Well, I'm glad that FIL is still fighting and I really wonder how much fun life would be without crisis. I know it sounds trite but it reminds me of that famous quote by JFK, "In the Chinese language, the word "crisis" is composed of two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity." Some people avoid conflict and crisis out of fear and never questions our system or mores and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it. This unfortunately applies to all aspects of our society and all segments of our existence, not only our dealings with the USCIS.


Spring is the time of regeneration but you have a knack for it therefore I dub thee, "Empress Phoenix of VJ."

Don't apologize, I love it. If you were deadly serious all the time, without any avenue for release of inner tension, you'd go mad or at least have one Hell of an ulcer. Going through life with a lugubrious expression is not much of an existence. Life should be a fun experience, if it becomes a funeral march then that's not much of a life just a prequel to death. Frowning causes wrinkles so be silly and smile.

Me likey!!!

Thanks again for your insight Mumsie.
I love that analysis of the kanji.

Hehehe, my husband bought the two for one deal on Ped Eggs - we both have one and use them. But hey, they work! You do have to take care not to remove too much skin though - and use the foot miracle cream too:-). Barefoot season is here (at least indoors - I wear sandals outside because of all the insects!) and I really notice the difference.

Merci, those are kind words, but I wasn't paying attention, I was looking at the woman in the red dress.

My Sister told me about the ped egg, I want one, can you only buy them online!?

krikit you need the aloe infused socks

Yes, you can buy them online. In fact, like Kathryn said, you can get the 241 deal online. They are totally worth the price.

Get up!!!!!!!!!!

Up had coffee, cut the lawn and did the dishes already how sad is that for a Sunday morning. Soon off to starting the laundry and such.

Whats ur husbands email?? I need to know his secrets. I hope you didnt awaken him as you puttered around outside,lol

Actually he is off working his 2nd job today. Hey I can't work I figure I should contribute something lol. And you'd be interested to know since the lawnmower is broken we have an old manual push one which is not the sharpest but that is what I used. Do ya think that qualifies as a workout YES I do

I hate those lawnmowers!! They do give a good workout!!

So far I have gone out to the patio and sat and looked at a lizard.

Then I came inside.

Good morning!

Hey trailmix that isn't so bad sounds like a nice way to start your Sunday morning. Flames your right it is a good workout and I was desperate to get it cut else my neighbour 2 doors up sends someone down to cut it and I feel guilty lol.

Wow. I'm impressed. You get the gold star! lol

I got my Ped egg at Walgreens. It fits the bill in between pedicures. I always laugh when the "vent" thread veers off to OF

We have a ped egg! We love it.

Here in Louisiana- they no longer use the credo blade when doing pedicures

I can still buy the blades at the beauty suppliers or drugstores though- I usually get Mel to do my feet. You know its love when your hubby will scrape off ugly yellow callous for you he actually does a pretty job.

Kudo's to Mel! Awesome!

What's your secret??? Can you call and give Waterpupy some advice? LOL

Of course, if he does mine I have to do his too.

I have gotten into doing my toenails to match the holidays- examples- red with hearts for Valentines; purple, yellow and green for Mardi Gras, etc. Mel lets me paint his to match. He'll walk around in sandals with is toes all painted up and doesn't give a crap what anyone thinks.

Good for Mel!!

They still use them here. Sometimes you have to ask, but other times they'll just do it. It's taken me a long time to find a place that can do a proper mani/pedi. I finally found one..... 45 minutes away. But it's right next to the Fresh Market so I turn it into a field trip. Should we not be in the Off Topic thread?

Oh cool! A new emoticon! Oh wait. No it's not. 'Save pic' it is then.

Flippin' Comcast! I had finished composing a perfectly formulated and detailed response to my girlfriend's email... hit the 'send' button and..... nothing. Error..... we cannot blah blah blah. Entire thing lost. Yeah. That's Comcastic.

I know what you mean. In SLC it was OK but in Spokane it sucked, good thing we had the cantenna out. I'm on Bell and they're OK but the wi-fi works rather poorly when it rains or snows, power lines leak EM interference which plays havoc with the signal. Bell is much better than Comcastic though. I have lost so many replies on VJ but all my e-mails are saved first, that way I don't lose them. I don't correspond via e-mail for personal reasons (primarily business) very much, though.

B1tching about Comcast, are we?????
Well, I'll join the club. About 2 months ago, the MoFos took away the most important thing in my life: THE SOAP NETWORK . Man, that's just mean, though Bren was cool with it until National Geographic went the way of the Dodo bird
I phone Comcast and they tell me "uh-oh, you should have NEVER had those channels to begin with".... jerkkkks. i will sooooooooo cancel when our year is up.

