Secular Confessions

[missychrissy]

Chrissy, I did enough programming during grad school to know that I'd rather stick my finger in a socket instead. Troubleshooting code, especially someone else's code, is an absolute nightmare.

And I like it. I'm good at spotting a , when it should be a . and just seeing whether there should be a space or not. And like I said, it may get boring, frustrating, monotonous...but there's nothing like that 'aha' moment when you figure it out and everything just works. I took programming in college as well but opted to do what I do for the human factor. I rarely go 30 minutes without talking to someone and I like that.

Chrissy, I feel your pain to some degree because I work in research and development in a lab for a biotech company. My entire job is try this, oops that didn't work, let's try this. Oh, that looked good for 3 days and then died, let's try something else. All under enormous time pressure to get new products out the door. It's wicked fun! ha!

I can relate to things working for 3 days and up and dying too.

[Cosmosmom]

Kate, I hope that they can figure something out. It's good that you said something though and maybe they can go from there.

Poor Chrissy...that does sound like elecontrics hell. Haha about Connor though that is cute!

I don't know anything about programming. Other than back in high school when I first got online and into a chat room (when you had to constantly refresh for new comments), I learned a tiny bit of HTML.

I think that I will stick with the research I do....it's usually pretty easy and not frustrating for me.

Yesterday afternoon I went to a presentation at work....it was for nurses week and they were presenting various research projects and evidence based practice projects they had been working on. I went because so many of them, I did the literature searches for and it's great to hear when happened to projects after I hand over searches and articles. A number of them over the past few years have changed practice for the better. The best part was that I got mentioned several times, including one who put my name on her power point.

And I went to class yesterday and was expecting no loss and maybe a bit of a gain....and lost 2.1. So for the first two weeks, total is 5.3 lbs. And that was just adding and taking away habits....this week we started talking portion control. I'm supposed to eat at LEAST 5 servings of fruit and same with veggies every day. I like fruits and veggies but still that is a big amount.

And I got unfriend on FB for the first time I think. LOL Someone from my adoption group (though she's since turned up PG....3 of the 6 couples have gotten pg and so are on adoption hold) was offended by my gay marriage posts last night. But she kept my DH as her friend. LOL Whatever. I thought that they were mega weird in the first place and didn't like this couple at all.

[missychrissy]

Ugh-morons! My mil and her husband have both unfriended me because my mil jumped all over my sil, ON FACEBOOK, and I simply posted, "I'm amazed at how well you've turned out Jamie especially since you never had a roll model to look up to." Which is true, but apparently mil didn't like reading that. She also unfriended Jamie and Rich. Rich because he's married to me, I guess.

And don't worry about the 5 servings...a serving is really, really small. If you only eat one, you'll die of starvation!

[AmeriBrit]

I've noticed that my friend count has gone down on fb before but have never taken the time to figure out who's unfriended me. Lol. My brother unfriended me a few weeks ago out of the blue, so I asked my mom to find out what I did to him and she asked him and then he refriended me without ever explaining himself.

[Cosmosmom]

Maybe it was an accidental unfriending?

I know about mine only because DH said she posted something about being sick and tired of posts about political views and positions and unfriending people. So he figured it was about me (though my state is going through a big recall so a lot of political stuff too...which I don't think I have shared lately) and I went and checked. And yup she wasn't there anymore. A big huge whatever....not going to hid my beliefs. I just hide or ignore those that I don't agree with.

[demigraf]

Ugh-morons! My mil and her husband have both unfriended me because my mil jumped all over my sil, ON FACEBOOK, and I simply posted, "I'm amazed at how well you've turned out Jamie especially since you never had a roll model to look up to." Which is true, but apparently mil didn't like reading that. She also unfriended Jamie and Rich. Rich because he's married to me, I guess.

Like!

[demigraf]

I went to the office today to complain about my kids on the bus. I am seriously scared for their safety sometimes. Violence (punching) has been threatened and honestly I don't want to deal with that or worry about getting caught in the crossfire or anything. So I went and told my boss and she got some people involved. The instigator (C) is going to take a different bus by himself tomorrow, but that doesn't really punish him, because he'll just be back to the same when he's with us again. I guess it's good that it separates him for a day though. He's always joking that nothing happens when he gets written up so I mostly wanted to go make something happen.

