The Hobbit Hole III - Journey to the Cross-roads!

[HairOfTheDog]

Welcome to The Hobbit Hole!

Journey to the Cross-roads
The Two Towers Edition

Come on! Come in! -if you would like to have some seedcakes and a pint and relax a while. (If it is a special occasion, we still have a few bottles of the old wineyards left!)

Our first thread ( New Zealander builds Hobbit hole ) reached 4,100 posts, and we thought that was big. Our second thread (The New Hobbit Hole ) held us for over 48,000 posts, and we loved it dearly. We talked about moving to a new thread for the last 38,000 posts, but we are really slow to muster! Finally, the time has come. Tomorrow (at 12:01 am, to be precise!) The Two Towers comes out, and we start a new chapter.

[RosieCotton]

We love ya, too, Ruthy...just keep the bacon coming!

Glad to hear things are going better. You're still in my prayers!

[Corin Stormhands]

Well, I'd take that one too. But my birthstone is ruby, and that kinda looks like one (I didn't read the description)

[Corin Stormhands]

Glad things are better on the home front.

[HairOfTheDog]

American Idol Classic Love Songs (to help me get over Clay's loss on Wednesday). As most of you know from the other thread, Glen and I were going through a really bad time of it, but thanks to your prayers, things are much better!

Tell me, not over American Idol!

HA! - I still never saw a second of it. I feel that my country now has a common culture that I am an outsider in.

[osagebowman]

CS: yeah, I believe that. Same as management saying "we're behind you."

Got a day off, planning on cutting boards too short and bending nails, been looking forward to it for quite a while. It's beautiful sunny day now, just a bit of rain earlier. Sammy has been walked and Susan is refilling the bird feeders.

Hope all of you have a great day at work or wherever the road may lead you.

[SuziQ]

Looks better prepared for the road than a possum.... least it has armor.

Possum on the half-shell.

[HairOfTheDog]

Therefore it's our fault.

I just don't get that part. I don't get why they want to think it!

[Wneighbor]

I like ties too. I used to wear them to work sometimes. The dress code said that on certain days we were to dress in such and such a way. It wasn't worded properly. It said something to the effect of "employees should wear business suits with suitcoats, no blue jeans, with ties." They meant women should wear dresses. I had worked for this company a long time and was VERY secure in the job. I would wear jeans colored any other color than blue, a jacket (I have some interesing ones) and a men's tie. Uh, I was referred to as eccentric. But, they never bothered me about it. Especially since I was forever pointing out the poor wording AND grammar in the dress policy.

[RMDupree]

Thanks you two. I am so grateful for your friendship!

[RMDupree]

You have high-speed internet, Hair. You should go to idolonfox.com and check out Clay performing Everlasting Love. It's great!

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

I remember when I was growing up, my parents always saying that my brother and I needed to pick spouses that would fit into the family. My dad remarried about 7 yrs after my mother died. I like the lady alright, but she is so different then the rest of us, and my mother. Even my kids comment on her. She is like the kind of grandmas, that pinch little kids cheeks and talk about how much they've grown and weeds and so on, real sappy. None of us or my mother was that way. My mother was a very independent lady and could/did function without dad there to hold her hand. This lady is not that way at all, she even seems to get resentful that dad plays golf 2 times a week and leaves her at home by herself. My mom had a life. That is what I would like to tell Alice, well go find your own thing to do while dad plays golf. I think it's great when older people have hobbies. But she is afraid of everything. Afraid to drive, afraid to be home by herself especially at night. I don't get that kind of attitude and hope I never get that way.

Becky

[RosieCotton]

My dad remarried about 7 yrs after my mother died.

The very thought of that happening in my life just makes my stomach turn right now. I hope it's nothing I ever have to deal with.

Probably selfish on my part, but...

[HairOfTheDog]

Measure twice cut once!

You probably already know all this, but I found it to be a good tip for other occasional nail pounders:

Our carpenter that did a lot of the finish work on the Beach house said that nails bend usually because you hit them too many times. They get hot and weaken. grab a bend in the nail right after you bend it and you'll see how hot it feels.

So he tried to get me, a girl, to hit them fewer times, and harder... but if I was having to hit it alot, wait. let it cool off. If you bend it, straighten it, but leave it for a minute or two and move on to a new nail till it cools back down. If you keep hitting it while it is hot, it will keep bending.

It helps me!

[Wneighbor]

I feel much the same way about my step-dad. I think I've splained this before, but my family is a little, um...southern in our makeup.

Wow, I totally understand what you're saying. Some of you may think it's really weird for me to say this but it took years for me to decide that it was okay to not go around where I was getting this kind of treatment. And I came under fire from a lot of people for bailing from the family. Then it took more years for me to realize that HEY I can make different decisions than they did about family relationships. I can choose not to be all-controlling in my kid's adult lives. One additional decision: my family have very very few divorced people. (Obviously I've broken the record) But, in the families before me that have divorced and remarried there is a spoken rule that we can never love those step-people really because they aren't blood. So, I've seen it really be hurtful to some kids. When my oldest daughter was marrying my s-i-l he had already been married and had the little girl. Immediately it was noised about that she just would not or could not be loved as though she were one of us. SCUSE ME BUT B***SH**T. God gave us more ability to love than most any of us exercise and a 3 year old needs love. (She was 3 at the time)

[Lil'freeper]

And fortunately I have raised Myranda away from that atmosphere for the most part so she recognizes that for what it is.

This is a blessing that will reap rewards for generations. I'll spare you the details but we have a few lulus in our family. My departed Aunt's family is a real mess and my stable, normal, happily married parents didn't realize what an important and good influence they were in my crazy cousins' lives until very recently. Their children are growing up, and it appears they'll turn out ok. "Dysfunction" is so easily perpetuated though the generations that it takes a very strong person to break out of the cycle and the people who do need good role models to lean on. Keep at it, your influence is greater than you can imagine.

[Wneighbor]

I want Aragorn's ring. Is that cross gendered? I just love that ring.

[PayNoAttentionManBehindCurtain]

Oh, I've met the dwarves:) They are just now getting out of the bags that the trolls put them in.

Becky

[Wneighbor]

Have I told you guys how much I love you all lately? I DO!

Back at you.

[Overtaxed]

But my birthstone is ruby, and that kinda looks like one (I didn't read the description)

I think it's a crystal....I've got the catalog.

[RosieCotton]

Any more move news, OT? I can't remember what your latest status was!