anatess2

I know, right??? I will readily admit I had a very hard time finishing the first LotR book. But yes, I still do feel it was worth it to get to the 2nd one....

AGMom, years and years of living in a divorce-is-illegal country has brought me to this realization that works perfectly for my house: Mr. Anatess is Mr. Anatess and does Mr. Anatess things. These things are a byproduct of his own personality and a healthy dose of how he was raised. Mrs. Anatess is Mrs. Anatess and does Mrs. Anatess things. Also a byproduct of my own personality and a healthy dose of how I was raised. I don't expect Mr. Anatess to be Mrs. Anatess nor do Mrs. Anatess things. Because he's not me. Likewise, Mr. Anatess doesn't expect me to do Mr. Anatess things. So, the trick to marriage is to figure out how Mr. Anatess' and Mrs. Anatess' completely different personalities, traits, and everything-else-that-make-them-who-they-are-individually work as a team to get things accomplished. Mr. Anatess is not the romantic kind of guy. If I ask him do I look fat in this dress, he will tell me Yes if that's what he sees. That's just the way he is. It's not because he's a rude, uncharitable person. It is because he just doesn't see how it benefits me to go out looking fat when there are better dresses that doesn't make me look fat. He's a dress expert after all having been a runway model in his younger years. So, I have learned that if I don't want him to tell me I'm fat, instead of asking him do I look fat in dress, I tell him - I want you to compliment my dress. Then he'll find something about the dress or me in it to compliment. Do I wish he is more the romantic type who has the ability to "read me" and be able to say the nice things I want to hear without me telling him what I want to hear? YES YES YES. But, that's not who he is. And Mr. Anatess is the guy I married because of who he is.... so it's silly to expect something different. Now, about house chores.... I'm a clean freak but I hate house chores. My mother is OCD so I grew up with a very well-organized very clean house. My husband doesn't mind house chores but he has a different idea of what clean means. The gas station restroom down the road is cleaner than His parents' house's bathroom. That's the way he grew up. So, he will literally leave mud streaks on the floor and not see it. Drove me insane on the membrane in our first few years together. But, that's who he is. I understand it, I get it. So, I have to work with it. So, I instilled the no shoes anywhere in the house rule... which is how I grew up. Cut down on most of the stuff. Then I divided the house into my job and his job. I cook, he washes dishes. I do laundry, he puts it away. I clean the house, he cleans the bathrooms and the outdoor spaces. Etc. Etc. And so... I would cook and then it's NFL season, so he sits infront of the TV until midnight so I wake up in the morning with the dirty dishes still in the sink. Meh. Big deal. I can cook breakfast around it. Eventually, he gets to it. Bathroom gets pee stains around the toilet seat that I barely have room for my left butt cheek to take a pee in, I grab Clorox wipes and wipe the thing down... no big deal. He'll eventually get to the rest. Eventually, after 18 years of being married, we have gotten good at getting the house in order. Especially after I found a work-at-home job so I can sit infront of my computer making some money so I can pay a cleaning lady to do a lot of the stuff for us. So yeah... there are times when I would yell and scream and throw plates at my husband (I have a really bad anger management problem), but that's part of being Mrs. Anatess that my husband gets to deal with as well. But we still get things done because we both are of the same purpose... that we are in this together forever and ever and ever. My motto therefore: You have the freedom to be You. I have the freedom to be Me. Let's find out how You plus Me get things done. Don't sweat the small stuff. Eventually, You and Me start to become a WE.

duplicate.

Uhm, the parable works perfectly for God's. It doesn't work as well for Ceasar's. Because... a laborer coming in to work for God at the last hour in God's vineyard doesn't make it such that the one's that came in at dawn would be priced out of the Celestial Kingdom. A laborer coming in to work for Ceasar at $15 bucks an hour would make prices rise so much so that the ones who came in at dawn would have to buy bread at twice the price for the same income. Yep. Parables are like that... it may sound cool for Ceasar but the practicality of mortal existence doesn't quite fit in it... hence, Give to Ceasar what is Ceasar's and give to God what is God's.

Transformers. I still love this movie. The very first one. Yes, don't put the transformation on slow-motion.... just.... go with the suspension of belief.

This I have seen 7 times. In the theater. I got the DVD when it came out and have watched it several times more.

Ahh. As much of a Marvel fan as I am... I haven't seen past the first episode of the first season of this show.