So, is C back on the bus tomorrow? I'm wondering what you can do to motivate your bosses to actually do something to reprimand him. Where are his parents in all this?

Chrissy, I can kind of feel your pain with regards to untangling someone else's poorly executed code implementation. These last few weeks have been spent reverse engineering something that not only was undocumented, but also turned out to be a cluster!@#k, so no wonder no one tried to document that mess. Makes me wonder why we are even reverse engineering when we can just build it the right way from scratch. Oh wait, it's because we're totally in bed with the company that made the crappy system and don't have a choice but to work with them as our starting point.

Jennifer, way to go with the weight loss!! I'm so happy to hear that you are seeing progress.

[missychrissy]

Like!

It's really not nice that I did that, and I have a rule about arguing with anyone on facebook, especially in the open like that. But cripes, Jamie's just suffered a horrible loss and her mother is posting things like, "I'm glad your daughter talks to you the way you do, you deserve it" and "I'm not your mother" and "everything that happens to you you brought on yourself" I mean it was goign on and on and on...no one ever sticks up for Jamie. She's done it all alone for years. Marilyn (my mil) would never dare say those things to her two sons. I don't know why she's so mean to her own daughter. She even said she should have put a "for sale" sign on her when she was born. wtf?

So, is C back on the bus tomorrow? I'm wondering what you can do to motivate your bosses to actually do something to reprimand him. Where are his parents in all this?

Chrissy, I can kind of feel your pain with regards to untangling someone else's poorly executed code implementation. These last few weeks have been spent reverse engineering something that not only was undocumented, but also turned out to be a cluster!@#k, so no wonder no one tried to document that mess. Makes me wonder why we are even reverse engineering when we can just build it the right way from scratch. Oh wait, it's because we're totally in bed with the company that made the crappy system and don't have a choice but to work with them as our starting point.

Jennifer, way to go with the weight loss!! I'm so happy to hear that you are seeing progress.

Ugh-now that would drive me nuts. I don't think I'd be able to reverse engineer anything...I'd be really pushing to rebuild from scratch.

[AmeriBrit]

Ugh, I have this one family member who I really cannot stand. She's a bible thumper and such a hypocrite about stuff. I was being nosey the other day looking through her facebook page and she was ranting about how some app on there shows what tv shows people have been watching and if people really are watching what it says they are, she is very disappointed in her fellow christians for not being a good example to others. Seriously, I wanted to be all smart-a ss and say something about getting off her high horse, but I just left it. Ain't worth the backlash. Bah.

[demigraf]

I'm slowly catching up on my reading and working backwards. Sorry if my comments are a day late and a dollar short. The spider discussion is giving me the willies, especially because Bodhi loves this (terribly written) book about spiders and makes me read it every other day. The spider facts are interesting; it's the surrounding story that's lame. I hate stories with both text AND cartoon bubbles over illustrated characters. They never flow. But anyway, the book claims that no matter where you are, you're rarely more than 6 feet away from of a spider. Spiders usually don't usually bother me, but all this talk about spider bites is giving me the heebies.

And on co-sleeping... I love it. Even for a portion of each night. Either DH or I always end up in Bodhi's bed by morning 9 times out of 10. I'm convinced that getting to snuggle a child like that releases a ton of "happy neurotransmitters" in the brain.

[daylilies]

Yes, I think C will be back on the bus unless they're holding meetings that I don't know about. Someone from the school came up to me when we went to pick up the kids and said "C is saying that Red is hitting him, not the other way around" well of course he's saying that, he doesn't want to get in trouble.

From what I gathered, C's mother thinks it's the other kids' faults that C gets in trouble. I don't know what his dad's like, but from what I hear from C his dad spoils him. So his mom thinks he does no wrong and his father spoils him. It doesn't sound like they're laying down the law over there. C lives with his mom and she works, so if he misses the bus or gets suspended from it, he gets to stay home. Sounds like he doesn't really get punished either way.

I'm seriously torn because I know Red also causes trouble but he's obviously got more issues of self control and he's quite a bit younger and his maturity level is even lower than his age. C seems very in control of himself and I think he should know better.

Myles, I've heard that about spiders being 6 feet away or less. As long as I can't see them, that's fine.