So, to summarize:

Well I am having trouble with the magicjack phone today. The audio is choppy and I can't seem to do anything to correct it. Contacted their technical support and they want me to try it with a non-cordless phone. yeah.

Evil Televisionistic Powers!!!! Beourgeoisie exploiters of the working class!!! False materialistic messianists!!!!! I've heard people call Comcast much worse. But what, pray tell, will you do without television? Poor Bren.

BTW, I only watch NFL-Network, TVLAND and the news. Despite what my sister says, I do not watch Playboy, Club Jenna or anything else of that ilk, I swear.

Are you with Comcast?

Kinda sounds like my experience with Embarq. They majorly screwed up BIG TIME when we first moved in here. Had them out twice to fix their lines. I'm not going to go into the major problems we had which compounded exponentially (actually, I think I posted about it last year... lol) but the 2nd time they had me outside with a screwdriver disconnecting the junction box and testing their equipment. Yeah. Not a big fan of the Embarq people.

Still better than Qwest in Wyoming.

Buying a house in NJ when you are in Canada SUCKS!
I want to be there

We have decided to try Vonage. Husband just went up to radioshack to see if he could procure a modem, but they are closed for the night, so will try tomorrow.

You're buying a house? Did I miss something?

Nick is looking at homes, yes.
I didn't get the promotion at work.

He is house hunting and I'm here.

That's terrible. NJ has many fine areas, I just hope you're not planning to live in Cherry Hill, could be mucho pricey.

lol
No Cherry Hill.

We are looking in Bergen/Passaic/Essex counties.....
Sigh.

Have you seen the houses in Alpine??? OMG INSANE! Want to own your own Mansion with bowling alley, 4 indoor pools, ballroom, full size movie theatre and 15 bathrooms for 58 million dollars? Look there, honestly.
Some of the "houses" (I wouldn't even call them houses) are out of this world....insane.

That's crazy, it isn't worth more than 40 million tops. Unfortunately many rich NY urbanites have their country homes in NJ, it's been that way for years. Alpine is always in the top ten list of most expensive counties to purchase real estate in the US.

Nick lives near by there and took me driving through. I was amazed.

Then when we started looking at homes, we looked (for fun) online at those houses and were like "Oh perfect, We'll take 2" LOL

Then we went and looked at the crappiest pieces of crap that was on the website and had a good laugh too.

We had fun that day.

I have a friend who lives in Manhattan and he pays $1400/mo. in an apartment subsidized by his employer. NYC and vacinity has probably the most expensive real estate in the US and it is incredibly difficult to get anything decent for the money. Don't feel bad though, Jerry Seinfeld paid $32 million dollars for Billy Joel's house on Long Island and spent another $10 million just to make it habitable.

Yeah...I'm sure we'll find something.

Good luck house hunting, and sorry about the job!! Were starting to look at houses as well. Wife is tired of her 45 min commute (times 2) each day, so either sell or rent out or condo, prob rent it out. joy joy

Sorry about the job Laura, but remember everything happens for a reason and you are going to be moving so you will get a better job here. Hope Nick finds you guys a great house.

Flames good luck with your house hunting too.

We have a slum landlord who lives 3 houses up from us and his tenant who lives across the street from us is going to moving this summer as he bought a house so the owner (the slum landlord) is likely going to be moving to across from us. He is not well liked on our street, has confrontations with all the neighbours so we have already discussed if it gets bad we will sell and move. Praying he decides to stay 3 doors up so we don't have to move cause it is such a pain.

Maybe I missed a post, but why is Nick looking for a house now instead of waiting until you move?

Oh, okay. I know what that's like. My husband was house-hunting here while I was there. It sucked. I had him take pics and send them to me so I could be semi-involved too. As it turned out, he was able to weed out the crap so that by the time I got here and took over, the real estate agent had a good idea of which houses to take me/us to and which ones not. It's a long, tiring, nuisance. After a while you begin to think "If I have to go into one more stinking house I'm gonna scream." It takes forever to find a place, so just think of it the same way. Nick is weeding out the crap so you don't have to.

Because he wants to have a house before I come down. I have all my stuff....we'd have to move twice and he doesn't want that.
I don't want to do that either...I have a lot of stuff!

I trust him and his sister and mom, they will find us a great house...I'm very involved, he sends me pictures and everything.
I may take a trip down if he finds one he REALLY likes just to make sure

I had to move twice. It really sucked.

Completely, that's why we aren't doing it...lol

Well, I am officially sick to death of the Off Topic Forum. It's either politics or racism or people making sexual innuendoes at each other. I've decided to stay out of it for the sake of my mental health. Guess I won't be on here as much anymore. LOL