TerriDoodle

Tracy, your post was the best thing to happen to me all day!! So glad to see you again. We missed you so much!! You're always a part of this group....whether you are actually HERE or not! The drama with Evan has calmed down a WEE bit tonight but it took ALL DAY to get here. It started at 11:30 last night when I got the dreaded phone call...he called saying he wrecked his car (AGAIN). That's a long story all by itself, but he's OK, not hurt or anything and the car was towed off once again to the body shop. Things didn't go well after we all go home and by 1:30AM he was out the door sobbing and on foot and I had no idea where he was headed....probably to one of his friends, but I couldn't be sure. Phone calls to his dad, girlfriend, etc., then a restless sleep kept me up until 3:30AM and my alarm went off at 5:15 to get up for work. My son was missing. I went thru the motions but ended up in a heap of tears in my boss' office and he told me to GO HOME. Finally found Evan and brought him home at 10:30a but it was insanity for the next 9 hours. Not arguing at all, just trying to make sense of his world. With his bipolar it's very difficult to do and reasonable logic simply does not work with him. He left my house again at around 8:00p....on foot....in the rain....headed for who-knows-where. Said he just needed some space and time to think, blah blah blah. After 20 more phone calls between him, me and his dad it was his STEP MOTHER who finally convinced him to come in out of the rain, over to their house and get a hot meal, a shower and a night's sleep. Thank God....and all of you for your prayers. Once again, they worked. Tomorrow will be a different day with new challenges, I'm sure. But today was a doozie. I'm headed for bed now. I love you all. T.

It's becoming obvious that he learned from the "best", Beth.

Dear Violets, Please take a moment to muster all your prayer power for my son, Evan, today. We need them desperately. Too exhausted to go into the details but please help us today...and tomorrow too. And maybe the next one after that while you're at it. Thanks. I love you all!

Uh, what did he want Suzie?? Just to catch up on old times??

Any bets on how this Chrysler bankruptcy will turn out? The proposal that's on the table is unprecedented and frankly illegal. Will the judge have the balls to do the right thing or will he, too, succumb to Obama's ...uh...."charm".

Well, what's even worse is that he most certainly WAS aware of all the items on that list....but here we are anyway!! Did you hear about his latest appointment? Steve Rattner as the "Car Czar? It's sickening: From The Washington Examiner Obama’s auto policy: All in the Democratic family By: TIMOTHY P. CARNEY Examiner Columnist 05/05/09 8:02 PM EDT -- President Barack Obama’s auto industry policy promises to heighten the influence of lobbyists and to open the door to ethical transgressions and even outright corruption. By naming as car czar a financier who is also a Democratic fundraiser steeped in cozy business-government relationships, and by replacing the traditional bankruptcy procedures with the will of politicians, Obama has injected Detroit with all the elements of crony capitalism. Auto czar Steve Rattner, 56, a top Democratic fundraiser, is an old hand at leveraging political influence into profit, as shown by the business dealings of his hedge fund, Quadrangle Group. One Quadrangle client was New York City’s pension fund — an arrangement at the heart of recent federal convictions for illegal kickbacks. Federal authorities charged that a “senior executive” at Quadrangle — Rattner, according to the Wall Street Journal — met with a consultant who was looking for places to invest the city’s pension fund money. A short time later, the city invested in Quadrangle, and Quadrangle cut a check to the consultant, who has since pleaded guilty to taking illegal kickbacks. Quadrangle is not under investigation nor has it been accused of wrongdoing in making the payment, but New York’s comptroller is looking into whether the firm failed to disclose the payment. Rattner, it turns out, is also the personal money manager for New York City’s Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg. In Washington, Quadrangle also seems to play politics for profit. Quadrangle paid $160,000 to the K Street firm Navigant Consulting from February 2005 through the end of 2006 to lobby Congress, the White House, and the Department of Labor on a handful of bills regarding asbestos litigation and compensation. What was Quadrangle’s stake in asbestos legislation? The firm didn’t return a phone call seeking an answer, but it’s not too hard to deduce. Many hedge funds invested in companies damaged by asbestos lawsuits. These funds then lobbied for legislation that would alleviate some of the liability the companies faced, thus boosting companies’ stock value. Alternatively, a hedge fund could make the opposite play: Watch a vulnerable company’s stock rise as prospects improve for asbestos legislation, then short the company and lobby to kill the bill. Sometimes the lobbyists just acted as intelligence gatherers. A Wall Street Journal article in December 2006 explained the dynamic: “Some hedge funds, which tend to choose riskier investments that can yield high returns, saw the troubled asbestos companies as attractive. To weigh the value of their investments and decipher bankruptcy-court actions, hedge funds hired teams of analysts and researchers. When Congress began considering legislation to bail out the industry, the funds hired lobbyists to assess its prospects.” So Rattner understands how public policy can create private profits. It should come as no surprise, then, that his auto plan involves upending bankruptcy law and precedent in favor of a system in which the winners and losers are chosen by politicians or their appointed “czars.” Rattner and Obama have decided that the United Auto Workers union should get 55 percent of Chrysler. At the same time, they’ve attacked many of Chrysler’s secured creditors — who, in a regular, nonpoliticized bankruptcy, would be repaid in full — for resisting this deal. In a federal complaint, these administration targets alleged: “The government exerted extreme pressure to coerce all of [Chrysler’s] constituencies into accepting a deal which is being done largely for the benefit of unsecured creditors at the expense of senior creditors.” For the foreseeable future, Chrysler will be on the federal dole, both directly and indirectly. The Obama-Rattner plan puts UAW in charge of Chrysler, which is good news for the Democratic Party. UAW’s political action committee spent $13.1 million last election cycle, a slow year for the union’s political arm. Of the PAC’s $2.3 million in direct contributions to candidates and candidate PACs, more than 99 percent went to Democrats. Of 42 Senate candidates to get UAW money, only one was Republican, and that was Arlen Specter. The union’s PAC also reported $4.5 million in independent expenditures supporting Obama, plus an additional $423,000 opposing John McCain. So, here’s the arrangement: You pay your taxes, the Obama administration funnels some of the money to Chrysler, whose profits enrich the UAW, which in turn funds Obama’s re-election. Predictability, precedent and the rule of law have been replaced with the fiat of politicians. Chrysler could become a pass-through entity from taxpayers to the Democratic Party. And in charge of it all is a Democratic fundraiser. Boss Tweed would be proud.

