I still have mine. Every once in a while I'd take it out and let the girls try it on, but all of them said there was no way they would wear it when they got married [something about the small bows on the shoulders which, apparently, made the dress hideous]. Then, when my oldest was looking for a wedding dress, she had a horrible time finding something that had sleeves but also worked with her body shape. I suggested she look for something that had lines like my wedding dress. She said, "Mom. I am NOT wearing that dress!". I asked her to please just try it on and see what I was talking about [she has an hourglass figure, as did I when I got married]. She went in the bathroom to try it on and look in the mirror. I heard nothing but silence for about 5 minutes then, in a small voice, "Mom? Would it be ok if I cut off the bows on the shoulders?". She did, and made a few other slight alterations. She was a beautiful bride and now my youngest says she *may* be interested in the wedding dress when the time comes. No promises.

I took the "no big deal" approach with my girls. Asked each one if they wanted me to tell their Dad [to which all replied: NO! I just let him figure it out on his own. It took about a year with each one]. One of my poor children got hers the day we went to Disneyland with my Mom - Girls Day Out!! Poor child was horrified [though, thankfully, she woke up with it and did not start on "Small World"]. I asked her if she wanted me to tell Nana. NO! So my Mom still talks about our Disney trip where one of my daughter was just a GRUMP all day long. Her older sister's words of support were as follows: "I'm just glad I finally got mine three months ago because it would have been really bad if you started before me!" Mucho Period Support at our house! We all know where each other's chocolate stash is. :lol:

Now *that's* a book I would love to read!

Yes, it's a horrible thing to say. But I'm not convinced this little girl really understands what she was saying. My best friend, growing up, went to a very very strict church and she had beliefs along this line. At one point she was really concerned for my salvation because I had been baptized "the wrong way". She wasn't being hateful, just repeating what she had been told to believe. Fortunately I was confident enough in my faith to brush it off. Being told that you need to die before you reach the age of accountability is something else....but still probably not said out of hate -- just extremely misguided concern. And why the age of 20? Where does that magical age come from? I was confirmed in my church, and rebaptized at my request, at the age of 13. My children all had a Bat Mitzvah at age 13 and then confirmation in 10th grade [Reform Judiasm]. But this is the first time I've heard of 20 being the magic number.

Let me start off by saying we have Prime and I use Subscribe and Save a LOT. *coughcough* 166. ETA: let's not even get into my digital orders......which apparently weren't added into that first number...

All I wanted was a Fire Stick......but it was sold out 1 second after it was released. I couldn't even get on the Wait List. This is why I hate Black Friday - it brought all those anxious feelings back to me. I have friends who love it.....but I just am not a "Fire Sale" kind of person.

That's actually good to know! I was raised in an adobe house in the southwest, so I guess I took well insulated walls for granted. And, I will say, as much as I hated that 1876 house, it was pretty soundproof. Insulated bathroom walls has just moved up to the top of my list of things to look for in our next house.

In thinking back over my teen crushes....I think I really went for that "older man" type. Harrison Ford [because.....of COURSE] Dean Butler [Almanzo on "Little House"] Jon Erik Hexum ["Voyagers" and "Cover Up" - so so sad when he died] Anthony Andrews [NBC miniseries "The Scarlett Pimpernel" - *SWOON*] Pierce Brosnan [Remington Steele] Bruce Boxleitner [scarecrow and Mrs. King - the family knew better than to talk to me when Remington Steel or Scarecrow were on tv] Tom Burlinson ["Man from Snowy River" and another NBC miniseries about the first Olympics] {Now we're getting younger} Jonathan Crombie [Anne of Green Gables] Prince Edward [only a few years older than me. Edward, why did you never look my way?!?!?]

{{{HUGS}}} i know that feeling. I'm too conservative for half of my friends and too liberal for the other half. Way "too Christian" for one group and not Christian enough for the other. You just keep on being you, DhanyaCali!

