green

And what's a fleem?

I feel absolutely lousy but my husband thinks I look fabulous. Go figure, eh. :faint:Green is the Master of Mucus. :heh: blugh!

Right now I am riding on willpower. Ugh! Once my cold goes away and my face lift settles down I am going to get myself filled up again. I have been empty since early August due to acid reflux. :tired I miss my band. blehhhhhhhhhhh! :phanvan

I guess that I am kinda lucky. I never had children and my husband dotes on me. I get to do whatever I want.

None. I like to be different and now everyone has tats.

I feel that children enjoy darkness, provided that this is controlled. All those classic fairytales were horribly dark, indeed it can be argued that they were the precursors of these modern teenager horror flicks. Children do seem to have an appetite for the morbid and the grotesque. I personally see no reason to shelter them from this unless they display signs of distress. My nine year old neice used to make up and recount to me the most gruesome stories involving a family of bears. We would write these down, place them in plastic bottles, cap them, and then set them adrift on the lake by the family cottage. As an ageing adult I was kind of surprised by these tales but they gave her great satisfaction. It is a kid thing, I think....

I do believe that some of this business of ideal weight is affected by one's age. Older people don't look good when they lose too much weight. They end up looking scrawny and stringy and tendon-y. This is why I have just had a face lift. The thinner I got the older I looked. And some estrogen is stored in the fat tissues of older women. Obviously I am very, very happy that I have lost a lot of weight and now have a healthy BMI but I do feel that once we have entered into the realm of normoloid we can relax and perhaps should proceed with caution with respect to our weight loss plans if we are older. But this is just my opinion and I am 58, eh. :tired

I was kinda hoping to see Derrick nekkid, you know.

And, once again, I suggest you take the trouble to read this site which Robgoblin has provided. It really is fascinating reading. Enjoy.

I find it interesting that none of you right to lifers have commented on the case studies which I have presented above, all of which are true. Indeed, I was pers two and I personally knew pers three while I was living in France. Sterilization was against the law in France: it was considered bodily mutilation. And as for pers five, this is a profile of those women who lived behind the Iron Curtain in the Soviet countries. This culture was unusual in that education was made available to the masses and those individuals who were gifted were properly academically nurtured. At the same time, however, education was not a road out of poverty for these countries had chosen to ignore their own infrastructure and the needs of their people in order to spend all available money in the arms wars and the space race. It is for this reason that the norm was to see a well-educated couple of professionals sharing a one bedroom apartment with a set of parents and a child. Supplies of food and such manufactured goods as clothing were unreliable. Access to birth control methods, be it in the form of condoms or the pill, was pretty much impossible. However, under the Soviet system there were many well-educated people in all fields including the medical field. Abortions were easy to obtain, free, and safe. From the information which laurend has introduced on another thread it appears that this situation seems to still hold true in east Europe. As for pers one, although I have placed her in a refugee camp in Darfur this woman can be found in any of those third world hell holes. This is a woman who has lost her husband somewhere along the way and who finds herself with a clutch of children to look after. They are all undernourished. This family is not in a safe place. She herself is pregnant, possibly because she has been raped, and she is aware that she is not sufficiently healthy to carry this pregnancy to term. She figures that both she and this child will likely die and then there will be no one to look after her children. She makes the obvious choice; she opts to save herself and the clutch of children which she already has. As for pers four, well, she seems like the one example who may well wish to let her pregnancy run its course. I am inclined to hope that she will set up some kind of open adoption for her child and then resume her own, pre-pregnancy life. This is my own bias speaking. I like to see young women get themselves educated. I feel that this allows them to open themselves up to all which life can bring to them. I figure that experience and education will benefit them, and their children, too. If, however, pers four decides to cut and run by opting for an abortion, well, I cannot blame her. We must remember that this individual is a very young and very immature girl. She has come to be trapped in this place through a combination of sweet talk and her own biology. And her pregnancy would be an issue which would not be considered malignant or shameful in our agrarian past when boys and girls were considered to be marriagable when they were in their early to mid-teens. Now life has changed. We have statuatory rape laws. And many of us are anxious to see our kids obtain at least one university degree before settling down with a signif other. In short, both the legal age and the requirements of maturity have changed considerably even though the biology has remained the same. This is why, even though I don't have children of my own, I would never teach children that abstinence is the only way. I would tell them everything, and I would suggest that abstinence is a good approach, and then I would armour them with the full array of birth control technology. And then if that scared little kiddy found herself pregnant I would present her with all the alternatives, including abortion.

You might like my house, laurend. It is a large Edwardian house with lots of plain style wood trim. The Yuppies who renovated the house opened up the living room and the dining room in order to make this one large room. One wall is exposed brick. We have wood floors and lots of Oriental carpets, some of which we have bought on our travels. We also have a number of masks, some African, some Indonesian, some Mexican, and some from Nepal. We also have quite a few ethnic carvings and pieces of furniture as well as textiles and ceramics. And then there are the 11 bookcases and my own paintings which are very colourful. We even have a kangaroo skin. My husband used to be into a beige-brown palette until he fell into my hands. I really love colour and now he is a convert. The house is a real nasty bitch to dust, however!

I just finishing reading this. It is an interesting read. Thanks.

Oh, you guys and yer in-laws! My maw-in-law was being totally insensitive when my beloved baby brother suddenly died. All she wanted to talk about was the cottage she was building. So my mum died two months later and I never told her anything about it. We spent 2 weeks at her bedside watching her die and I ordered my husband to keep his mouth shut. I really didn't feel that I could deal with my maw-in-law at this time. So, about 2 months later and behind my back she phones up my cousin and his family in order to invite them and my mum up to the cottage! My cousin does the equivalent of a double take! He is totally shocked! ....And then he finally tells he that my mum is dead.

