Hey, I avoid "board wars" and threads where the same handful of people fight it out... so I have no idea what all that controversy out there is about. But I can't help being curious.

Well it probably doesn't help that I just used your name as an example...your old ears were ringing I suppose. LOL

I'm glad to see you had such a good weekend at C4L's wedding, Gray. Nothing like something wonderful to put the wind back in your ragged old sails, eh? hehe

I hope C4L's children will adjust well and have a good life. I wish them all the love and stability that their happy little hearts deserve.

You too graycloud!

JJ, you are going to get handfasted before I get married????? How did that happen? Love the picture you painted of your motionless dance.

We are getting married on Mackinac Island on August 18th. very small (only 12 guests)....by the water with a very nice minister we hired.

How cliche', how wonderful and simple. I am so excited now! We are going shopping for outfits soon.

And my little bro and his wife are flying in from SAT, along with a niece I adore from NYC.

P will be back for the wedding from her Dad's and GB'S 23 yo daughter and she will share a room at the Inn where we will be staying.

My niece booked a room a haunted B&B. It is haunted too...I have stories about that place.

No cars allowed on the island, only horses or bikes (and not motor bikes either).

It'll be a really fun weekend.

You guys make me smile.

I wish we'd had more children too, JJ. But it's too late. Much too late.


I think it's all going to be OK, though. For me and you.


Hey, I have a stupid joke. ...err.. nerver mind. I pasted it here and it read even more stupid than in the email it came in.

gray, we were all talking about you over there.

Mt Hood is pretty nice. Been up it twice. I used to climb to illumination rock every spring and ski down. Something like 8 miles on snowfields.

Speaking of haunted inns, did you go to the main lodge at Timberline? It was one of the two used in The Shining.

Which beach? Is C4L living out here permanently now?

No, I skipped the Timberline Lodge. Thought twice at the turnoff and decided to keep moving forward.

It was Cannon Beach where they held the wedding. You should have seen the photos. Beautiful! Though I didn't make any pictures myself.

C4L isn't living there permanently. Child custody issues, most of which I'm not aware of. She and I have a don't ask, don't tell policy.

Ap, I don't know why everyone doesn't live in Portland.

GC

'cause a bit farther north is even better.

>I wish we'd had more children too, JJ. But it's too late. Much too late.


Yawn!

I got a few I can loan you Appy.

Lemme check to see if I have enough stamps.

Send 'em back after college is paid for?

I can't help myself. I'm posting this one:

Colonoscopies are no joke, but a physician claimed the following are actual comments made by his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their colonoscopies:

1. Take it easy, Doc. You're boldly going where no man has gone before!
2. Find Amelia Earhart yet?
3. Can you hear me NOW?
4. Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?
5. You know, in Arkansas , we're now legally married.
6. Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?
7. You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out...
8. Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!
9. If your hand doesn't fit, you must quit!
10. Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.
11. You used to be an executive at Enron, didn't you?
12. God, now I know why I am not gay.
13. Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up there?
14. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
15. These directions come from MapQuest?
16. That light you see means you've gone too far!

Weaver, the handfasting we're doing is a year-and-a-day, which we're treating as a formal betrothal. There are three types of handfasting. The first is the year-and-a-day variety. The second is the for-our-lifetimes variety. The third is for-all-eternity.

We're still planning to get married (the for-our-lifetimes variety) in July of 2008. Location is still wavering between Wisconsin and Ohio. We have locations in both places that are possibilities, so it's a matter of figuring out what's best logistically and all those other things.

Oh, and GC, the current fight seems to be about whether people should help when a marriage began as an affair. It is, I must admit, a very difficult issue. I'm not sure that I could set aside my own biases enough to help someone whose marriage began as an affair. At the same time, there is no "right answer" at that point, particularly if there are new kids involved. At that point, no matter what you do, some kid or kids go without having their parents full-time.

(Barring, of course, solutions that involve more than two adults in a household, which is possible, but very, very unlikely.)

Tough stuff, to be sure.

Aphelion,

I recently had a colonoscopy, and your post had me roaring. I got a lot of that from my friends also. Sometimes only humor can make life bearable.

If a 2ple in Arkansas gets a divorce, are they still brother and sister?

-ol' 2long

2long,
We had a great trip. Drove through the big M twice. I see they are building a new railroad bridge.

I'll report on it in more depth later, but I'll be gone these next three days too.

Hope things are well with you.

Hi all. Just wanted to say goodbye. For many months now I've watched the degeneration of this site into hate, bashing, and horrific disrespect. I've stayed here in the campfire because, for whatever reason, the campfire has never taken on those qualities.

But, you know, there just comes a time when the hate washes over the edges and begins to infect everything. Though MrsWondering's quote of Dr. Harley's thoughts on gay marriage is his own reasoned and thoughtful view, I know that it will be used, here, to expand the bashing to even more people who are just looking for help.

If you're looking for me, you can always e-mail me. jbare@comcast.net will actually reach me; I rarely check the Yahoo address anymore. And you can find me over at SYMC, of course.

**************EDIT*****************

Is that not a disrespectful and prejudiced judgement against this board?

I just went back and read that thread again and I don't see where there is any hate,
bashing, disrespect going on...just people voicing their thoughts on the subject.

I have had in the past many a troubled evening because of the "religion" threads, and I still do but tend to stay emotionally detached as much as I can now. Reading all the threads over the years where Fundalmentalist Christianity is the main and loudest view stated, and all others are squashed before they had a chance to expand has been weird to me, to say the least, and has resulted in my no longer considering myself Christian.

When I see the Fundalmentalists teach fear where there should be comfort, hope and most of all peace...well it's been hard.

