The onset of Fall means that the holidays are getting closer and we will probably be seeing more of you than we normally do.
Nathen and I thought we would do the right thing by you and save you a little bit of trouble this year. In a few weeks from now, when we're eating my birthday cake, it will be unnecessary to wonder out loud if this will be the year my biological clock starts ticking. You won't have to ask *that* question in between bites of turkey leg. We also think an addition to the family photo for Christmas cards would be lovely, but the only thing we can crank out that fast is a sea monkey. So you'll have to be patient on that one.
However, all of this driveling is to tell you that we're ready to tell you our secret.
We don't know where babies come from.
Ok, I said it. We're embarrassed about it, but we feel the need to be transparent with you about what's going on, since you keep asking.
We've tried EVERYTHING. I call the stork on a daily basis. Surely HE knows where babies come from, even though he was really hard to find in the phone book. I had to look in the white pages, and when I called the number he said he was a "David Stork" and that he most emphatically did not deliver babies. I kept trying but he changed his number. Sigh.
Nathen and I really put our heads together after that and we remembered all the way back to our biology classes where we learned about asexual reproduction. Since we're leaving no stone unturned, we devote a great part of our evenings to standing very still and yelling "SPLIT,SPLIT!" at the top of our lungs. Still nothing.
I think we finally found the answer. Daffy Duck and Porky Pig are filling in for the Stork, so they're behind on the baby quota.
haha...yes, I apparently did NOT see that I could scroll all the way down...that's a really funny cartoon...I actually remember watching that one a few times...
No...I didn't realize there was a scrolling issue. Thanks for pointing that out. Also didn't see the other announcements until later. I have just recently discovered You Tube has Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes and am very excited about it.
I have some bad news for you.
If you want to get pregnant as a married couple, you can not. You can try and try forever.
(my wife and I actually had some luck with the "Every other night with her hips and or legs slightly elevated during and after" method)
But if you want to get pregnant, Either you or your partner has to be single, NOT wanting to get pregnant, and meeting at a bar.
Single girls who get picked up at a bar by some idiot, and go off and have sex tend to get pregnant like 99.45% of the time. Then when they do get pregnant the guy either bails on them or freaks out terribly.
The two of you will have to separate, and then start picking each other up at random bars for sex every other night. Using controception will not stop you from getting pregnant with this method either.
hey, pleasse go back and read my comments...I was in no way addressing anybody. I merely offered up thoughts I had been considering lately, and wanted to see what people thought of them. I never read any other comments before I offered mine. Plus, I never, ever would suggest that you don't make decisions by the Bible, especially since I don't know you.
Frank was tired of cleaning up the messes that his wife made in their house. One morning, he found a crumpled Kleenex on the bathroom vanity, so he disgustedly flushed it down the toilet. Unfortunately, the Kleenex was wrapped around Barbara’s engagement ring, which she had removed the previous evening after cutting her finger while shoveling snow. Is the couple allowed a deductible casualty loss for Federal income tax purposes?
Prepare a solution to the problem in the format discussed in the syllabus. Your sources may include court cases as well as the Code, Regs, and rulings
My answer:
According to the Internal Revenue Code, personal casualty losses can be deducted if the following conditions are met: lost in fire, storm, shipwreck, theft or other casualty loss.
"165(c)(3) except as provided in subsection (h), losses of property not connected with a trade or business or a transaction entered into for profit, if such losses arise from fire, storm, shipwreck, or other casualty, or from theft."
Kevin and Barbara hope to deduct their engagement ring loss under the "other casualty losses" clause. Is this allowable?
According to "J. Keenan, Jr., and Mrs. E. de G. Keenan, Plaintiffs v. William P. Bowers, Collector of Internal Revenue for South Carolina, Defendant" it is not.
Here is their story:
"Along with other kleenex tissues, taxpayer accidentally disposed of a tissue in which his wife had wrapped two diamond rings. A search of the sewage system of their hotel was of no avail, and taxpayer deducted the loss under Code Sec. 23(e)(3) as coming within the phrase "other casualty." The loss was not deductible, however, since it was not of the same kind as would be caused by fire, storm, or shipwreck. There was no intervention of any sudden destructive force. BACK REFERENCES: Sec. 29.23(e)-1 at 501 CCH ¶191.49."
"The stipulation by the parties and the affidavit of Mrs. Keenan, which was agreed to be considered as testimony for the plaintiff, disclose the following facts: On or about May 4, 1944, Mr. and Mrs. W. J. Keenan, the plaintiffs herein, were en route to visit their son at Grenada, Mississippi, prior to his departure overseas with the 94th Infantry, and they stopped and spent the night at the Bankhead Hotel in Birmingham, Alabama; they had never spent the night in said hotel before and the surroundings were strange to both of them; their hotel room had single beds with a small lamp table between the beds. This arrangement differed from that in their home where they had bed tables on each side. On this night, Mr. Keenan prepared for bed, and being bothered with a nose irritation, placed a box of kleenex tissues on his side of the bed table and went to sleep prior to Mrs. Keenan. Subsequent to this, his wife retired. Customarily, when retiring at home, Mrs. Keenan removed her rings and placed them on or in her bureau, but this night she did not do so. However, during the night, she found her rings uncomfortable, and recalling the box of kleenex on the table, she reached out in the dark and unbeknown to her husband, took a piece of kleenex and wrapped her rings in it, and placed them wrapped on her side of the small table; she wrapped them in kleenex tissue with the thought in mind that this would be a possible precaution against the theft of the rings; during the night, Mr. Keenan awoke several times, used pieces of kleenex tissues to blow his nose, and having no convenient waste basket at hand, placed these balls of tissue on the table, intending to dispose of them upon rising; the next morning, Mr. Keenan arose early and prior to his wife's awakening, hastily preparing for an early departure, swept the used tissues up, not knowing that some of them contained the rings, balled them up, went to the bathroom and disposed of them in the toilet, flushing it forthwith; about a half an hour after Mr. Keenan's actions, Mrs. Keenan realized what had happened and immediately communicated with the hotel manager who called in the hotel engineer. A search of the trap was to no avail and then later the City of Birmingham's engineer went into the large trap in the sewer into which the hotel refuse emptied but all efforts to recover the rings were unavailing. The value of these rings, less the maximum amount of insurance which could be collected, was thirteen hundred ($1,300) dollars.'
