Sorry to hear that Fawkes.

Thank you guys , it is kinda difficult to accept, but she is in peace and not under heavily medication.


I'll be spending valentines day with my true love.....food.
Actually I think that I'll be playing the Mass Effect 3 demo, and will probably buy myself some pizza.

Or perhaps sending roses to myself?

A very happy St. Valentine's Day to all!

To you, Fawkes, I give my condolences. Losing a loved one is never easy, let alone losing a member of the family. I recently saw my grandfather off (And had to deal with a very greedy uncle of mine!) and while the pain of loss never really leaves, it does fade. Remember what they left behind and cherish it.

Condolences Fawkes. As people have said the pain fades and the good memories remain. It just takes time.

I'd say I hope everyone had a good Valentine's day but I'm not sure anyone does, ever.

Fawkes - My condolences. I see death at least once a month, truth be told, I think a lot of the people are better off. It's usually an 80-something year old who crashed at a Convalescent home, and a lot of them aren't who they used to be, and a lot of it is just a stall. The way I see it, they earned it.





As for V-day....

I agree with BH as far as the elderly are concerned, or the people that have suffered through a long illness, and after long years and fading health or the extended pain or incapacitation of extended illness they have earned peace.

I know that is the way my Dad felt after two years of fighting cancer, having spent fifty years fighting rheumatoid arthritis, he was long past ready to make an exit. The empty space that is left is what is painful after they are gone, we wrestle with wanting to reach into the void and pull them back, then we feel guilty for feeling a need for them so much that we would.

Focus on the laughter, the special moments, the good things and let everything else fade into obscurity...the pain will fade but even 15 years later you may still reach for the phone to dial the number...just the way it is.

And then my teachers were all like "You know what let's go ahead and double our course work!"
So they did, and then I was all like "BY THE NINE I FORGOT ABOUT MY ONLINE CLASS!" thankfully my online class is self paced, going to try to catch up to the rest of the students by the end of this month.
Which explains why I'm not on that often,
Also do you guys remember Furby?
That scared me t-t

That reminds me of something that happened to my eldest daughter last weekend. She was babysitting for a friend of hers and while she was there she was helping the girls clean their room. She bends over and picks this Daffy Duck dressed as Bugs up by the ears and it said "Put me down!" She screamed so loud the neighbors called the cops.....she was mortified, and then she got peeved at me cuz I couldn't stop laughing.

You know, that is one of those rub your hands together and plot moments. First grandchild soon to arrive and I am just beginning to think about all of those noisy, obnoxious toys my children were gifted with by their grandparents. NOW I know why....oooohhhh this is gonna be so much fun, mmmuuuuwwwaaaahahahahaha.


and then this quote that my grandmother had in her sewing room. "Grandchildren are the reward for not killing your children." HHMMM....

Fawkes, you can catch up....no worries.

Fawkes - I know about course work, I'm looking down the wrong end of about 90 hours in the next couple of weeks, on top of lectures. And I have a thesis to write which I was going to do this week but which looks less likely...

Athynea - sounds like me and the niece/ nephew. All the best toys are noisy, or make a mess. Drums are always good

Drums, horns, whistles, etc. - these are not toys one gives their grandchild, but the children of people they dislike.

Better than that is to give the child of your foe one Barbie doll and a brochure that displays the Barbie mansion, Barbie Corvette, Barbie's horse and stable, Malibu Barbie, little sister Penny, boyfriend Ken, all the possible clothing combinations for all the dolls, and the Barbie Karaoke machine so the child can crank it up and sing to her parents.

The child will put the screws to the parents for everything in that brochure, the parents will go broke, and hearing their own child's "sweet voice" being piped through the microphone all over the house is not something they can hate or love simultaneously.

Sheogorath's Realm, anyone? Lol.

