mom_of_jcchlsm

That's a tough one, Charlotte. The answer is yes, but he won't be easy to find. Right now you have your hands full with the new baby, and I hope this doesn't sound patronizing, but you probably still have a lot of growing up to do. Wait until you are old enough to reasonably date returned missionaries - say when you're 20-ish. You will have a better handle on your life by then, your faith will be more secure, and you'll be dating quality potential husbands. Between now and then, focus on making good female friends in the Church - possibly other young mothers. Also go out with groups of young adults.

Sugar - that's not how the survey works. Satanism 25% means that according to the way this test scores, the respondant's beliefs correspond with roughly 25% of what Satanists believe. As several people have pointed out, however, the test is majorly flawed. One of its primary problems is the use of bundled questions - asking for a single response to a bundled group of concepts or ideas. Leaves the respondant in the compromising position of saying "I disagree" (even though there are parts I agree with) or "I agree" (even though there are parts that are wrong) or going middle of the road. Any way you slice it, the response does not accurately reflect the respondant's beliefs. Bundled questions can be the result of attempted manipulation of results: if I word it this way, more people will end up in this catagory, and then I can say, after 1000 people take the survey, that a higher percentage of people believe in X. Bundled questions also happen when the author(s) of a survey have too narrow a viewpoint and incorrectly assume that idea x and idea y are mutually exclusive (so they might ask "do you believe x or y?" when some people might believe both or niether).

HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE! HAPPY DANCE! wow!!!!! Congratulations!

Most users ever online was 48 on Feb 21 2006, 08:16 PM I was on last night, but I went to bed really early. Heather, is that 8:16 my local time or yours? I wonder if I contributed or missed it. The previous record was Christmas Eve, before I joined up. I had looked at that stat several times and wondered: what the heck were you guys doing chatting so much on Christmas Eve?!?!?!

It's one thing to say that what your parents (or his or her parents) think shouldn't matter, but it is entirely different to walk that thin line and try not to offend the people you love when they are clearly unhappy with one another. You don't (and shouldn't!) just turn your back on your parents and pretend they don't exist and what they have to say doesn't matter to you. And your parents have 20 (+ or -) years experience manipulating your emotions - they know your hot buttons and how to use them! Parents love their children and want what is best for their children. Sometimes (I'm tempted to say often) parents' perceptions of their son- or daughter-in-law is a little warped -- you know "no one is good enough for my daughter." Parents are blind to their own children's faults, but the child's spouse's faults are magnified out of concern and love for the child. Compounding this problem is the fact that often young married people are confused or embarassed when the "giddy love" wears off (see thread about marrying young) and they start recognizing the difficulties that lie ahead. The natural inclination is to turn to your parents, who have always protected you, reasured you, or offered guidance. So the parent may only hear the negative things their married child has to say about the spouse.

Real Marriage

I disagree with Cal. True, the best choice is a combo of eating less and exercising more, and the two do tend to complimant/reenforce one another, but it is possible to do one or the other and achieve satisfactory results, even long-term results.

Church canx here today because of the weather. Where we are is still just cold, but aparently the south end of the Ward is in no-driving conditions. It's headed this way!

I was a wild and reckless (and thankfully, wreckless) driver in my youth, but I mellowed a lot when I had kids. I am now about as conservative a driver as it gets. My Dad taught me to drive manual transmission. Then in school, the driver's ed class was on automatic and I was freaked out - had no idea how to drive it. But I was surprised how many of my friends couldn't drive my car. I must have taught about a dozen people to drive stick.I will definitely be teaching my kids to drive both.

Jason and Bro. Jeff - I was a Rainbow Girl for 6 years. PWA twice over. Order of the Amaranth for a few years until I joined the Air Force and started moving around a lot. Would have joined OES, but didn't have a close enough Masonic relative (Amaranth also requires relation, but is looser).

