believe to be true. Understanding of Scripture comes through the Holy Spirit. So, a person who had not repented and believed would not be able to ... fully understand. Of course, Scripture was written in languages common to the areas where the writing took place, it tended to be written in language that was easy to understand, so a certain level of understanding should be easy. That's neither here nor there when it comes to "conversion" though. Grace, repentance, belief, all these things are gifts from God that come to the person through the Holy Spirit. So, a person can see it, they can read the whole shebang cover to cover, backwards forwards and upside down, but without the prodding of the Holy Spirit they will not repent, they will not believe. In other words, while belief comes by hearing the Word of God, it is a gift of the Holy Spirit to have "ears to hear" so to speak.

My husband is a mechanic who is very very careful with his tools. I used to be offended that he would see no problem with taking my good scissors and using them to cut gaskets :o But, he just doesn't get it. Our vacuum has gone through three belts this year. Every time he uses it, he breaks the belt (literally, ever-single-time). I just *have* to laugh about it, otherwise... well, I don't even want to think about otherwise :p

If they were expected to clean up their mess, then the expectation stands. Lunch is ready, they need to go clean up the table so that they can eat. Don't put it on the mess, have lunch ready and wait to put it on the table until the table is cleaned up. Here, dh pays for everything. It only takes so many replacements before he starts being more careful about taking care of stuff. I used to sweat it, especially scissors. Dh and the kids would use good scissors for all sorts of monkey shines and destroy them, or lose them. I used to stress about that so much, good scissors are not cheap! But it made everyone miserable to have me guarding the scissors and watching them with the scissors and flipping out when I caught them doing things with the scissors that the scissors were not made to do. So, I bought two pairs the next time. As soon as a pair was lost or ruined, I replaced it. One day dh noticed how many pairs of ruined scissors we had and that I was, again, bringing home new scissors. Suddenly he's more careful about the scissors and in the mean time I got to stop being such a bear about them.

Actually, the closest thing to a genetic link that has been found is still be testing and there a lot of questions about it. IOW, some scientists think they might have found a link, but it's still being looked into. A few pages back I said that saying something enough times can make people believe it's true and this is a case in point. People have been saying for years that this is genetic, but a study published last month is being touted as the first possible proof and it's still in the debate stage. There is a study going on now that is testing that study.

Yeah, I wouldn't have cleaned that up. I'd have left it and told them to clean it up so they could have lunch... So, my parents were married for over forty years. When my dad retired, my mom retired too. She had been a homemaker for the past twenty years, for the most part, and she decided that since he was done working, she was done working. You can probably imagine the friction that caused. For *years* my parents grumbled and fought and resentment built. Dad *would* do some things, but he never got what he felt like was enough credit for it. Mom would do stuff and feel like Dad didn't even notice. They loved each other, but man were they angry, for *years*. Then, in August, Mom went into the hospital, because she was having problems breathing. We were told that she had days left. Dad repented of every single complaint. Too little too late? Not really, a miracle happened and Mom recovered. Her and Dad both realized how short life is to hate each other, the person they love most in the world, over piddling stuff like who is going to make coffee and who should have to mop and whether or not they got enough credit for everything they did. At least they had some time to make up. Mom died Nov 3 and Dad is hurting and lost and terribly terribly sad. He sees now how much he needed her, how much she did even though she had been sick for ages. Cold comfort? Here's what I've learned. I've learned that it scares me to think of Drew having to clean up after himself. It hurts me to think of them realizing how much he needed me. The only thing that would hurt worse is if he had me saying "I told you so" in his head the whole time, rather than "See how much I love you." Or to have him hate himself for making me a resentful, bitter woman for our last years together. I'll never get to retire, the house will always be here and it will always need to be cleaned. Meals will need to be cooked. Dishes will need to be washed. At first, I balked at this realization. How freaking unfair!!!!! But now I realize that this is what will be, God willing, and at some point it will all stop and I just hope that when I'm gone and Drew sees, finally, how much I did that he will remember it all as my saying "I love you" with every nasty dish that I washed and every meal I cooked.