I liken this to what you must feel because of your beliefs and how they must be challenged in the same way when you read here about things that are near and dear to your heart, and things you have first hand experience with.

I read your threads JJ, and felt your pain over the very real possibility of losing your daughter. As a mother, and as a sister to all women I lived your fear and your deep grief with you. The fact that you were married to a woman and fighting for your rights to be a mother to your little girl never mattered one iota to me, only your pain. I doubt that there is a mother out there that hasn't in her nightmares felt the unimaginable grief of empty arms where her child once lay. Who gave a rip if you were in a gay or straight marriage, not I and not any other mother who has ever known that fear.

If you leave because your views or opinions differ from others, if you perceive hate where people are merely trying to understand and come to peace with their own beliefs...well I don't know if that is the way to do it.

I don't want to be on a site that is censored to the point where opposing thoughts, heated discussions and differences are not allowed. If somebody feels that tradional man/woman marriages are in the best interests of society and families, and gay marriages and/or polygamy is not, well then they have a right to voice that opinion and in their own uncensored voices.

My point is I didn't leave when my own religious beliefs were threatened, loudly, disrespectfully and very hurtfully. I became compassionate and understanding instead of those who do believe something that to me is ridiculous and in direct opposition to what I believe.

There, that was really a long rambling post that probably made no sense to you JJ.

I hope you will reconsider, as I like you here. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> And I don't read at SYMC (have no objections to that site though).

JJ,

****EDIT************
I know. P was the coach I turned to at first. Kind of trailed off though when her own issues became acute. She missed/postponed several appointments and did not respond to several weeks worth of emails. So I eventually wandered off.

She wanted me to go into PP something fierce. It was short and effective. I never did register on the PP board though, so she may still not know the positive outcome.

One thing about SYMC I notice (I occasionally still read there) is there are no more contrite WS hanging around there than here. Maybe even fewer. Seems splintery 2x4's and honey may in the end each work just as well.


I am winding down MB also. This arriage support leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.


with prayers,

PS: I will miss hearing about your DD. She is cool.

How do you start new threads and ask for help on the forum. I have never been able to communicate online on Dr Harveys forum before?

Kiras, you should find a button marked "post" when you're reading the list of topics in, for example, General Questions II. Use that button.

If you can't figure it out, ask again on this thread and we'll start one on your behalf.

JJ, I sympathize.

To note a recent battle... based on my own experience I have strong feelings about "affairages", but getting in a fight on the Internet about it just seems stupid.

Most board wars don't interest me. It's drama; that's the purpose it serves. And it's imaginary for heaven's sake! No doubt, it's easy to get sucked in (I've gone there once or twice too). But more and more I see it as just another compulsive form of entertainment.

To change gears to positive things, I now reach into the past. Here's weaver, about a year ago:

As for my weekend...I think I dreamed him up, I think I died and went to heaven and I think this one is going to rock my world! The weekend was aw[e]some, it couldn't have turned out more perfect. We got maybe 7 hours sleep total for the entire weekend. Sat night we were actually parked in a parking lot by the Locks at 3:30 in the morning, with Willie Nelson's "Angel" blasting out of his truck stereo while we slow danced. The whole weekend was just unbelievable...I never laughed so much in my life. He is the kind of guy where everwhere we went he attracted new friends and had everyone in stitchs. He's like a magnet, a happy, sweet, crazy, wild magnet.

A parachute out of everything broken!

GC

Thank you!

It wasn't the first time in my life I had to start from less than ground zero and rebuild what was left of a very troubled, trusting, naive and misguided nature. It's really no more (and no less) than refusing to let your spirit be snuffed out like a flickering candle fighting to stay lit.

I don't like to be in pain, suffering is not something I am capable of doing for very long. I will do almost anything to get away from pain. I'll change my mind and change my heart. I'll take my love and pour it out somewhere else before I will let heartache keep me down for long.

Disappointment was not a shock to me, it did not lay me out flat on my back as it does so many here who have not encountered it before. You learn to be a fighter when pain comes too often to your doorstep. You learn to be strong out of necessity.

It's different this time though Gray. Almost like that movie North Country where she ways "I don't have any more start overs left".

This is the last time for me, I know it in every ounce of my being. Some days it is still a fight to reach inside and try to find some naivety, some joy, some innocense. It is work now to be happy, and blissfulness is a miracle of the moment. When I feel it, I feel the miracle that it is and it is rare.

In defense of this board, I did not have the tools I needed to find my way into a life of strong, right foundation. I needed to talk to, to be supported by, to connect with people who had lived a moral and upstanding life. I needed to know what goes on in their heads. I needed to find out that they were not the shallow, boring, narrow minded, scared to live an exciting life lot I had once perceived them as.

It is not imaginary to me, this board. It is an incredible ability of our times to be able to open up to others at the level of the mind. These are great minds here and I feel immensely priviledged to read, to share and to learn what I do from them (you included).

I didn't know how to be what I needed to be to change my life. I simply do not have in my life people who are healthy, strong and ethical. I needed to get to know people like that, and here I have.

And I never in a million years would have been attracted to the likes of GB or any other fine and decent man without a lot of change at the level of my mind. Or if I had I would have thought he was a loser for wanting me and I would have kept searching until I found another road rash.

I became someone different here. Someone worthy of being a wife and more than that I see the greatness, the humbleness, the hopes, the pain and the innate goodness of the members here. It still, in the moments when I really need to remember that goodness exists in great quantities in this world and in so many others, allows me to.

I have learned though, not to take the differences of opinion personally. I have learned to value them and treasure them for the gift they are.

That's the ticket I think, not to take them personally. I watched a very good french movie last night with subtitles and the old retired judge told a young girl that what he had learned in his life and time as a judge was that to think one knows what is true and what is not true is no more than vanity.