the best me

Okay, glad I have been doing it right. Sometimes I log on, report 2-3 spams, read a bit, and log off, as if it's my duty to be the Spam Police! LOL Each time I report it, I wonder if I'm just bugging the crap outta some poor overworked Mod. But if that's the best way, I'll keep Policing. :heh:

I asked my sister's 13yo step-son about this Emo stuff. He was a bit odd about it at first, then confessed he never thought he'd be having this conversation with me. So, thanks for the info. I cut a corner off this kid's world and made him open up! :heh: We are in NC, and according to him, Emo's are into their feelings (emotions) but he didn't confess to any cutting that he knows about. They are just "deep" (my word). He has a friend who is Goth/Emo (his words) and I concluded that she dressed Goth but was "really" Emo. He said "yeah". Interesting conversation, lol. I don't "talk" teenager anymore, I guess, but he was impressed that I tried to understand. I asked him about the suicide stuff and he said "they are just 'suicides'" and I said "so they just say they want to be dead but they don't, they just want to go around saying they want to be dead, right?" and he said "yeah" in a way that told me they are off the map and dumb. I asked him what he is, and he said "Prep", which is just happy, "happy being...me, I guess" Oh, and Goths, Emos and Preps shop at different stores. ??? That seemed to be an important distinction to him. *shrug* He's in the 9th grade, so I don't think this stuff goes any deeper for him than finding a place to fit in socially, as the world starts to make shape in a different way at this age. I hope his friends don't move into the darker side of this Emo thing. Sounds kinda scary. I have my eyes open to him a bit more, and it's good! Thanks for the info!!!!

Oh Mary, you are SET! I'm so proud of you already!!!!

Hey Mary! I quit smoking 16 days and 18 hours ago. You can do this! Here's some good tidbits that helped me. Quit in the middle of the day. This whole thinking about waking up one morning and not having one is for the birds. Dole out the last of your ciggies to yourself and make them last as looong as possible. Aim for your quit date, or before! And make sure you have at least 3 left when you wake up on your quit date. I had my last one at 3:30pm, after I picked up my 7yo from school. I have a 3yo, too and I get the whole "my kids are driving me nuts so I need a ciggie break or I won't make it" thing. Anyhow, that was the last of my pack. I had cleaned up and thrown out all but one ashtray, and spent a few days getting my head ready. I washed all my sweaters and clothes, changed the sheets, got everything fresh and clean. That helps, too. Get the patches! Follow the directions. Put a new one on each morning. Get the right strength. If you smoke more than 10 a day, get the Stage 1 Patches. They help alot. Screw the gum, the patches work. I have the gum, and maybe down the line it will help but I'm not ready to do without the Patches yet. I tried a few days ago. Nope. The Patches help. Get some cheerleading. You'll need it. You'll do lots of navel-gazing and have some nervous energy to get rid of. I plopped my butt on the 'puter for a week. House was a wreck, but I skated on by, and hubby helped me get it back together when I was ready to "open the front door" to my life again. The escape (which I used to get outside on the deck with a ciggie) came from holing up in the office on the computer. It's not as bad as it was, but computer time is helping me. Pick something and stick with it. You need a tit-for-tat trade off for the ciggies. Lots of mind games, but you can do it if you are ready, and BE READY! You don't want those dumb ole ciggies getting in the way of your band surgery. You WANT that band. Promise. My weight loss has been slow but GOOD! I could NOT have done this without my band, so it's worth quitting over. Come on, girl. You can do this!!!!!

YES! Excellent advice, I forgot that little important tidbit...Gayle is RIGHT!

Good Heavens, and there's a word for this? What does EMO mean, or stand for, or whatever? And what about ScreamO and ExtremeO? This is another world for me...ugh!

Did it work?

Happy Dr Kuri patient here! Surgery went great, did fine, had some pretty good post-op swelling which was a pain in the butt once I got home, but Imade it through and I'm doing well. I have a great band, thanks to Kuri. No problems! Thumbs up. :welldone2:

see the red exclamation point inside the triangle at the top right of my post? Click that on any spam and send a spam report to Admin. I'm assuming they delete it? As they should. Sometimes I log onto LBT, report a few spams, and log off, like I have done my duty for the day, just reporting spam. *shrug* anyhow, no Mod has told me NOT to report the Spam, so I'm guessing I'm doing it correctly?

We have 600 acres of Conservancy land behind our property. Yay us! Country living is FINE!