Yes, if giving those gifts are the gifts to the children of your foes well, my parents and my in-laws didn't like me much.....actually for me the worst was the little push toy that popped the balls around in the little dome. It was my eldest daughters FAVORITE toy. She dragged that thing EVERYWHERE, all over the house, out in the yard, to the park-I drew the line at allowing it in the car. And then I lost all capacity to be accepting, she had fallen asleep watching Fraggle Rock and left the toy from satan laying in the kitchen floor. I lost my balance when I saw it just laying there and when I slammed my foot down to keep from falling wouldn't you know it it landed right on the little plastic dome and little red, yellow, blue and green balls scattered in every direction.

"We" looked for it for days and every once in a while for months she would ask about it. She was 4 at the time, she is now 25 almost 26 and last year a friend of hers bought her a collection of Fraggle Rock DVDs, she was so excited, she called me and asked if I wanted to watch with her just for fun. She put the first movie in, hit play and as soon as Doc started talking she said "Wow, Mom, whatever happened to my pop pop popper?" It's official, I am a horrible person, I looked at her and said "You mean that toy from satan? I crushed it, it deserved it for leaving me dangling at the very end of my very last nerve." She gave me Thyna looks for the rest of the night, if she'd had a katana she would have skewered me...

You have no imagination. Bagpipes!!

Those little poppers were bad when made with the hard plastic. One company made them with a thicker, softer plastic - that is the one to get for your own children. Send people you dislike's children the hard plastic ones, ROFL !!!



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and the evil conspirators continue to conspire.....

*

I should print all of this out to ensure that I have proof should anyone ever doubt the depth of our evil.....

MMUUUAAAAAHHHHHHHAHAHAH

ROFL !!! I'll go to my grave denying everything, ROFL !!!


** and speaking of throwing out your children's beloved toys, did you ever try to "lose" a binky? A bottle? A blankie? URK !!!


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My blankie when I was like 4 years old D:, they told me that some bees came and took it away (we had just seen a horror movie about bees) wow I just remember that ;o.
And you guys are soooo evil <3
Actually my dad just brought some merchandise from my uncle, and guess what's in my front yard directly out of my window? That right one of those plastic pushing popper thingis :3

GAAAAH !!! That would have scared me into good behavior, lol. "If you don't eat your spinach, the bees will come take you away..."

I remember throwing out all the binkies once, and having to make an emergency trip to a bunch of stores in the middle of the night to buy more.

I just want to express my hatred of unix. Carry on.

So, the run down on binkies. Me eldest was a thumb-sucker, can't throw those away so she twiddled with it till she was 9 or so ( don't look at me like that! I may be evil but I draw the line at amputation) but she threw her own bottle in the trash when she was about 16 months old, she dropped it and when she picked it up there was something on the nipple and she said "OOOO, naassy" and threw it out. The second daughter followed that same pattern almost to the letter(rest of the story goes with youngest son). The eldest son sucked his thumb till he was 10 months old and quit on his own and he did away with his own bottle as well because his sissy drank out of a cup. AND true to form my youngest wonderful biological do-over is where the story lies....

He did this projectile hurl, exorcist style, every time he ate until he was 6 months old. The doctor kept telling me it was acid reflux and when he was 3 or 4 weeks old she suggested I get him to take a pacifier. The youngest daughter saw this, went into her room, dumped her toy box and found in the bottom a nasty, funky binky and popped it in her mouth. If he had one..then she wanted one too. Couple days later we were visiting a friend of mine (one that is more of a grandparent to them than any of the real ones) they call Granny. Daughter asked for a cookie, Granny said "Throw that nasty binky away and I'll give you one." She did, ate the cookie and walked out the door sucking her thumb, she was two. She's twelve and she doesn't do it all the time but if she's tired or upset...yep, she still does. (The drawing of the line at amputation may have to be amended).

OH, turned out it wasn't acid reflux, when he was six months old the docs did an endoscopy. Four biopsies later it was discovered he was allergic to cow's milk and soy milk. The formula they put him on was horribly expensive and the container said "predigested' but I never found out who digested it first and it certainly smelled like someone had.

mALX I have so many stories about these four, 25 years worth, but it's fun to recall the ones I had let slip to the back of the closet....

I had one that was sucking his thumb in the ultrasound photo.