[daylilies]

Ugh, I have this one family member who I really cannot stand. She's a bible thumper and such a hypocrite about stuff. I was being nosey the other day looking through her facebook page and she was ranting about how some app on there shows what tv shows people have been watching and if people really are watching what it says they are, she is very disappointed in her fellow christians for not being a good example to others. Seriously, I wanted to be all smart-a ss and say something about getting off her high horse, but I just left it. Ain't worth the backlash. Bah.

Speaking of that kind of thing, both my drivers that I ride with are conservative. One is more vocal about it than the other but the more quiet one comments too. We were talking about Provincetown (a town on Cape Cod with a large gay population) and he says "you don't want to go there, and see all the gays." I just kind of shrugged and he was quiet. I really don't want to get into an uncomfortable situation with someone I have to sit alone with every day so I keep my mouth shut.

One driver listens to an AM radio station that isn't bad in the morning, it's news, but in the afternoon it's a conservative talk show. "The corner of conservative and common sense" They bash Obama and compare him to Romney and talk about how great Romney is.

[Cosmosmom]

Ugg on spiders....that is just....disturbing.

and I do think that snuggling a quiet/sleeping baby child probably does release happy chemicals.....they say that petting/snuggline doggies does so if you like kids, probably works for them as well.

[Suja]

Chrissy, the problem isn't usually fixing one's own code, but trying to figure out what the heck the others were doing, the weird logic they use, the lack of comments (or worse, wrong/nonsense comments), lack of understanding of simple concepts like recursion, using if-then-else like that's the only way to do conditional logic, etc. I couldn't do it, for sure.

[missychrissy]

Kate, isn't C older than Red? If it were my kid getting in trouble for hitting a younger child it wouldn't even be a consideration to me about who started it. In my house, it's "Who's older?" As far as the conservative radio...man, you're better than me 'cause I'd be raising a stink about that. I'd be offended to have to sit and listen to it.

[daylilies]

Yeah, C is 16 or 17 and Red is 13.

When it's not totally offensive the radio show is kind of interesting. I don't follow politics as much as I should, so if I hear a viewpoint I don't agree with or I think may be biased, I try to remember to go home and research it.

[Ky'sMom]

Hello everyone!!

Back from my FILs funeral in Arkansas. We took the Megabus for the first time and it was pretty nice and we are planning on using it as a mode of travel in the future. I got round trip tickets for all 4 of us for only $200, so $50 a piece, that was a great deal!

The funeral was as expected though and we are planning on visiting DH's grandmother more often now since FIL passed away. He lived with her and took care of her and was her only family member who made sure she was okay on a day to day basis. She can take care of herself but she is 86 years old and it worries me, her being by herself all the time. FIL was her last biological child, she has an adopted daughter, but she lives an hour away and even though she does go and check on her every weekend, I worry about our grandmother. I was more concerned and sad for her than I was about FIL dying just because I know that through all of his issues, he really loved his mom and looked out for her.

Anyway...done catching up and all the bedtime woes made my head hurt and made me tired. Luckily, Elle has never been one to really have bedtime issues. Ky did when he was younger, but I basically just gave up on trying to figure out what he wanted and instituted a no nonsense rule about bedtime. It took about 6 months but eventually he stopped with all the shenanigans - asking for food/drink, asking a million non-relevant questions, screaming about not wanting to go to bed, getting out of the bed multiple times, etc. The screaming was the worse as he would scream and holler for a long time and I just got to the point where I told him I wasn't answering him anymore (it was making me crazy as I need nights to recuperate as I need a few hours of silence every day). We would do our regular routine, which included hugs/kisses, and multiple stories per night plus a song, but after the song and the lights were turned out, then that was that and I would look forward to seeing him in the morning. If he had a problem during the middle of the night, I told DH to handle it, to this day both kids will go to him at night before me if they are afraid or sick or something. As I type it out it may seem stringent, but it worked for him and he behaved better after getting his sleep and was less crazy acting during the day. Like I said, Elle has never really had bedtime issues, but I have continued the same pattern for her. She will try to ask me questions but I tell her to save them until morning. I am happy that with her I have actually had to experience that wonderful, kiss me at bedtime and say good night sort of thing you see on TV that used to anger me when Ky was younger LOL.

On MW vs Mayo, mayo always wins for me. I have even turned DH away from MW. It is too sweet for me and not thick enough and just disgusting IMO. DH now agrees that mayo is better since I have deprived him for so long of MW. I always told him if he wanted it he would have to buy it himself and he did for a while, but he's lazy and doesn't like shopping so he stopped and got used to mayo.