To tell you the truth, I was only able to spend all this cash on body renovation because my mum died and left me money. I would not have been able to do this otherwise, nor would I have been able to take early retirement. I certainly do miss my mum a lot but this experience of suddenly having cash is certainly an odd and ultimately a pleasant one. There has been a learning curve, however..... And as for the face lift, I am starting to look okay but I still feel lousy. It has been a real rollercoaster ride since my mum died two and a half years ago.

I am a painter. I paint mostly portraits. I use very strong colours and I like decorative lines. My work has been influenced by such painters as Francis Bacon, Egon Schiele, Foujita, Klimt. I also read a lot. I have eleven bookcases in the house and in some of them the books are double or triple parked. I haven't yet read all the books which I own. And I am kind of in the same situation with my CD collection. I bought a lot of CDs from my wife-in-law after my ex-husband (who was a musician) died. The guy left over 5,000 CDs which his wife didn't know about. I now own around 500 CDs and I haven't yet heard 'em all. I have a digital camera but I haven't figured out how to work the damn thing. Ditto for my iPod. It's a good thing that I am retired. I have a lot of work to do.

You look absolutely gorgeous and I love your outfit. It is very chic.

Actually, I had forgot about Laura plus. I went there once with a friend who had a car and really liked their clothes. Too bad they don't seem to have stores down in the city. And Isabella, you are looking fabulous. Congratulations!

Yah, talking the talk and walking the walk are two different things, aren't they? :heh: (I think I might have left my sanctimony somewhere weird, like maybe on a melting ice floe or in Bergen-Belsen or whatever.......)

Too cool! I'll PB to that. :heh: Kidding of course.........

Hahahaha Pers one: I am in a refugee camp in Darfur with my 3 undernourished children. Three of my children have already died, and my husband has disappeared. I am 22 years old, I have been raped, and now I am pregnant. There is no food here. We are starving. They say that the rich countries are sending us food but I don't believe it. I am starving. I don't think that I can survive this pregnancy. What will happen to my children? Who will look after them? Pers two: I have never wanted to have children and it is for this reason that I have always been careful about my birth control practices. Ugh! I think that I might be pregnant........ WTF! Pers three: I really love kids. I have always wanted to have a large family. My husband and I were scared shitless when I almost died while having my second kid. The doctors told me that I shouldn't have even tried to become pregnant again. The problem is that my husband and I have hostile blood types; one of us is a positive and one of us is a negative. I certainly can't ever have another child. This will kill me and the child. This is why I have had 2 abortions. If I lived in Canada or the United States I could have had my tubes tied but in France sterilisation is an illegal procedure. Abortion is legal and this is why I have had a couple of abortions but I have found these experiences to be heart-breaking. Pers four: He told me that he loved me and that if I loved him I would do it. And besides, he said that nobody ever got pregnant on their first time. Shit! I am 14/15/16 years old. I haven't even finished school. What am I going to say to my parents? Pers five: Where I live it is impossible to obtain birth. I sure do wish I could obtain an adequate supply of birth control pills or a diaphragm and a tube of anti-spermicide. It sure is easy to arrange for an abortion where I live and it sure is pretty much impossible for me to get my paws on birth control methods which work. Those women who have real freedom over their reproductive tracts are those women who live in the rich western countries. I feel frustrated and blocked and out of control of both my body and my life. And now I hear that wealthy western women are judging me...........! I think I hate you.

I was one of the lower BMI people and lost 50 lbs in 10 months. The last time I had my weight checked - I don't own a scale - I weighed 149 lbs and I am 5'6" tall. My BMI is now in the upper range of normoloid. As for the depression problem, I have been suffering from this since I was a teenager. I have been off and on meds and been seeing various kinds of counsellors ever since I was 18. At the present I see a psychologist for talk therapy and a psychiatrist for drug monitoring. Depression is a big genetic problem in my family. Both my brothers have suffered from this as well as my only nephew and one of my two nieces. In fact, this niece is grossly overweight and has serious problems with depression. She has been treated for this since she was a teenager and she is now in her early 30s. Weirdly enough, my energy levels have never, ever been affected by my weight but whenever I am slammed by depression it is difficult for me to even bathe myself or brush my teeth. Now, that's is low energy!!!

I am with crazycat. Though we have very eclectic furnishings and a lot of rich colours everything goes together and this is because I have only bought things which I like. Buying only stuff which you are nuts about guarantees a consistency in your palette. We have painted the walls in a number of our rooms fairly dark colours in order to anchor our colourful and eclectic mess. This works really well for us.

I voted for number 3. I really don't mind people noticing my weight loss and I do enjoy the compliments. I have had a few odd reactions, though. I have had some folks asking me or my husband if I have been ill and they always use that cancer-voice! I find that a little weird but that's life, isn't it? And then there was the cottage couple who hadn't seen me for a year who came running over screaming that they wanted to see the "half a woman!" That, too, was very weird. I guess the ones who really annoy me are the ones who won't let the topic drop. These are the ones who are determined to find out what my trick was. I am also none too pleased by the ones who compliment me on my weight loss and then tell me with gloomy pleasure that I will gain it all back within 2 years. Yep, that is really irritating.

For some people overeating is their preferred form of substance abuse, and substance abuse is often a coping mechanism used against such emotional ills as depression. Those in the counselling biz call this self-medicating. When you remove the coping mechanism without the support of therapy, friends, and the appropriate medication such people can find themselves suddenly feeling very alone and very sad - sad enough to kill themselves. I know a little bit about this because I am a depressive and because of this I have done a lot of reading on the topic. LBT is a great support group and does assist us with coping with the loss of the comfort of food as well as with weight loss. I know that this group has certainly helped me during my year of weight loss and continues to help me now that I am at goal. :ranger:

I will phone ya. I have your number.