Carlene, that link takes me somewhere I'm not sure I want to surf around in (bad sentence, eh) anyhow, it doesn't link to the Duggar site, if there is one? I'll see what I can find. There have been several shows, the first being "16 children and pregnant again". That baby was a boy, she has since had a girl. That's 18. The funds from the show, apparently, went toward finishing the huge home. TLC even gave them a new grand piano, since all the children play and need to practice. Anyhow, interesting family. If I find a different link, I'll post it. http://www.jimbob.info/ You were missing the B on Jimbob... and yup, you were right Carlene, looks like 16 kids, the most recent, a girl, born in 2005. the first show must have been "14 kids and pregnant again". Anyhow, loads of kiddos, all with "J" names.

Awww, what a cute band baby! Congratulations!

I think Mrs. Duggar has 18 children now. They live debt-free and home school. I see their children as polite, funny, well-adjusted and intelligent. I think she's waaay cool. If Discovery channel (or TLC or whoever) is willing to pay them to share their story, I'm watching!!! Noone is showing up at my house with a camera crew and money. More power to 'em. I'd do it, too. But I tend to like that kind of thing, so it doesn't really offend me. Perspective. I wonder when she'll stop, though, and why she will? Will it take a doctor to say, "it's dangerous at this point for you to become pregnant again" or will she just go through menopause? LOL I don't know! and I don't understand ALL of the ideology behind it. I wouldn't choose that for me and my family. I just wouldn't. I'm not sure there's a cherry-pickin' Bible verse that could convict me to do that, either. ??? But I admire that family alot. I think what they are doing is worthy and honorable. For them.

I'm a happy Dr Kuri patient, too. And I had the surgery at the old hospital. I can't speak for aftercare, as I haven't been back. I would, but he's clear on the other side of the US! (I'm in NC). Anyhow, he's an excellent band surgeon. Tons of experience and a kind man. Make sure you have a local band doc who will see you and fill you. Unless you plan to go back regularly. My sister plans to be banded by him, sometime soon...and I'll go with her and get an endoscope while I'm there. I have been banded 20 months now. I'll show my sig so you can see my stats. Anyhow, no regrets about Kuri. Good luck!

Yup, it's a pack a day or nothing for me. I quit, of course, though 2 pregnancies and nursing, and went right back at it. No "just one on occasion" for me. If I could smoke 1 or 2 a day I'd probably never quit. Time to let it go. Thanks for the congrats, ya'll.

For the record, I agree with you. Sunta, thank you for the change in tone of your arguements. It helps alot to facililitate real conversation. And again, I'm sorry I egged it on the way I did. I shouldn't have. I want to thank you for something else a bit odd. Last Tuesday I quit smoking. Yup, no more butts out the window as I teach my children not to litter. No more second-hand smoke for anyone around me, even the smoke from my hair and clothes. No more filters in the land fills. No more money going to tobacco companies, and no more of my cigarrette taxes going to the government. Best of all, no more smoke in my lungs. Good decision all around, I'd say. In order to avoid time spent on my deck firing up, I indulged myself in a bit of extra computer time. Along comes this thread. What a diversion for me! I'm not sure what contribution nicotine withdrawal added to my responses, if any, but all this mess sure was helpful in distracting me from my routine, and allowing me to change that nasty habit. An odd thing to thank you for, but thank you I must. I'm on Day 10 of no smoking and it's going pretty well. Yet another monkey off my back in the pursuit of clean living.

Thanks for the admonition, Pam. I hear you. Unfortunately, I reacted with shock and disbelief at the tone of Sunta's posts. Perhaps this was the wrong way to handle it. Even though I'm right to be offended, like Sunta, I went about it wrong. I reacted in kind, and I shouldn't have. Much food for thought... And so I suppose I owe an apology to you, Sunta, and to anyone else offended by my poorly worded opinions. I'm sorry.