Marvel is dark? What?

And looking through Swedish history it is clear to see that they achieved their much-celebrated income equality BEFORE they embarked on their socialist experiment. And what's more... what's keeping them from stagnating is not so much Socialist ideals but their uni-culturalist make-up of mostly Protestants with culturally ingrained solid work ethic and selflessness. Even then, by the 70's Swedish owned businesses started to decline so much so that by 2000, the top 100 businesses in Sweden by employment size is not owned by Sweden. By 2005, Sweden went the way of Denmark and started deregulating and freeing big swaths of their economy as well. See, this is the thing... these small countries have the freedom to experiment and try things out - with socialism, multi-culturalism, and all that stuff because they have America to rely on. They don't have to spend big bucks on defense spending, heck, even Germany is a laggard in NATO and wouldn't spend the 2% of their GDP required by NATO contract. So they can play with their economy. Sure, if New England wants to experiment with Democratic Socialism they can. They're about the size of Sweden. And they have the power of the Federal Government to help them with stuff like healthcare, education, and defense. Yet, even with Bernie a long running public figure, representative of Vermont, he can't pass his Democratic Socialist agenda in Vermont with less than a million population of mostly solid progressives! I mean, yeah, "Old Vermont" are not as liberal as "New Vermont" but the old is steadily declining into non-relevancy. So Democratic Socialism being a Presidential Federal platform is just not the thing for America. Because, as it stands right now... who is America going to rely on when it goes bust? Because, as reality would have it, Democratic Socialism assumes that its citizenry believe in the same Christian principles of hard work and selflessness and devoid of greed. The minute it realizes that greed is a part of human nature, then compulsion becomes necessary for the thing to continue to succeed... which leads to the dark side of Socialism. But yeah, I can say this all day everyday but this does not mean... not even by a smidgen... that I think Tuckabee and his political principles do not belong in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We're still in this together, mate.

Interestingly, Denmark (and the other Scandinavian countries are following suit) has freed big swaths of their economy that they have achieved a freer market than post-Obamacare USA.

Social welfare programs is an application of socialist principles but it is not Socialism, Democratic or otherwise. Canada, with their single-payer healthcare and everything else is not a Socialist country. It is still, by far, a Capitalist country. So much so that if Bernie would run for Canadian national public office, he'll fall on the leftest 10% of his peers.

http://www.vulture.com/2016/03/hanson-on-20-years-of-mmmbop.html Wow. I'm OLD! I still have Middle of Nowhere in my car! What's really great about that album is that the 3 Hanson brothers are like my family when we get together. I have a bunch of musically talented uncles and cousins and when we get together the instruments just start coming out and a jam session starts to form. That's how I learned to play the guitar... there's always a bunch of instruments lying around and the uncles and cousins pick up some tune and I usually pull out 2 spoons to play along with the beat but then a guitar would be free and I'd pick it up and just start following along... we can go for an entire day like that. A few Christmases ago I took my kids to spend Christmas with my uncles and cousins and a jam session formed in the middle of the Christmas party - one cousin brought his trumpet, another brought her violin, another uncle brought his accordion... several guitars came out that we ran out of room on the amp. The grand piano was in the middle of the room. We were at my uncle's house that was only 1500 sq feet in a retirement community (strict sound ordinance) and the instruments were spilling into the kitchen. This was my 2 kids' first experience with it and they had the time of their life! My eldest kid took over the grand piano (he was only 10 years old at the time and has never played accompaniment - he's always played solo piano) and he was able to keep up with the professional musicians.... my other son who is a drummer didn't have his instrument - there were no drumsets in the house - but he was just happy laying claim to the tambourine. There were about 50 people in this tiny house, more than half of them joining in and out of the impromptu jam session. So yeah, Middle of Nowhere comes out almost 20 years ago and I remember hearing the garage version of Man from Milwaukee and I was hooked! It made me miss home so much where the jam sessions are more common. Hanson is pure unadulterated talent. But Mmmbop is not my favorite song in that album. This is (although it never got released as a single):

Ahh! Of course youtube has it!

I used the same thing! Took me more than a day but it was fairly easy peasy. It took a few years (yes, years) for one child to get over peeing while sleeping but the day stuff was a breeze. Now they're teen-agers, this is potty training in my house:

Yes. Because, as you know, people think we're cuckoo for having to withhold our attraction for Guinness or Budweiser.

