Jenamarie

My play list is all over the place. Bang Bang (K'naan) Calabria 2007 (Enur) Deewangi Deewangi (Om Shanti Om) Dhoom Taana (Om Shanti Om) Down Under (Men at Work) Drop It Low (Ester Dean) Gangman Style (PSY) Good Time (Carly Rae Jepson) Heart Skips a Beat (Olly Murs) I Won't Give Up (Jason Mraz) Kitten Pig (Pentaphobe) Krazy (PitBull) La Di Da Di Da (Nikki Jean) Magic Dance (David Bowie) Mr. Saxobeat (Fly Beats) Oops! I Did It Again (Britney Spears) Ramalama (Roisin Murphy) Start Wearing Purple (Gogol Bordello) Stero Love (Edward Maya) Trip the Light (Garry Schyman) Unknown Hand (Pentaphobe)

I'm so sorry. What kind of work does he do?

This book is what finally got me sold on homeschooling! Also, she doesn't ever specifically mention it, but you pick up a few "hints" here and there in the book (and I later confirmed ) that the author is LDS! :) Another great resource if you like forums is thewelltrainedmind.com: The Leading The Well Trained Mind Site on the Net You don't have to be doing homeschooling the well-trained mind way to participate. There are ALL sorts of homeschoolers there: newbies, veterans, online schoolers, classical, unschooling, Christian, Pagan, Jewish, etc. etc. It's been an invaluable resource for me to get real-time answers from *real* people about my concerns and frustrations, and they can offer recommendations and reviews that can help you sift through the sea of curricula choices that are out there now for homeschoolers.

Congratulations! Baby girls are the awesomest! (as are baby boys, of course)

WA does vote-by-mail, and I'm putting mine in the ballot (mail) box this evening. :)

I live in the northwest, in WA, but right on the border with Oregon. In my part of the state it seems like people have been here for generations and have lots of family ties to the area. We've been here 10 years and it's been difficult to make friends, because everybody seems to stick with hanging out with family and/or their old school mates. It's been especially true in our ward. We're the ONLY ones without any family within a 2 hour drive of us, if not living in same town. Church-wise, we're in the minority, but there's enough of us around that there's a strong "LDS Community". There aren't many people who have to drive more than 20 minutes to get to church, for example. I LOVE LOVE LOVE Portland, OR. I would live there if I could (right smack in the middle, not in the suburbs). The culture is so quirky there, and I just love it! You want doughnuts with bacon on them? They've got that. Lots of art galleries, book stores (HUGE ones!), yarn stores, just all sorts of interesting and quirky stuff. Could do without the rain though. So tired of the rain. So very, very tired. And so we're moving to Reno.

When it comes to being a "people pleaser" remember that YOU are a "people" too. My middle child has an unusual name. We kept mum about it until he was born. Nobody could raise any objections by that point, and because of the mountain ranges a previous poster mentioned, we didn't have to hear anyone's grumblings. The only time we heard a whisper of a negative opinion was when one aunt admitted that his name had "grown on her" the first time she finally got to meet him. Babies can make anything cute.

"Mom, we're going to pick the name we most like for our children. I will no longer engage in any conversations with you where you try to convince us against using a particular name. If at any time you do not respect this request I will end the conversation, leaving the room or hanging up the telephone if necessary. We are adults, and, more importantly, we are this child's parents. We will do what *we* feel is best for him or her." Draw your boundary and stick with it. She doesn't have to like it, but she *does* have to respect it if she wants to maintain her relationship with you and her future grand kids. This may seem like a small fight now, but you want to have a firm boundary in place in case she starts disagreeing with you about when you start feeding your baby solids, or what kinds of carseats you're comfortable with using, etc. etc. YOU and your DH are the ones who get to make the decisions about your children. She can offer advice, but you are 100% within your rights to not listen to it.

That young man's face was *classic*!!!

My DH was 25 too! He turned 26 just a few weeks later though. It was nice having at least one of us legally able to sign the paperwork for our moving truck.

Hey now, my sister and I both got married at 20. My DH and I have been married for 10 years now, and sis and her husband have been married 17.

He has until the age of 25 (26?) to go. 18 is the earliest he can go, but he's not *required* to go right then.

Well, Pres. Monson did say that leaving at 18 isn't something *everyone* should do. I mean, it's not like they have until their 19th birthday to get those papers in or else the door is forever shut. If they need an extra year to prepare (whether spiritually or financially or both) there's nothing to stop them from doing so.

Yup. Northern.

My dad shared on Facebook that gas prices went up .40 a gallon overnight in his town.

If you and your fiance are okay with both using HER name instead of yours, then by all means do it. What does it matter what others think? It's YOUR name.

We've gotten calls like that for my SIL before. She was inactive and had moved quite a bit.

It's about... time.

At Education Week this year members of the Maxwell Institute addressed this saying we *don't* have all of them, and the ones we do have don't match up with the witness accounts of what the scrolls looked like (there were shorter scrolls, which we have, and one longer one which is said to be the one the Book of Abraham came from, and that one was lost in the Chicago Fire). Is this in dispute now?

Based on on my own observations, I'm thinking you'll find you hardly even have to try to lose the weight once you drop the 180lbs you've got dragging you down right now. I've witnessed 3 women leave toxic marriages, all of them were overweight when they left, none of them is now, and none of them had to put that much effort into it. Your marriage is more than just unhealthy for your self-esteem, it can (and probably is) also having a negative effect on your health. Being torn down like that, having your emotions played with like that, having the stress of "Is he going to leave me?" constantly looming, can have a very large impact on your health. Take back control of your life. It's the only way you're likely going to be able to regain control of your health.

I was talking to a friend whose husband served in Afghanistan, and he said that many of the radicals are illiterate, and so really *don't* know what their religion teaches, just what the leaders who want to manipulate them tell them it "says". They're also told lies such as "It's illegal in America to say anything negative about Israel" and "America is out to colonize the Middle East". Being illiterate, they have no way to fact-check the information they're given.

He may not be abusing your body, but it most definitely sounds like he's abusing your soul.

An overweight, 30-something woman in my ward who has *9* kids (widowed) recently got engaged to a wonderful man, so don't count yourself out. The only men who will find you worthless are worthless men.

The Church's name has already been attached to it (who *doesn't* think of the LDS church when they hear "Book of Mormon"?). Now audience members will be directed to a more accurate representation of our beliefs.

No, because unless the adult is disabled in some way that makes complete independence impossible and/or extremely difficult, then they SHOULD be able to figure things out for themselves, whatever their parents' failure might have been. A simple Google search could lead to the answer to many problems.