Tomorrow I get to go back to work and I am so not looking forward to it since I know that I will be swamped with crap that someone else could have done but didn't while I was gone. But at least I will be able to keep busy a while.

Erin

[Gwenn]

Glad you're back, Erin. I hope Grandma is okay on her own.

[AmeriBrit]

I'm glad you're back, Erin. We've missed you on here. What part of Arkansas did your FIL live in?

[demigraf]

Welcome back, Erin. I wish I could take a Megabus somewhere fun. Yeah, I would be concerned for DH's gramma too. I hope she has someone to keep an eye on her.

Does anyone have Mother's Day plans? We're going to take a drive up to Sonoma to see a train museum (somehow holidays/anniversaries still end up revolving around Bodhi, but we don't mind). Then I want to take the long way back, via this town where the Russian River flows into the Pacific, and there are often baby seals playing at the mouth of the river. I haven't been there in 10 yrs.

Oh, yes, and btw, Erin. We agree about Miracle Whip. It has an aftertaste to it that I don't have the palate for. Real mayo all the way for me. I've started putting a tbsp of mayo in my cooked greens. Sounds yucky, but with a lime, garlic and tomato base, it 's actually quite good. When I'm feeling racy, I throw some spiral noodles into the pot too.

[Bridget]

The megabus! We have a huge running joke in our family about the mega bus because my mom, dad, myself, Savana and Kai took it to see my brother in the twin cities when Kai was a baby. We decided to take the night bus on the way home so the kids would sleep. It was INSANE. The bus driver was putting on movies that people had brought and they were all rated R. It was like 2am and he put on some horrible murderous movie and a woman behind us who also had her kids on the bus went up to ask him to take it out and everyone started yelling at her and calling her a white b!tch trying to ruin everyone's fun. Also there was a man in the front seat who kept blasting his boombox until another man confronted him about it and they started fighting. It was the longest and most eventful trip of my entire life!

And now Kai's puking. This stomach virus is creeping through my family at a snail's pace.

[AmeriBrit]

Ugh. I'm sorry the illness has lingered at your house, Bridget. I'm suffering with an upper uti right now, so I'm not feeling so great. We're supposed to be going out with friends for drinks tonight. I guess I'll still go out if I'm feeling a little better and just have cranberry juice without the vodka.

The one and only time I ever took a bus anywhere was a Greyhound from Michigan to Arkansas. I'll never travel by bus again. It was much like what you described, Bridget. I don't even like to take the train anywhere either. People at work used to say I was a transport snob for preferring to drive everywhere.

[AmeriBrit]

Ugh. I'm sorry the illness has lingered at your house, Bridget. I'm suffering with an upper uti right now, so I'm not feeling so great. We're supposed to be going out with friends for drinks tonight. I guess I'll still go out if I'm feeling a little better and just have cranberry juice without the vodka.

The one and only time I ever took a bus anywhere was a Greyhound from Michigan to Arkansas. I'll never travel by bus again. It was much like what you described, Bridget. I don't even like to take the train anywhere either. People at work used to say I was a transport snob for preferring to drive everywhere.

[missychrissy]

Oh Bridget! I remember you talking about that bus trip before! The only times I've ridden a bus anywhere, it was chartered. Well, except up here at work. I do ride one on occasion in the city.

I don't have mother's day plans, but Conner & Rich are cooking something up. Conner is even keeping it a secret.

Erin, I'm glad you're back. I hope your dh's grandmother will be ok. Is there any possibility of her moving closer to you guys in the future? I'm sure she's ok for now, but at that age she really should think about what she is going to do as her ability to care for herself diminishes.

All this mayo/mw controversy has made me realize y'all ain't gonna want to eat at my house when I have my big secular mom's weekend party. How disappointing.

[Smplyme89]

Nolan and I are doing a 5k with my mom and than taking her out to breakfast after. Beyond that DH is NOT working (so sad that that is a big deal, but it is what it is) and will be cooking dinner for us

Chrissy I'm not interested in the food, as long as there is drinks I'm there

[Ky'sMom]

We had a great experience on the Megabus. They don't play movies down south here on the little TVs since they got a lot of complaints and no one was rowdy, unlike the many trips I have taken on Greyhound. There were also no stinky people and the buses were really clean. They just moved to the SE region and since they are way cheaper than Greyhound and don't stop at every little town in between me and my destination, I will probably use them again, especially to visit our grandmother.