Eldest daughter was too. Tech pointed at her head and said "See that? She's sucking her thumb." Then she pointed to the other end and said "See that? It's a boy." HUH??? Yes, I had several ultra sounds with her because of the enormous amount of weight I gained with no apparent other health problems. Every one of them showed what was perceived as male parts...after SHE was born I asked the doctor if it fell off during the trauma of the birthing process.

Just because he was curious too he had the last one enlarged to see exactly what it was. Her umbilical cord had a tiny loop that rested right at the junction of her legs...go figure. She wore nothing but blue sports outfits til she was 3 months old....probably why she's such a "girl" now...

I had a boy they swore was a girl the whole time. I guess his little "friend" was hiding like a turtle or something. He spent a lot of time in T-shirts the first few days because everything we bought or got at the Baby Showers was pink and purple.

xD, the only few pictures of when I was a baby, i'm wearing *shivers* pink, they thought that I was going to be a girl xD, they did do ultrasounds, but did not want to know the gender...welll .

Parenting sounds....so much fun? Can't wait to become a parent myself....in 20 years or something.
For me it was not sucking my thumb, it was my Mikey Mouse stuffed animal, had it till middle school, yes I know very late, but it randomly vanished into the flea market, but now I need to be hugging something in order to sleep, in my case right now it's a pillow

I'm the same way, and my grandmother-in-law bought me a 5 foot long down bolster - it is actually a down pillow but extra-EXTRA long. I love it !!

I sleep in a queen size bed with so many pillows that my children complain that they can't find me if they happen to get up before I do, which only happens on 5th Tuesday in April (if there is one) and Christmas.....hahaha. Woohoo for the giant pillow mALX that sounds wonderful, I need 3 or 4 of them, lol. Issues? I don't have issues....mostly...

Here's the secret though, the pillows don't snore, they don't hog the covers, they don't slobber on your pillow, I'm sure there's more that makes them better I just can't think of them just now...

I just like to spoon, lol. My husband says I fidget too much and disturb his sleep if I spoon him, ROFL !!

Athynae, I just saw your siggy and almost died laughing - has Foxy seen it?

He either hasn't seen it OR he's doing what I said which is very doubtful, I just don't think he could resist saying something....

Spooning can be hazardous. Back in our small bed days we didn’t have room to roll over, so we had to sort of flip in place. Once Mr. Grits flipped over and gave the pillow a couple of vicious punches to fluff it up again. Of course I had been curled up right against him. Got me twice right in the side of the face.

I woke up confused. Mr. Grits was too horrified to speak. Apparently I said something like, “Fine, I’ll get my own alarm clock.”

This conversation really brings a wonderful line from Terry Pratchett to mind: 'A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.'

Believe I had the rather odd habit of walking on the tips of my toes when I was younger. Nearly got to the point where I had shortened hamstrings, which is a slightly alarming prospect...

Completely unrelated to the topic at hand, but;

I CAN LEGALLY DRIVE UNSUPERVISED! FEAR ME!!

I agree!




URK !!! My hair used to be down to the middle of my thighs, and my husband (then) used to roll over on it in his sleep if I was facing away from him. My head would jerk back painfully and I’d wake up like this:

“YEEEOOOOWWW!!!!”

I cut my hair twice, once to the top of my hips, second time to the middle of my back, same thing. He just found my hair like some kind of magnet and wallowed on it. If I lay my hair up on the pillow to avoid his ruminating over it, somehow his meaty arm would plop down on the top of my pillow and yank it.

NOT spooning was dangerous with him, lol.



GAAAAAAH !!!

My youngest son tiptoed longer than most, he could balance on the handlebars of his Hotwheels trike on tiptoes. It just went away after an ear operation before he was two, though how or whether that was connected I’m not sure.


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Ooh, that does not sound fun. I went through a period of immensely big, curly hair at one point in my life, which did have the rather unpleasant side effect of a) making hats impossible to put on and sometimes getting caught in low hanging tree branches/bushes (it was very curly and kind of grew upwards and outwards more than anything else). After something like the fifth time, I just thought 'sod it, I'm cutting it short'. Turns out it looks better and I can wear hats properly, so everyone wins.