If we're going to make some educated guesses... I would think it more likely that Democrats are voting Trump in the primaries to sink the Repubs. The turn-out numbers support such guess. The Repubs are still too busy desperately clawing their way out of a Trump nomination to think of what's going on in the left side of the aisle.

The objective of a marriage is to be ONE with CHRIST. A husband's job is to fulfill his covenants to get himself closer to Christ as he works to get his wife and family closer to Christ. A wife's job is to fulfill her own covenants to get herself closer to Christ as she works to get her husband and family closer to Christ. In this they are equal partners. They both don't have to be at the same place closer or farther from Christ at the same time. Sometimes, the husband gets to carry the wife forward. Sometimes the wife gets to carry the husband forward. Sometimes, one is carrying the load while the other spouse is dragging and pulling the other way. Doesn't matter. The task is the same... you work to get yourself closer to Christ while at the same time working to get your spouse and children closer to Christ. This is the 2nd greatest commandment. To love others as you love yourself.

Judging by the success of Bernie Sanders in Utah, I'd say you're not that much of a minority in the church as you think you are.... But yeah, I can debate a Democratic Socialist until the cows fly over the moon. It doesn't mean I think they're not following Christian principles. I think people here remember me vehemently defending Harry Reid's standing in the Church at the same time that I vehemently opposed his political actions.

P.S. on the starter house... I have noticed that in the US, there are many people who go into a "starter house" and then flip it the next year or two for a "bigger house". The problem with this is... there is always a "bigger house", so they end up chasing that bigger McMansion because they think they need a bigger house because... they had another kid and each kid has to have their own room, or the kids are bigger now so they need bigger rooms, or the kids need a play room or a study room or a rec room, etc. It becomes bad training for the psyche to get in the habit of. My brother with the 7-bedroom have all 5 of them sleep in one room (they all slept in one room at my parents' house so they got used to it)... it has become a family joke - my brother and his wife slept on a mattress on the floor of their middle child's room when I visited. His 3 kids slept on the middle child's bed. I asked him, why build a 7-bedroom when you only use 1? He said... because I can. So when all the siblings with their children go to his house, we all get one room each. When we get together in anybody else's house, all the cousins line up on the living room floor...

But we don't need big impressive houses... Like I said, we're just as comfortable in my childhood 3-bedroom as in my brother's 7-bedroom. My brother, of course, is a neurologist with his wife a pediatrician who has the ambition and the money to build a 7-bedroom to give both in-laws their own rooms. My other brother's entire house will fit in my neurologist brother's family room. My other brother also has 3 kids - his house is the same size as my childhood home (1600 sq ft). My parents sometimes live in his little house for months at a time and my sister, with her own 3 kids lived with him for a year while she was figuring out where she wants to stake her family roots. I'm saying... Aim for the house that your family needs. We don't all need a 7-bedroom. We can all live in a small house. Of course, if you can afford a big house, go for it. I just don't see the idea of getting into a "starter home" that you know won't fit your needs in the future (unless there's other reasons like me buying my house before I even found a husband so I bought an investment house). But that's just my family and how we have been raised for generations.

Oh yeah! I remember that story! I think he qualifies for special snowflake...

Well, the point is... you stay with the parents until you can afford your own house. But this is not just a stand-on-its-own principle. This is a We Are Family principle. This goes with the parents helping out the kids with college if needed so they can get up on their own feet faster. This goes with the kids, once independent, help out the siblings so they can get on their own feet too. This goes with every member of the family helping out each other when one falls down instead of relying on government welfare. This goes with the kids, once the parents are too old to be on their own get to take their parents into their own home instead of sending them off to a nursing home. They all tie into it. My brother, with his wife and 3 kids living with my parents until he finished building his own 5,000+ sq ft house, is just as comfortable in the little 3-bedroom house with my parents and my mom's brood of dogs than they are at the new 7-bedroom one. But yeah, once he built his "mansion", we all now cram into his house when we get together. We don't cram into my childhood home anymore (although we're comfortable there too). My nephew and 2 of my cousins now live in our childhood home until they get on their own feet. We were trying to decide what to do with the house when my dad passed. My mom said we should just sell it and divide the money among ourselves. Instead, we all decided to use my dad's money that he left us to fix up the house for the next generation. By the way, my grandfather's house finally got taken down (it has served as home to several of my uncles and cousins) not too long ago. All my cousins and their children now have their own or their parents' houses to stay in until they get their own houses, so my grandfather's house has stayed empty for years only to be used occasionally for family gatherings. Nobody wanted to sell the property so my aunt who inherited the house, tore the old house down and turned it into apartments to help pay for cancer treatments for several family members. We all had one last family reunion at the grandparents and had a cry-fest before the dozers flattened out the place. It was like my grandparents died all over again.