BJean - Your arguments have been so compelling that I concede and I have seen the light!!! I'm 100% converted. Thank you for sharing the depths of your wisdom. I am RE-BORN!!!

Here's some pictures from yesterday -- nice place, eh? The couple in one of the pics were our hosts. Wonderful people and I'm so lucky to have them as friends. Another couple in this group own the condo in Steamboat we're staying in. Heh...it's nice to have rich friends!!

I have been to your artsy fartsy town, Pamela and I LOVED it!! What made it especially wonderful was that I was attending a 3 day "new age" conference, learning so many cool things, hanging out with an amazing crowd of people and feeling downright euphoric. So yeah, I have great memories of Palm Springs! As a matter of fact I still remember a painting I saw in one gallery that was willing to give my left arm for, but they weren't interested in having my severed arm. They wanted cash!? LOL

I just bought that book, Jack, but I haven't started it yet. I am reading The 5000 Year Leap and it has opened my eyes in ways I could never have imagined. I'm anxious to read Levin's book as well.

Hey Girlz, We had a wonderful day out in the country with our friends! I could have stayed much longer but had to get home :tt2: It's such a nice piece of Texas -- gentle rolling hills and everything was SO green because of all the rain we've had. The cows were all very very happy...and fat! Oh, I ate too much and feel like a bloated toad frog tonight. Must be the cucumbers! I really enjoyed the Greek salad I brought and want to make more tomorrow! YUM! I had no idea that the dressing is only olive oil, lemon juice, salt, pepper and oregano! I made a BIG bowl of it and it was ALL GONE. :biggrin: That's always a compliment! I also taught Hannah how to make homemade cinnamon rolls this morning. OMG. Good thing I left the house shortly after they came out of the oven or I would have eaten the whole pan. I haven't made those in a very long time!! She's 5'9" and weighs 125 -- she can eat them all day long. Well, I need to go take a HOT shower and get in bed. It was a long (but way fun) day. XOXO!