Oh thank goodness for this thread!! My vents are all about Family.....so I'm going to come off really really petty, but I don't care. Everything is hitting at once this summer: FIL died in April. He left my MIL in a horrible financial position. Both were in denial that the end was near, and now she's floundering. DH is spending the summer with her [on the other side of the country from us] trying to get her settled. DH also lost his job the day before his Dad died and really isn't looking to hard to replace it. So I'm annoyed at FIL, annoyed at MIL and annoyed at DH for various things. But I have to keep my mouth shut because, I mean.....the man died! How mean and petty am I?!?!? And dh and I are having issues that dh refuses to consider might partially have to do with him. I know I'm to blame.....but not for everything. It takes two to tango, baby. MIL's mother is still living, but in poor health. DH's cousin decided that God told her to move in with Grandma and "take care of her". Only DH and MIL are now visiting and discovering that Grandma is *not* being taken care of. What to do about this?? MIL doesn't want to make anyone upset so, once again, is defaulting to DH to make the tough decisions. MY parents. <sigh> My Dad has Parkinsons. He's doing pretty well, all things considered, but he's not getting better. He and my mom are point blank refusing to consider options in housing. They can't stay in their house, but they are convinced that "The Lord Will Lead" when it's time to leave. EVERYONE is telling them to move now, when they still have options, before the time comes when they have to move into whatever's available. They have stuck their heads in the sand and anyone [read: my brother and myself] who dares to suggest that they need to start preparing to move is treated as the enemy. My brother [younger] is not one to make waves, so I'm assuming I'm going to have to reprise my role as The Bad Seed sometime in the next year. What is wrong with people?!?!? Also, when someone gives you directions to their house and says, "Do NOT follow GPS. GPS will take you to the wrong place...." why, oh why do insist on following GPS. Do you think I'm lying?? Do you think I enjoy receiving a phone call saying, "I'm at such-and-such location, but I can't find your house..."? Whew.

No. I don't have a problem with them, but we've never felt the need. I think dh had an air rifle years ago to deal with a critter problem. Then we moved back to the city and I'm pretty sure he gave it to our nephew.

When we moved into this house, it was from a house built in 1876. So we bought our current house because of my list of "Never Again!", thanks to that old house. However. My new list now consists of: 1) Not a whole lot of stairs. It wasn't a problem when we bought this house on the hill.....with a flight of stairs up the hill to get to the front porch. Then our parents got old. And I discovered that over half of my choir really shouldn't be climbing those stairs, so no choir parties can be hosted at our house. A few stairs are fine. But I still feel guilty for the time Great Grandma visited us and and had to haul herself up and down those stairs [seemingly] all day. 2) WE MUST HAVE INSULATION!!! I don't know what was up with our builder, but there is no insulation between the walls in our house. Which means you can hear almost everything going on in every room in the house. The downstairs bathroom is right next to the living room. Need I say more? 3) No more HOAs. We moved here, in spite of the HOA because, for a variety of reasons, it was our only option at the time. Now we've experienced it. Never again. And for fun, I'd really like a screened porch so I can enjoy the outside in the summer without being a personal snack station to mosquitoes. This is not high on dh's list. Mosquitoes don't bother him. :glare:

My uncle will do this. His favorite thing is to tell some unsuspecting person they look very "Swaavie" (suave) today.....and then watch them try to figure out if he: 1) Just insulted them OR 2) after realizing what word he used, does he actually know the correct pronunciation?

I've had to request a few birth certificate copies from LA County and have done it on line, with them mailing it directly to me. It's cheaper than buying a plane ticket and I do think you can request it overnight [or maybe it's 2-day] for an extra fee

As soon as she wants to use them.....and sooner rather than later is my advice. When I was 17 I got my period unexpectedly on a flight home from Europe and the only thing the flight attendant had were tampons. 30 minutes in the airplane bathroom trying to figure things out. AND I was wearing a white skirt. AND there were 5 more hours on the plane. I still have nightmares.

I'm sorry to go off topic but.... Eagle, I had a best best friend disappear under similar circumstances when we were both in 3rd grade. My mom knew more about the situation than she let on at the time. Years later she told me what was going on in the family and why my friend and her mom suddenly left. About two years ago I got a Facebook message from a name I didn't know.......but it was Best Friend! She remembered enough about me to track me down. So, there's always hope. You may not know her current name, but I'll bet she remembers you as much as you remember her.