I have become more jaded in my advancing age. I don't think the minimum wage issue in the US is a misguided attempt at compassion. Rather, I believe that the minimum wage issue in the US is the American equivalent to what Filipino political candidates do - paying you money to buy your vote. At least, in the Philippines, the vote-buying expense ends at the ballot box. The US equivalent spends and spends and spends to secure more elections to come.

Whether he is correct or not is for you to decide. We can tell you what we believe is correct. What's the difference between what we say and what he says to you? The difference should be what your testimony of the Spirit tells you. So, you might think... well, he says the Spirit tells him so and you say the Spirit tells you something else... whose Spirit is the right Spirit? My tried and true answer to this having grown up a devout Catholic who is now an LDS convert is this: Everything I gained a clear testimony from the Spirit as a Catholic did not become false when I became LDS. Rather, the testimonies I gained as a Catholic got ADDED upon. Were there things I believed as a Catholic that I don't believe anymore as an LDS? Yes. Lots of them. These beliefs are my own logical extrapolation from things that I have gained a Spiritual witness of. I'll give you a very simple example. As a Catholic, I believed that the Catholic Church has Apostolic Authority handed down straight from Peter and passed through the generations all the way to the Catholic Bishops of today. As an LDS, I don't believe that anymore. I now believe that the Catholic Bishops did not receive Apostolic authority from the Apostles. Rather, Joseph Smith Jr. received that Apostolic Authority from Peter in the 1830's and passed down through the generations all the way to Thomas Monson and the LDS Apostles. So, how did this happen? How did my Spiritual witness of the Catholic Church become wrong? Well, it was simply that my Spiritual Witness is that God speaks through his Prophets and Apostles and that the Authority of the Rock of Peter is where the Church stands. This, I received while I was learning about the Born Again Church. My logical interpolation and an exercise of faith led me to believe that the authority of the Apostles was given to to the Bishops at the passing of the last Apostle. Hence, the Bishop of Rome has the Apostolic Authority to lead the Church. When I learned about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration of Apostolic Authority in the LDS Church, I had to take this back to God. Logical interpolation and Biblical Arguments only go so far. Eventually, I have to face the faith question of whether Linus, the Bishop of Rome, received Apostolic Authority from Peter. This is not something I can argue around... this is a matter of Faith. It took me 3 years before I finally received a spiritual witness that led me to baptism under the authority of the LDS Church. Now, do I believe that my dear old mother who remains a devout Catholic who is praying for me to see the light and repent for my salvation is being led by the devil? No, I don't. I believe that Faith is an individual journey and that as long as one, like my mother, is sincerely and diligently seeking, praying, and humbling herself in the search for Truth that she and I, doing the same, will end up with Christ before the last day. It might be that the Spirit is guiding her in her current path because it is, for her, where she is more likely to succeed in the path to Christ. I don't know. All I know that I don't believe that the Spirit that answers her prayers is not the same Spirit that answers mine. So, my one and only answer to your question and my only advice - Logical interpolations, Biblical Arguments and so on and so forth, although a good pursuit, only take you so far. Diligently seeking, praying, and humbling one's self in supplication to the Holy Spirit in the search for Truth in the path to Christ is what is most important. It is not for me to tell somebody that my Spirit is better than their Spirit. Rather, it is for me to encourage them to seek the Kingdom honestly, diligently, and humbly through the Spirit and worship in the manner that the Spirit leads them even as it is different from what I believe.

So, my son is in 7th grade. His best friend from school got a job over the weekend working at the grocery, 3 weeks after his 14th bday. He makes $8.50/hr. At my job, we hired a brand new tech support guy who is about to graduate from college in May... for $14.50/hr. He is on a 6-month internship. Now, imagine what happens to the wages if the minimum wage was increased to $15/hr. There is no way a tech support guy will accept $15/hr when a 14-year-old can get the same thing bagging groceries... So yeah, that might not upset New Yorkers, but that will, for sure, kill a whole slew of businesses in Florida.