I work for a public company that employs about 500 and produces the gas that heats your home and the oil that puts gas in your tank. We are an extremely conservative company, and known industry-wide for our very high ethical standards for the fair way we treat our landowners, the responsible manner that we treat the land itself and for the more-than-fair wages and benefits we provide our employees. Before PrezBO is done our business will probably be taxed into oblivion and you will have one less oil producer providing that precious commodity. Multiply that about 750x and you'll find that we'll have about 5 major oil companies running the whole industry. Hmmmm. Whattaya think THAT will do to energy prices, m'dear? You combine that with this cap-n-trade garbage and you can bet your bottom dollar your energy costs will TRIPLE at the very least...not to mention every single product you purchase that relies on energy to produce. If you don't believe me you're a fool. This is very naive thinking on your part. I was listening to a call in show one morning and Houston's most successful residential real estate agent called in to the show. He said that 24% of the foreclosures were on people who moved in on the sub-prime rate deals AND NEVER PAID ONE SINGLE MORTGAGE PAYMENT. By the time the banks go thru their motions and get them evicted they've lived in a house FOR FREE for 18 months. Pretty sweet deal, eh? You don't call that criminal intent? Wait 'til you see this place in about 15 years, my friend. You'll be wishing for the good old days for sure. OMG. What kind of work do you do anyway??? Are you in the business world AT ALL? $20 says you're a clerk who hasn't a clue how businesses are run or you work for the government or you're on welfare. My company pays enormous amounts of taxes not to mention the tremendous cost incurred just in terms of whole departments that necessary to manage paying those taxes AND manage the demands of the SEC AND the EPA AND the state AND federal regulatory agencies that regulate and supervise our business. Jeez, right off the top of my head I can think of about 50 positions that wouldn't be necessary for all the government regulation that's ALREADY in place!!! Are you kidding me? No one is "proposing" it....they are just creating a situation where it is inevitable. This is gonna be far, far worse than the damage the Carter administration did to this country because of the black hole of debt they are creating. Bjean - tell me, what is your understanding of how that debt is going to be repaid?

Oh, Judy...I am so sorry that happened!! How upsetting that has to be. I don't know I'd ever let him out of my sight again...at least it would be very difficult!! How far from the daycare was he found? OMG.

Is your name "Jack"?

Jack, I wonder how many, like me, have gone from shock to anger to action to depression....and moving toward resignation? It's just so out of control my head is spinning every day. The shocking news stories of unprecedented corruption in every office of this administration is starting to feel insurmountable. I heard one thing yesterday that makes a lot of sense. One of the reasons they're bulldozing so many programs and policy changes down our throats at dizzying speed is so that we don't have time to focus on any one thing. Example: When was the last time you heard anything about AIG? Oh, that's old news now!! We've had 10 other fires since then and nobody's paying attention to them anymore! Stimulus plan "oversight committee" meeting the other day -- only 3 of the 10 congressmen on the committee even bothered to show up for the meeting!!!? States reclaiming sovereignity and pursuing the matter of PrezBO's legitimacy appear to be the best options for getting any kind of control of this madness. Man, I've just never seen anything like this -- then again WWII was before my time.

Yeah, Laura, you'll probably wake up every 3 hours anyway! Are you from that part of the country Suzie?

How'd you get those tickets, Haydee?? Wowser! Lucky girl! ....and I LOVE TEXAS too, but I sure do love the mountains in the summertime! I have to admit that I do dream about living there but it'll never happen. DH is joined at the hip with his brothers and sisters here -- he'd never leave. When (IF) we ever get to retire, I'd sure like to rent a place there for 2 months during the summer. It's amazingly cheap to do it. Like <$2500/mo. sometimes. Cheaper than buying a place, that's fo sho!

No, Pam -- the Colorado trip takes the place of my patio renovation! LOL I'm actually saving money! I don't have a fear of flying -- I'm one of those weird people that loves it! It means I'm getting the hell out of Houston!

Hi Girlz!! Tracy - do they have a whirlpool at your gym? Even a good hot bath will help immensely! No...don't weigh!!! Your muscles are holding onto water to help them repair and you WILL show at least a 3# gain!! That's very discouraging so just don't weigh!! Jenn - I'm just always so happy to see you post, whenever you do get to post just to keep us updated and let us know you've still got your head above water! We are ALWAYS here for you, just don't forget that! Jane - feeling better today? Judy - $20 says your closet is already bulging with clothes! But, hey...any excuse to go shopping is a good excuse! Do you have Kohl's in Alpena? Laura - WHAT PAMELA SAID!!! Got all the plans made for our Colorado trip and now I'm peein' in my pants to get on that airplane!!!!!! Look at these shots -- the 1st one is Steamboat Springs, taken from the ski mountain down into the Yampa River Valley. The 2nd one is Estes Park, on the edge of the Rocky Mountain National Park. That sure ain't Texas!!