The court upholds that the definition of "other" implies an equality with the other allowable deductions for casualty loss of "fire, storm, and shipwreck." The court does not view the flushing of valuables and searching of sewers on an equal level with fire, theft, storms, and shipwrecks.
Because of this, Kevin and Barbara should NOT take a casualty loss deduction for the misfortune that happened to the engagement ring.
Step Two: Repeat Gossip, adding personal flair. Spread your second-hand information to your family. It's ok, it doesn't count if it's family. There's some scripture about that somewhere, maybe?
Step Three: Determine from received gossip that the person gossiped about is now in the wrong. This makes it incredibly convenient to manufacture the gossip into something that some like to call "concern." "Concern" is the acceptable substitute for gossip in all churches everywhere.
Step Four: It is now your duty to spread your "concern" throughout a well-devised and cleverly planned network. Everyone needs to check on ____________, they are now on the at-risk list!
Step Five: It is imperative that you train your "network" of "concern" spreaders to assume the worst about the person that you are now "concerned" about. Make sure that no one actually mentions the actual problem to the person. You don't want to be accused of gossip. A few vague, instructive, rebuking comments directed to this person in a general manner should leave the person reeling and wondering for weeks about what the problem is.
Step Six: Act like a snot to gossiped-about person. They are now on the path to hell, you know.
Step Seven: When you find that your little adventure has gotten out of hand, and you're about to be found out, apologize to save face. But you can still treat said person like a second-rate Christian. It's their fault this even started.
I hope this is a general lesson and not spoken from first-hand experience!! The lessons we've been studying in our adult class (the ones I've been posting on my page) have really brought up a lot of discussion about that exact behavior and how we can avoid it.
Just wondering - what if in "step 7" they're actually apologizing with a sincere heart? How can you judge where their heart is when they repent? Isn't your job simply to forgive?
I guess what I meant by step seven, was not really at the "moment" of apology. If someone continues to act in the same way as before, it would seem that the apology is not sincere.
In accounting we use the phrase "substance over form". It's meant to illustrate the idea that just because you "name" or "form" something a certain way doesn't change what it really is.
If some one apologizes nominally, but then continues to carry on with their behavior, is that really an attempt at reconciliation? Certainly one should be given the chance to prove their regret and change before it's written off as an insincere apology. That's not what I meant by that.
Unfortunately, sometimes it's more of a "Sorry I got caught," than an "I'm sorry I hurt you."
And I guess I'm just saying that if they apologize, we are to forgive. It's between them and God if they don't really mean it. If we hold bitterness, resentment, and anger in our hearts against a brother because of they way they are treating us then we are the sinner.
I agree with you. I don't think that we have any right to judge hearts and that the actions of others don't give us the right to act in any way other than how a Christian is supposed to act. No one should be denied forgiveness, regardless of how they are acting.
I guess what I was thinking was the apology that really isn't an apology--and I do believe there are those. It goes along the lines of "I didn't do anything wrong, and I have every right to do what I did, but I'm sorry you think so."
It was to get back to my main point--once people turn "gossip" into "concern", anything goes and they don't feel like they *have* done anything wrong. It's a mindset
I'm not going to post about the election on my blog. I'm not into arguing at all in this black place, and certainly not about politics.
I would like to recommend, as the election is approaching, that everyone do their homework on the economy. Probably the most valuable piece of information I can give you is to research what the statistics everyone is flinging out are based on (bad I know).
For example--the rising cost of living, unemployment, and the uninsured. To my left there is a link to a blog called Cafe Hayak. Between that and Greg Mankiw's blog, I don't watch or read the news. They will link to whatever is happening economically in the media and then discuss it. You'll also pick up some economics fundamentals there too. Don't tell the media I told you that. They won't like it.
Back to Cafe Hayak...one post down is an entry about the standard of living, unemployment, and the uninsured. This is a classic example about finding out what your stats are based on. If you read the article you'll see that things really aren't as bad as the media is making it. Many of these stats are twisted by the addition of IMMIGRANT (non-citizen) low-wage earners.
We did that yesterday with puddings, one lab station made vanilla pudding from scratch, a box of cook n serve, a box of instant and then just opened the top off of a Snack Pack and we were supposed to compare the taste, color and texture. It was amazing to me, though the latter 3 have fewer calories, the sodium and additives were atrocious!
One thing we are going to do in Food Science and then throughout the major, we are going to learn how to convert recipes from high calories, high fat, to healthy. I know the basics but they are going to show us how to do it without the preservatives, which I'm excited about :)
By the way, compared to the homemade, the store bought Snack Pack, and the two boxed versions, they were GREEN in color compared to the homemade. It was nuts.
I read your post on Suzy's page. I have no education in nutrition/dietetics, but sort of a hobby. Really-some "scratch foods" were less healthy than packaged foods??? Like what foods-do you remember? (I'm Becci, BTW)