Yes, fear me! FOUR-WHEELED DOOM IS UNLEASHED!!

Also, could be the ear canals, maybe? They're connected to balance, after all, so that might have been affecting it.

It was his ear canals, created a terrible imbalance and he was hearing impaired almost all his life because of it. That early surgery didn't give him hearing but did stop the tiptoe-ing. Numerous surgeries later they did make it so he could hear, (that had to be redone a couple years ago). So what did he do as soon as he could hear - took up music. He plays about five musical instruments now.

And - I want to see a picture of the long curly hair !!! Lol.

I was a tip-toer...until I was like 3 or 4...but I think it was just because I wanted to sneak up on everyone...

Colonel, let me know when you'll be on the road and I'll let you have it. Actually, thus far I have successfully taught 4 teens to drive, 2 of mine and 2 that were friends of my children because their mothers refused to even walk out to the driveway with them. I started driving a farm truck on the farm when I was 10, the tractor when I was 8. The truck had no brakes so I learned A LOT before I was actually on the road. I think my Dad let me actually drive the car on pavement the first time when I was 12.

I second the vote on the big, curly hair!!

So the Great Rabbit (aka Mrs. Treydog) is one of those women who thinks 70 degrees F is chilly. Except in the summer when people coming into the house have to bring sweaters. Reason this matters is it means she tends to sleep under LOTS of covers- including a nice thick LL Bean housecoat, complete with sash.

So one night, I was minding my own business, sleeping soundly. Feel her roll to her right side (away from me). And then I feel something around my THROAT!

Much pulling ensues, and I begin to make the sort of sounds one would expect to make when being garroted with the sash of a housecoat.

She CLAIMS it was an accident- but I am a bit more careful about sleeping too soundly.

xD, my cousins cat did something similar to this, keep in mind this is a really BIG cat, I was sleeping on the floor in their living room, then I opened my eyes because I felt something strange, the cat was looking at me, his orange eyes were shining in the dark, well that creeped me out, okay i went to sleep again, a little while later I opened my eyes and saw that it was on the couch, then it jumped and landed RIGHT on my neck, I could not breath for a little while.
Proof that cats have no souls and want to feed on ours.

Also for the driving thing, I really need to learn how, but driving scares me t-t

Also it feels like everything is bunching up o.O, First the funeral, I got a little fever that week, then all the course work that I'm lagging on, NOW a cold, complete with sinuses(i hate this with a passion), huge headache, and with a dizzy spell! And here I thought that I was going to start writing again this week! xD

ROFL !!!!

Probably scared poor Ms. Treydog to death!!! And if it was intentional Trey all I want to know is what did you do to warrant such an act?? I mean I would have to have a pretty good reason for taking my robe sash to someone.

OK, I'm on my way in a couple of hours to meet the new little human. Son just sent me a text and they just broke his wife's water....

WOO HOO !!! Congrats on the New Grandchild !!!!

They stole their cookie?

Oh and gratz on your grandkiddie!!!!

Woo Athynae - congratulations on the new grandchild. Best kind I'm told, you get them in small doses and get the cute baby factor but none of the changing nappies in the night business.

Congratulations on the new family member Athynae. Are they spoiled yet?

The girl has arrived. She made her debut at 11:22am EST and was 6 lbs 10 ozs and 19 ins long. She has a head full of platinum blonde hair and she is beautiful.....

The post on the Princess of Trouble thread will be delayed for a bit but should be up late Saturday or Sunday...if not sooner.

WOO HOO !!! Congrats, she sounds gorgeous !! A perfect size, too !!! I'll beg for pictures but will understand if you don't want to !!

Oh god, there are even more of that awful family...

Seriously though, congratulations!

Congratulations, Athynae!!

Mega congratulations Athynae!! ...

Hope all goes swimmingly from here on!!... ...

Congrats, Mustard! I consider myself properly warned.