I am responding as a woman whose parents feel my husband doesn't provide well enough for our family. It is painful for me to have to defend the people I love against other people whom I love. There are times when I have lied to my parents about our financial situation because if I told them the truth they would blame my husband and I couldn't handle that. And there are times when I have asked my parents for money to buy groceries and not told my husband because I didn't want him to know that his labors were insufficient to support us. A big part of the problem is having different expectations and spending habits. Something I heard in Relief Society years ago really changed me: If your husband doesn't make enough money to live on, learn to live on what he makes. Here in the USA, there is no reason for a family to want for sufficient shelter, clothing and food. Even if you are unable to earn money to support the family, acceptable basics can be obtained through government programs. And work is available. Unemployment in the US is not for lack of jobs, but for lack of people willing to do the work that needs doing at the wage it offers. The problem lies in what each person finds acceptable. Not every child needs a room to himself. You don't need two vehicles (and some would argue that you don't need a vehicle at all, depending on where you live). You don't need to eat out. You don't need a TV. You don't need Nike Shox basketball shoes. Habits are hard to change. If your wife grew up eating certain kinds of food that are expensive, she may not even know how to prepare less expensive meals. And if you're used to having your hair done at a fancy salon, asking a friend to trim it for you may not even occur to you. On the other hand, it's fair to ask: are you working at your potential? Could you make more money if you continued your education? Are you looking for other opportunities that would bring your family greater flexibility? And most of all: do you deserve your wife's loyalty and fidelity? It sounds to me like she hasn't quite married you yet. She's still looking back at the lifestyle her parents afforded her and wondering if she made a mistake. A big wake-up call for me was to look through a photo album of me when I was little. I only remember the grand house we lived in when I was a teenager, but when I was a baby, my parents and I lived in a small upstairs appartment in an older part of town. Looking at the pictures I can tell we were poor. I realized that it took my parents at least 10 years of marriage before they were able to buy their first house, before they started taking vacations, etc. I was comparing apples to oranges - my parents' lifestyle in their early 50's to our lifestyle as newlyweds. Now, 15 years down the line, we are still far, far behind where my parents were financially at this stage - but we've made different choices. We have seven children, and they had only one. And we are deeply in love with one another and committed to an eternal marriage. At 15 years into their marriage, my Mom was having an affair with her boss and my Dad was an alcoholic/workaholic. Thankfully, my parents have gotten through those though times and are now happily married, but what marital joy did they give up in pursuing financial success?

Must be nationwide. We've had delightful weather lately. Today hit a high of 83 F (that's 28 C), but the wind is blowing and it's supposed to freeze tonight and be cold through the weekend with a possibility of snow or freezing rain (yuck!). I don't think I've ever been anywhere when it was below 0 F (-17 C). Can't imagine!

A friend from our Ward went to help with clean-up and rebuilding. He owns a flooring company and figured there would be a great need for his services in the rebuilding of the city. He wanted to help, but his primary motivation in going was admitedly the chance at making money because of the high demand. He returnd home rather disgusted right before Christmas. He can't make money there because he can't hire workers at a wage that will still allow him a proffit. Because people are being paid a living wage to do nothing, they are totally unwilling to actually work for anything less than $30 an hour. You can't hire employees to do basic, unskilled, manual labor for $30 and hour and still sell flooring at a price anyone is willing to pay. As long as the government continues to hand out money, work will be rediculously slow.