Actually laughing doesn't have to happen either. Sometimes maniacal laughter works, or humungous fake tv laughter. There have been times when the table was left in a complete mess and as the kids and dh walked away I let out the loudest laugh I possibly could. That'll stop them in their tracks ;) And then I said, "You're joking right? That's hilarious! Now clean this up you silly heads :p "

Ahhhh, okay. This may not help at all, but at one point I quit. It took them a little while to notice, basically once they realized they hadn't eaten all day (except what they'd gotten themselves) and then the next day... no clean dishes. After about three days of me slogging around, leaving plates everywhere and living the life of everybody else (which, honestly, was not very relaxing), my youngest asked me why the sink was dirty. I told him the maid had quit. He went and asked dh if he could get another maid, LOL and dh pointed out we'd never had a maid. Then he noticed the house, the dishes, the lack of hot meals (because honestly, that man could live in this mess for ages without actually noticing). Dh noticed me, in a seething silence. Dh washed the dishes, tidied up the house, and very quietly fell into telling the kids to put the dishes in the kitchen &tc. Granted, that was one time. There have been others. At one point I told him I never expected to be a single parent, especially since I was married. That one got a little ugly, but for a time he strove to reinforce everything. Now? Well, I'll jump in and stop the fun. Frankly, there isn't much to argue against stopping the kids from running outside so that they can wash the syrup off their hands and put their dishes in the sink. It's not like a half-hour long chore, it takes minutes. I think my dh would feel foolish if he started whining about that. And I think my response to his whining would be edged with mockery, "Aww, snuggims, you can play outside with your friends just as soon as you wash your hands and put your dishes in the sink." I realize that I'm basically pointing back to levity. If you can get a laugh out of it, it just seems to release some of the tension.

You know those "count your blessings" things that come up around Thanksgiving? Try to doing that every night. Come up with at least three things you were happy about or grateful for that day, write them down, and put them somewhere you will see them first thing the next morning. Throughout the day, when you start to get resentful, take a moment to review and try to be grateful. When he's being all loosey goosey, does he require that you do the same? If he doesn't, then do your thing and while you're doing it don't mutter that he isn't doing it. The "hill to die on" idea is a good one to remember too. Is the color of a shirt a hill worth dying on? Also, when you do argue about things, if you just *have* to find out who is right, treat it more like a game and less like a throw-down. If you can laugh when you're wrong, or do a touch-down dance when you're right (so he can have a good laugh too) that may take some of the sting out of it. Dh and I used to do that too. We still argue over stupid things, but now we can laugh about it. See, one day the argument got out of hand and he said (not seriously, mind you, there was no real threat here), "Don't make me punch you in the face." I can't remember what it was we had watched that day where someone said that, but this was his attempt at levity. In any case, my feathers were ruffled. I started to get all self-righteous and instead I responded, "I know that when you say that, you really mean I love you." For some reason that set us both off into gales of laughter and ever since then "Don't make me punch you in the face" has become something like our 'safe phrase.' When things are getting a little too heated or somebody's bad mood is getting to be too much, or one of us is getting too sensitive, that's what we pull out. I guess, my best advice would be to add levity. If you can laugh, you'll be fine. Decide if an argument is worth winning, is this the hill you want to die on? And make sure you spend some time focusing on what is good, redirect yourself to that. :) Hope this helps. Oh, and do the chores if it makes you happy!

By subjects I mean astronomy, earth science, biology, &tc.

I have and imho it gave them both a more well-rounded understanding of the subjects they did that way. If I had the time now, we would still be using this approach. Unfortunately, I do not, and I miss it greatly.

I'm glad it provided some relief at least. I hope the gum helps :)

In all fairness, I don't know anyone who celebrates with goat's head soup :lol: As far as angry/militant/hateful people go... I have learned in the past few years that if you are related to someone they, for some reason, feel they don't need to pull punches at all. :shrug: Other atheists I know in real life may go so far as to trivialize what I believe or brush me off, but they're never as raging as those I'm related to. And the ones I related to tend to be all sunshine and lollipops to everybody else, go figure.