Hi Girlz - sorry to be AWOL... I've been spending my time online trying to find a dang place to stay in Estes Park for just one night! Everything is a 3 night minimum! I think I may have found one though it took me all day on the 'puter to find it! My eyes are shot! So my patio renovation turned into a Colorado vacation instead -- cheaper anyway -- and I'll be so happy to get back there. AND I get to visit another part of Colorado I haven't seen yet -- Rocky Mountain National Park. I need to get a map with stick pins in it! I've been more places in Colorado than I have in Texas! Of course, there's LOTS more to see there! I am sooooooo tired and heading for bed. I didn't sleep worth a dang last night. I'm gonna crank the A/C down and sleep dammit! I'm already so tired of being hot! The weather here has been AWFUL this week! Soooooooooo humid and hot -- just like July already! I have a fun weekend planned - can't wait!! A group of 4 couples are going to a friend's ranch about an hour away. We'll sit on the porch, eat BBQ, drink beer, wine and Bellinis (my new fave), play horseshoes and washers, and maybe do a little fishin'. That'll be a nice break. I'd take Hero but he might just get distracted by all the good smells and run away! ... or get kicked by a cow... so it's a shame he can't go. He'd have a blast. Jenn - remind me to take bug spray!!!!

I just looked at all of Carson's latest pics on Facebook and just want to cry. He is sooooo precious!!! I love him!!!

Hi Everyone! - Didn't mean to stay away so long, just dwelling in my own little world over here. Was busy with Hannah and her BFF over the weekend - They are SO cute and fun! I really enjoy teenagers (for the most part). I decided this morning to plan a trip to Colorado in July -- I just can't NOT go. I have to. Life's too short not to enjoy the mountains once a year at least. DH may or may not go; he's taken on a part-time contract on top of his full-time job so he'll probably be working. So it's just me and the girls and maybe Evan. I am so looking forward to it. Suzie - I most definitely need to sue Mexico. Whoever invented the cheese enchilada needs to burn. Jenn - How/when will you ever get over this thing?? I need to go do some research. Jane - Love your star system! And congrats on having the money saved up for your auto repairs!! It's a lot better system than relying on your credit cards, isn't it? Way to go! Tracy - I loved all the pics of you!! That one of you in the green T-shirt (at Cafe Express) makes you look way bigger than you really are. Frank looks like such a sweetheart. I think choosing a male trainer is a good idea. I've had both and prefer the guys. I work harder for them... more of a motivation somehow. Heather - how many days now? When is school over for you? You must be really, really tired! You better schedule some good rest in the next few days! Haydee - You dog. Travelling here and there and everywhere! Lots of weddings, eh? That's good!! Seems like you've been burning it at both ends for quite awhile, too! Kat, Laura, Pam, Judy & Michelle - HI!! :-) Gotta run!

Go Tracy!!! I'm really proud of you! Stock up liquid Advil! LOL Nothing much going on here. One of my bosses just showed me pics of a $2,000,000 house he's buying in Steamboat Springs. Must be nice. I'm wringing my hands over whether or not to spend $5k on a patio renovation! Kat - that's amazing about your parents' windfall! In my state of mind these days I think I'd blow about $10K and stick the rest in the bank! I'm no fun anymore. Well, I have to go do some online shopping for my boss for his new mountain home. <sigh> He needs deck furniture and I guess has no desire to do it himself. Well, it's better than filing. TTYL.

WARNING: This is strictly for pot luck or large family dinners. Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT allow any leftovers in your house. You will hide in the closet with the pan until it is all gone. Sopapilla Cheesecake Ingredients: 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened 1 cup white sugar (I reduced to about 3/4c) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 (8 ounce) packages refrigerated crescent rolls 1/2 cup melted butter (I reduced to about 1/3c) 1/2 cup white sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon Directions: 1.Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F. Prepare a 9x13 inch baking dish with cooking spray. 2.Beat the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar and the vanilla extract in a bowl until smooth; set aside. 3.Unroll the cans of crescent roll dough, and use a rolling pin to shape each sheet into 9x13 inch rectangles. Press one sheet into the bottom of a 9x13 inch baking dish. Evenly spread the cream cheese mixture into the baking dish, then cover with the remaining piece of crescent dough, and brush (more like pour) with melted butter. Stir together 1/2 cup of sugar with the cinnamon in a small bowl, and sprinkle evenly over the top of the cheesecake. 4. Bake in the preheated oven until the crescent dough has puffed and turned golden brown, about 30 minutes. Allow to cool 10 minutes before serving. I refrigerate the leftovers, if there are any! PS - this is especially good warm from the oven served with vanilla ice cream. They are also good cold.

I have never mastered the art of making dough. :thumbup: I suck at it.