http://www.modestclothes.com/LDS.html

From NewsMax.com: This fact – which needs to be repeated and remembered – is that in our country, state and local governments have primary responsibility in dealing with local disasters. The founding fathers devised a federal system of government – one that has served us remarkably well through great disasters that have befallen America over more than two centuries. But if we believe the major TV networks, George Bush, FEMA and the Republicans in Congress are all to blame for the current nightmare. Let's remember that FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, was created only in 1979. It was formed to coordinate and focus federal response to major disasters – to "assist" local and state governments. Common sense suggests that local and state governments are best able to prepare and plan for local disasters. After the Sept. 11 attacks against the World Trade Center, no one suggested that the Bush administration should have been responsible for New York's disaster response or that federal agents should have been involved in the rescue of those trapped in the buildings. Last year, four major hurricanes slammed into Florida. Governor Jeb Bush led the disaster response and did a remarkable job, with nothing happening like what we have seen in New Orleans. The primary response in disasters has always come from local communities and state governments. First responders and the manpower to deal with emergencies come from local communities: police, fire and medical. Under our federal system, these local departments answer to local authorities, not those in Washington. These first responders are not even under federal control, nor do they have to follow federal orders. In addition to local responders, every state in the Union has a National Guard. State National Guards answer first to the governor of each state, not to the president. The National Guard exists not to defend one state from an invasion by another state, but primarily for emergencies like the one we have witnessed in New Orleans and in other areas impacted by Katrina. The media would have you believe that this disaster was worsened by a slow response from President Bush and his administration, though the primary responsibility for disaster response has always been with local and state governments. It is true that federal response was not as fast as it could have been. The president himself has acknowledged that fact. But the press has focused on the first 48 hours of federal response, not uttering a word about the fact that New Orleans had 48 hours of warning that a major Category 4 or 5 would make landfall near the city, yet local officials apparently did little to prepare. Obviously, Gov. Blanco did not effectively deploy her state's National Guard. And New Orleans' city leaders did almost nothing to evacuate the portion of the population with no transportation. In failing to follow their own evacuation plan, these officials did little to pre-position food, water and personnel to deal with the aftermath. As former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial has said, the disaster in New Orleans was "foreseeable." In fact, New Orleans has long known that such a disaster could take place if a major hurricane hit the city. The municipality even prepared its own "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan." The plan makes it evident that New Orleans knew that evacuation of the civilian population was the primary responsibility of the city – not the federal government. The city plan acknowledges its responsibility in the document: As established by the City of New Orleans Charter, the government has jurisdiction and responsibility in disaster response. City government shall coordinate its efforts through the Office of Emergency Preparedness. The city document also makes clear that decisions involving a proper and orderly evacuation lie with the governor, mayor and local authorities. Nowhere is the president or federal government even mentioned: The authority to order the evacuation of residents threatened by an approaching hurricane is conferred to the Governor by Louisiana Statute. The Governor is granted the power to direct and compel the evacuation of all or part of the population from a stricken or threatened area within the State, if he deems this action necessary for the preservation of life or other disaster mitigation, response or recovery. The same power to order an evacuation conferred upon the Governor is also delegated to each political subdivision of the State by Executive Order. This authority empowers the chief elected official of New Orleans, the Mayor of New Orleans, to order the evacuation of the parish residents threatened by an approaching hurricane. It is clear the city also recognized that it would need to move large portions of its population, and it would need to prepare for such an eventuality: The City of New Orleans will utilize all available resources to quickly and safely evacuate threatened areas. Those evacuated will be directed to temporary sheltering and feeding facilities as needed. When specific routes of progress are required, evacuees will be directed to those routes. Special arrangements will be made to evacuate persons unable to transport themselves or who require specific life saving assistance. Additional personnel will be recruited to assist in evacuation procedures as needed. ... Evacuation procedures for small scale and localized evacuations are conducted per the SOPs of the New Orleans Fire Department and the New Orleans Police Department. However, due to the sheer size and number of persons to be evacuated, should a major tropical weather system or other catastrophic event threaten or impact the area, specifically directed long range planning and coordination of resources and responsibilities efforts must be undertaken. [You can read New Orleans' Emergency Plan for hurricanes at its Web site: http://www.cityofno.com/portal.aspx?portal=46&tabid=26] The city's plan also specifically called for the use of city-owned buses and school buses to evacuate the population. These were apparently never deployed, though the Parish of Plaquemines just south of the city evacuated its population using school buses. The plan, written well before Katrina was even a teardrop in God's eye, was obviously never heeded or implemented by local leaders. But why should the New Orleans mayor and Governor Blanco take responsibility when they can blame George Bush and the Republicans in Washington? With congressional elections fast approaching, Democrats who are out of power in every branch of the federal government know they need to change the tide quickly. They have apparently seized on the Katrina disaster to harm the president politically. Criticism of the federal government's response is fair and warranted. But putting full responsibility for this disaster on the Bush administration is way over the top. Primary responsibility for this disaster remains with local officials like Nagin and Blanco, not President Bush.