We did this to friends once. Two of my children and I were struck by a horrible stomach virus during the night and I totally forgot about the next day's plans. Of course, this was back in the day when *I* was the only one with a cell phone.......and it was downstairs on the kitchen table, ignored for about 48 hours. Because I had totally blanked on spending the day at the beach with friends, I never had dh call them and they were pretty steamed. In fact, I only remembered the plans AFTER I checked my cell and found 8 messages from her. Hopefully it's something like that.

Presbyterian, here. We have services on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. And I would probably feel strange about doing any kind of party/social during Holy Week.

Our dishwasher broke 5 years ago. Haven't seen the need to replace it, though we do use it for air drying dishes. [Dish drainer on the counter takes up too much space] But my kids were older when it bit the dust. If the dishwasher had broken when they were little, it would be a different story.

It is the same. My youngest flies SW from the east coast to the west every year and once she hit 12, she was on her own. She had a horrible experience with a plane change in Atlanta which has made her nervous about changing planes at all [try and find someone to help you in the Atlanta airport - I dare you!]. So our options have been to: #1 tell her to suck it up and #2 attempt to find her flights that have few plane changes. SW does still let parents walk their child to the gate. Stitchgirl flies from coast to coast in a few weeks, so we'll see if she still wants me to do that for her. My oldest was an independent flier from age 7.......my youngest, not so much. Each child is different.....though I do understand that the airlines have way too many people flying to be able to tailor the experience for each underage passenger.

Some kids are just like that. And it has nothing to do with being sheltered or not sheltered. When my kids were younger I had to be really careful because Stitchgirl was super super sensitive about certain scenes in movies. My mom would get annoyed and tell her, "It's just a movie..." Uh-huh. That particular phrase doesn't work when the child totally identifies with the character, to the point of feeling pain/fear/sadness along *with* that character. Even today she'll leave the room during certain movie scenes. Last year she was showing her young cousins her favorite movie ever [Lilo and Stitch] and made a point of leaving to get them a snack during the scene where Stitch is lost. She said, "Mom, I know it may be crazy, but Stitch is still real to me and it hurts too much to see him sad."

When dh and I got married, none of our friends had kids yet, so it didn't occur to us to say yea or nay to children at the wedding. Dh's cousin brought his toddler who was.....a toddler. But we had an late afternoon wedding with finger food at the reception. It was pretty low-key, so a screaming toddler on the dance floor kind of added to the ambiance. When my brother got married, ALL of their close friends had young children. They were having a more formal wedding and did specify that children were not encouraged. The exceptions being my two girls and my sil's young brother. Her brother and my oldest were flower girl and ring bearer and were really well behaved [since my mother put the fear of God into both of them]. My other child was only 7 months old, so we asked a friend of mine to watch her in the church nursery, bring her over for family pictures and be in charge of her at the reception. Since I was also a bridesmaid, that worked the best for all of us. A few children did show up to the wedding and my sil gave them the option of paying my friend to have their children watched during the service {it was really really really long - 2 hours. Hence the reason sil discouraged young children}

I'm such a lightweight that I would be that chatty airplane lady if I drank a whole bottle [it's sad, really]. But I'm with the It's-Like-A-Mimosa crowd - if 'Mimosa's are fine for breakfast, so is a Blood Orange Mike's!

I've changed my ways of thinking about a number of topics. I've also learned to keep my mouth shut, as I find myself too Liberal for some and too Conservative for others. What worries me the most is that I've watched my parents and my in-laws become progressively hard-core about their beliefs over the past 10 years. While I agree with them on some points, they leave NO room for others' opinions. To me, it's key to be able to say, "I believe this.....but I accept that my experiences and life have led me in this direction, and it may be totally different for someone else." I've learned the hard way not to try and present the other side to my Mom when she's on a full-blown rant [which is often]. I pray the day never comes when I'm not willing to listen to another viewpoint!

Due to many cowlicks and thick hair, this is exactly what happens when I have short hair. I've learned to style accordingly. For a while I had long hair, but I was just putting it up in ponytails due to all the poofy-ness. Finally I chopped it all off and felt much better. Now I *did* grow up with short hair and, in high school, even shaved the back of it......so short hair felt familiar. If you've never had really short hair before and you're not a "eh - hair grows back" kind of person, you may want to take it in stages. My oldest went from long hair to short after the baby was born and she had extreme shock. Looking back, she says that while she loves her hair now, she wishes she hadn't cut it all off initially.