Guess not

Well said, gadgetlady. I agree! Thank you! And the fact that I profess Christianity is simply a fact. I profess it. Make all the judegements in the world about it in your own head, but it's something I said I am. So be it. There are many professing athiests here. It's something they profess, they just are. I can come to loads of conclusions about these folks on a personal level, but, to me, it's a great framework for real conversation. I don't care that athiests and I don't believe the same thing. And I certianly don't berate any of them for their beliefs (or would it be, lack thereof? not sure). At any rate, Sunta, you make it impossible to have any type of real conversation of substance with your holier-than-thou attitude. Your words are ugly. And at the end of all of your posts lately, you seem to enjoy attacking Christianity, no, Christians, with statements such as this. "I was the dumb one to think that the fundamentalist Christians on this thread could actually have an intelligent discussion, or seperate my opinion on people who have 20 children from my opinion about Christians as a whole. as if we could...go back and read your posts! The fundamentalists here have absolutely given me a whole new outlook on fundamentalism. Are all fundamentalists as nasty and obnoxious as you?" (post #186) and... "Why are you the only one, a supposed "Christian", who is name-calling and attacking someone personally? That always cracks me up, when "Christians" are soooo un-Christ-like." (post #152) and... "Finally, if anyone wants to start a thread about heathens who don't believe in Jesus going to hell, I would fully support that. Also, I would find it extraordinarily amusing. Please note I am not "ridiculing" your beliefs, but the fact that I could inspire someone to state that I'm damned to hell just simply makes me giggle." (post #109) I have said it before, I don't care if you are an athiest or a dog-worshipper, or both. I don't want to MAKE you be a Christian or have 18 children, or agree with me on ANYthing. Your comments indicate that any fundamentalist Christian is automatically attacking you or soliciting religion or somehow making YOUR life miserable simply by being. I'm certainly not allowed to talk that way, not that I want to, but suddenly it's a problem when you get called on it? Back down, Sunta. You were wrong. Your words hurt real people, angered real people, and unnecessarily offended real people. Your words weren't just thoughts, ideas, ideologies, or intellectually stimulating debate, but your words were toward real people who have a face and a name. You'd do better trying not to dig yourself out. An apology for these folks would be nice. Here's hoping.

I know of several bandsters who started up over 500 pounds. Maybe they will pop on here, but it IS possible. I don't know your MILs medical history, of course, and she may need to do some convincing with her doc, but it's certianly not unheard of to weigh over 500 and get banded. Good luck. Losing weight is hard for anyone, no matter their start weight. :eek:

Good Heavens, where have you been all my life?! Here, here, Mouse! And AMEN!!! :amen: I was going to BOLD the stuff I REALLY liked about this post but I'd just have to BOLD all of it. Thank you!

Carlene, there's a thread...BRB... http://www.lapbandtalk.com/dr-sanchez-murdered-t26382.html?t=26382&highlight=Sanchez and another one... http://www.lapbandtalk.com/called-dr-sanchezs-t26422.html?t=26422 such sad news. :eek:

The very first time I quit smoking, I had never been more sick in my life. My allergies went nutso, and now I'm allergic to pets and who knows what else? Odd, but true. I quit AGAIN just 8 days ago, and I hesitate to have an opinion about this Ohio Law. My gut sees something wrong with this. No particular reasoning, no statistics, no proof, just a knee-jerk opinion. Let the smokers stink, I smell pretty now! :eek: Yay me.

What's sad is that being fat stinks, losing weight is hard, and banded life is sometimes difficult, and Sunta and I (at the very least) have isolated ourselves from one another over a poorly-stated opinion. She can say it, I can disagree, we can go round and round about it. At the end of the day, we each have one less person to lift us up when we need it. Thankfully, LBT is a large community, and there's plenty of air to breathe for all of us and more. I still find it regrettable. :eek:

Listen Sunta, I never made a comment about the statue. My "beef" from the get-go has been your first and second posts about how "idiotic" and "dumb" the "Quiverfull movement" (which is decidedly fundamentalist Christian) is and the tone with which you have presented your, otherwise, very valid opinion. I found it to be condescending, patronizing (good word, doesn't feel good to be patronized, does it?), and full of ridicule and scorn. I said so. I'm not sure why you think I should lay down and take it because I'm a follower of Christ? I will speak up. What you posted was not okay. I'm not trying to make you a Christian...I'm not trying to make you have 18 children..I'm not trying to make you waste your resources... I don't even care what you disagree with me about. It's okay for us to be different. What is NOT okay is to publicly speak with such disdain about the personal religious beliefs of others. And this "name-calling" business is because I said you were judgmentally hypocritical, because you feel so compelled to comment in such an ugly way on another person's beliefs under the guise that YOU are educated and socially conscientious, and so others must not be because they disagree. ??? Makes no sense, I said so. Again, I have made no comment about the statue. My comments have been in regard to your posts #1 (the thread-starter) and #51, to be specific. Words like that are not okay.