Well, the "flat tax" plans I've seen call for more like a 17 to 20% tax. But the theory is that when things stabilize, wages will increase (because companies will not be paying as much tax) and prices on goods and services will come down a little. Here's a clip from Wikipedia on three versions of flat tax: Flat tax with deductions The most common flat tax implementation proposition, and the type that has been proposed in the United States by Steve Forbes in his presidential campaign and by ###### Armey to congress, calls for base deductions for people and dependents. For example, the Armey proposition called for deductions of $26,200 for married couples filing jointly, $13,100 for individuals, $17,200 for single head of households, plus $5,300 for each dependent. After those deductions (and no other), each family would pay a 17% rate on the difference. Businesses would pay a flat 17% rate across all profits. Similar proposals have been discussed with different rates and deductions. Under Steve Forbes’ plan for his 1996 and 2000 presidential campaign, a family of four would pay no income tax on its first $42,000 dollars spent. Savings are exempt. Spending above that amount would be taxed at a flat rate of 17% (if the tax is included as part of the tax base) or 20.5% (if the tax is on top of the base), so that a family of four that spends $43,000 dollars would forfeit $205 to the government. As the "pure flat tax" has proven difficult to sell, "modified" varieties of the flat tax have been proposed which would allow deductions for specific items, but would eliminate most existing deductions. Commonly, charitable deductions and home mortgage interest are the items discussed, as they are highly popular and often used by current taxpayers. [edit] Negative income tax Another flat tax variant that has been extremely popular among US economists has been the Negative Income Tax that Milton Friedman proposed in Capitalism and Freedom. The basic idea is the same as a flat tax with personal deductions, except that it implements a neutral wealth redistribution system which avoids any possibility of the incidence of welfare trap, whilst distributing the money in what economists regard as the most efficient manner - as cash (as opposed to food stamps, medicaid, etc). Under an NIT, a deduction system and flat tax rate would exist as in previously mentioned flat tax schemes. However, people would be able to collect the tax rate of the difference between their deduction and their true income. As an example, let us say that we have a flat tax system where each adult gets a $20,000 deduction, married couples filing jointly receive a $40,000 deduction, and either receives an additional $7,000 in deductions per dependent. The flat tax rate would be 20%. Under such a system, a family of four making $54,000 a year would pay no taxes. A family of four making $74,000 a year would pay 20% on the difference of $20,000, or $4,000 in taxes, just like the previously mentioned personal deduction systems. The difference comes in people who make less than the deduction: if the same family made $34,000 a year, they would pay "negative income tax" (in other words, they would receive money). In this case they would receive a check for $4,000. Such a system would be intended not only to replace the United States' current tax structure, but also its current welfare structure of food stamps, medicare/medicaid, social security, etc. Much of the spirit of this type of reform has been achieved in the form of the Earned Income Tax Credit, although without corresponding drops in other types of welfare spending. Some critics of the NIT do not like that it does not have a work requirement in order to receive welfare, which some welfare systems have recently adopted. Others see the wealth redistribution as a subsidy to industries that use low cost labour - it has been argued that people who make this point would probably be proponents of a true flat tax, as it could be said that the NIT is no more a subsidy to low skill labour-intensive industry than other welfare mechanisms for the poor that already exist. [edit] True flat tax Lastly there is the "true" flat tax. It has never been proposed by a politician or public figure (probably out of fear of political backlash) but The Economist featured an April 14, 2005 article on its mechanics entitled The flat-tax revolution. If the idea of the personal deduction flat taxes proposed in the United States by the likes of ###### Armey and Steve Forbes is tax simplification via a reduction of "corporate welfare" through politicians handing out special deductions and for families to have the ability to send in their tax form on a postcard, then the true flat tax is the ultimate simplification. Under such a system, the flat rate would be applied to every dollar of taxable income and profits without exception or exemption. One possible benefit to such a system is that a situation may exist whereby nobody could be construed as receiving a favourable or "unfair" tax advantage. No industry receives special treatment, the family with 10 children does not receive special treatment, etc. Further, the cost of tax filing for both citizens and the government could be further reduced, as under a true flat tax there would be no need for the majority of Americans to send in an income tax form. Employers could simply withhold the flat tax amount and send it in themselves without their employees ever having to bother with forms.