Ash, my in-laws are from Brinkley AK. It is about an hour west of Memphis, not far from West Memphis AK. My grandma in law was born in West Memphis as was FIL. They have a long history in the family. Grandma's father owned a "juke joint" which served as a cafe during the day and played host to many a great blues legends like BB King and others. Grandma told me about how BB came and played at the joint on her birthday. She and BB have the same birthday, same day and year so he joked about them being twins. Grandma owned her own funeral home, which she told me before but I wasn't thinking of it until at the funeral home where FILs funeral was held had her picture all over the walls. FIL also worked there for twenty years as an embalmer. During his second year in Vietnam, he was asked to be on "morgue duty" due to his experience embalming and working with the dead. Even though he was grateful to be out of combat he spoke little about his experience doing that except to say that he'd never seen bodies as tore up as he did when he worked on morgue duty and how it sickened him. FILs dad was the first black police officer in Memphis TN back in the 40s so they have a long history in that area and are really proud to be from East Arkansas.

Erin

[missychrissy]

Nolan and I are doing a 5k with my mom and than taking her out to breakfast after. Beyond that DH is NOT working (so sad that that is a big deal, but it is what it is) and will be cooking dinner for us

Chrissy I'm not interested in the food, as long as there is drinks I'm there

Of course there will be drinks. And daycare (my teens).

We had a great experience on the Megabus. They don't play movies down south here on the little TVs since they got a lot of complaints and no one was rowdy, unlike the many trips I have taken on Greyhound. There were also no stinky people and the buses were really clean. They just moved to the SE region and since they are way cheaper than Greyhound and don't stop at every little town in between me and my destination, I will probably use them again, especially to visit our grandmother.

Ash, my in-laws are from Brinkley AK. It is about an hour west of Memphis, not far from West Memphis AK. My grandma in law was born in West Memphis as was FIL. They have a long history in the family. Grandma's father owned a "juke joint" which served as a cafe during the day and played host to many a great blues legends like BB King and others. Grandma told me about how BB came and played at the joint on her birthday. She and BB have the same birthday, same day and year so he joked about them being twins. Grandma owned her own funeral home, which she told me before but I wasn't thinking of it until at the funeral home where FILs funeral was held had her picture all over the walls. FIL also worked there for twenty years as an embalmer. During his second year in Vietnam, he was asked to be on "morgue duty" due to his experience embalming and working with the dead. Even though he was grateful to be out of combat he spoke little about his experience doing that except to say that he'd never seen bodies as tore up as he did when he worked on morgue duty and how it sickened him. FILs dad was the first black police officer in Memphis TN back in the 40s so they have a long history in that area and are really proud to be from East Arkansas.

Erin

Your family history is so interesting. So many important firsts. And BB King?! Really? How far out is that? Your poor fil though...I can't imagine How sad for him.

[AmeriBrit]

Oh, we drive through West Memphis every time we go home to Arkansas. I'm from North central Arkansas. About a 2.5 hour drive from Memphis. We love going to Memphis when we can. That's an interesting history your in-laws have. I bet it's great listening to their stories. I miss listening to my papaw telling us his stories of growing up as a gypsy.

Chrissy, we'll just have to go to Midge's restaurant when we have the secular mommas get-together. ;-)

[AmeriBrit]

Oh, we drive through West Memphis every time we go home to Arkansas. I'm from North central Arkansas. About a 2.5 hour drive from Memphis. We love going to Memphis when we can. That's an interesting history your in-laws have. I bet it's great listening to their stories. I miss listening to my papaw telling us his stories of growing up as a gypsy.

Chrissy, we'll just have to go to Midge's restaurant when we have the secular mommas get-together. ;-)

[3andMe]

I finally got it together to send out a mini-evite for S's birthday party on Mother's Day. It will just be at my mom's house, in the evening, with family. We decided to make it as easy as possible. We'll have a build-your-own sandwich bar and salads and strawberry pie and ice cream cake and balloons and a kiddie pool. Hopefully S. will nap earlier in the day.

Every time I ask him how old he is, he tells me something different. He says 10 days, then he'll say 5 years, or six years, or 3 months. And he'll crack up.