Ben, I think you're missing the point on the tax return. We do tithe on pre-tax earnings, but because of the child tax credit, we actually get more of a refund than we ever pay in. For example, this year we paid in aprox $900 (because we have so many examptions (lots of kids!), very little comes out of my husband's check). But we'll be getting a check for more than $7000 as a "refund" - this is a total refund of the ammount we paid in, plus a portion of the child tax credit (the max we're allowed). I contend that we should pay tithing on the $6100 difference as unearned income. My husband disagrees, and since 1) he's the priesthood holder in the family and 2) it's his income to begin with, I feel I have no override. LDS Gurl 2002, If you're unsure if you have to file or not, go to: http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96623,00.html

My feeling too, PC. I feel we should take the ammount we get back, subtract the ammount we paid in, and tithe on the rest. SS income? - now there's a stretch. Sure, I can see not tithing that, at least until you hit whatever ammount you originally paid in. Who wants to do the math, though? Isn't it better to tithe on it anyway, even if it's not technically required? I'd feel like I was living the letter of the law and not the spirit. I know people who set aside their tithing each month and put it into CDs or an interest-earning savings account. Then at the end of each year, they turn over all the tithing plus 10% of the interest earned by holding back that tithe and keep the rest. Letter of the law? Sure. But I feel like that's cheating. When I was serving in the Air Force, we had issues too. Actual pay for junior enlisted members is minimal. But every month we got "BAQ" and "BAS" and other benefits. BAQ equalled our rent payment, and was meant to replace the base housing that was unavailable to us at the time. I felt (and still feel) that the BAQ was part of my pay. And later when we did live on base, I believe the value of the "free" housing provided was a part of my pay, and should have been tithed. If you take it to an extreme, what about cultures in which no money ever changes hands - a barter system? If I trade you a haircut and an hour of weeding in the garden for an oil change, what can either of us give the Lord? There is no first tenth, though both of us have labored and have earned something we want and need. Personally, I think the Lord's plan - a flat percentage - is a good model to follow. Though there will always be wiggle room for those who look for it (as illustrated in the examples above), a flat tax is so much simpler and so undisputably fair. It would take a little time for the economy to shake out its feathers and undo the damage from living so long with subsidies and behavior-modification taxes, but in the end, it would be much better.

This applies only to US residents, of course, and more narrowly only to those who have to file taxes each year. I got ours out this morning! Yea!!!!!! Am I first among our group to get that job done? Hubby and I disagree on an item: if you get back more than you paid in, does that count as income and should you pay tithing on it? And how do you all feel about the current tax system? Let's keep this civil!

I really like your idea of chocolates and cards for your kids - don't mind if I use that today, do you? I always help them get stuff or make stuff for others, but my own family is kind of neglected, I guess. My husband is sooooo hard to buy for. I dread days like Valentine's, Father's Day, his birthday and Christmas. We usually just agree to mutually ignore the gift-giving thing. The personal shopper would be nice, but I wonder if even a professional could find anything for him. Of course, if I could afford a professional shopper, I could probably afford more of the things he'd like. I actually think my husband is going Home Teaching tonight. His companion set appointments this month - I wonder if they even realized what day it is when they called their families? I'll laugh if they go out tonight and no one is even home.

I, too, have heard the no rain/only mist idea. Though I can't remember whence, it was a source I trusted at the time (maybe heard it on Sunday School or something). No wonder the people of Noah's time thought he was a nut case - they'd never had rain before. Here's Gen 2:4-6 -- 4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, 5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. 6 But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground. (Edited to add the scripture)

Wow. I could do that diet. I think I'll start right after my procrastinators annonymous meeting, which somehow keeps getting postponed.

Try also: http://www.dressmodestly.com We bought some of the jewel tops for our girls for Christmas. They wear them all the time. We need to buy more! The biggest issue we have is short shirts and low waists on jeans. The extra-long undershirts allow the girls to wear the fashionable tops they like and even get that popular layered look, but keep what's necessary covered.

PC, I think the reason the love relationship with the girl back home was hyped was that the actress who played his girl was the best-known / easiest-recognized cast member. I read the book before I even knew it was a movie -- in the book, her part is even smaller. Glad you liked God's Army. That one got good reviews from Michael Medved, as well.

We do have a homicide detective in our Ward. The stories he can tell will open your eyes!