Susita

My husband (then fiancee) and I both went to the interview together and I think it was beneficial. Buena suerte

Federal jobs have gone up since Obama took office, while state/local jobs have gone down.

Didn't someone just link to a report that actually shows a decline in federal jobs over the past 10 years? I may be misunderstood, but I actually work for the federal government and we've been on a hiring freeze/pay freeze for the past couple of years. It just seems odd to me that Obama would be on some hiring craze and we'd be adding so many federal jobs when we're forbidden from hiring anyone, and plenty of bureaus are currently going through an attrition process.

But what do I know, I don't watch Fox.

It will be tough to beat Obama in November if the economy keeps improving like this...Unemployment Rate drops two points to 8.3%...23rd straight month of private sector job growth....257,000 jobs added in January....3.7 MILLION jobs (private) created since February 2010...And despite Obama being called a socialist on certain news outlets government has been slashed by 500,000 jobs since Feb 2010.

They'll never find out about this if they don't turn off Fox News. 'Cause you know, the liberal mainstream media (aka every other single news source in the country) lies about everything.

I get my news from Comedy Central & my comedy from Fox News.

I hope the OP got something to eat.

The chefs are paid. They are men making money. Making money is a man's job. where is the contradiction?

Ehh... I don't buy all the women jobs/men jobs thing. It's all about the dynamics of a particular couple. I thought things would be a lot different in my relationship, my hubs is from S. America which is generally pretty "macho."

If you ask my hubs, he'll tell you that he's quite happy that I also make money

Marriage (& parenting) is a partnership. We both have things we'd prefer to do or not do, and that's normal. I prefer to cook because I honestly really like cooking. He prefers to do the laundry because he can fold it while he watches sports on TV.

I work days & my husband works nights so we don't have to dump a big chunk of our income on daycare or babysitters. Turns out to be the best thing we've ever decided to do. I always knew my hubs was a great dad, but it's even more apparent now. The kids tell me they prefer to stay home with him because he makes them dinosaur chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese and lets them do whatever they want.

My boneheaded kid (16 as of yesterday) and two boneheaded friends are "watching" a great movie. "Oh Brother Where art Thou"'

Every damn one of them has a cellphone in front of his face, texting his butt off.

It just annoys the ####### outta me.

Why are the two even here? and why bother turning on the tv?

It would be really funny if they were all texting each other about the movie instead of actually speaking to each other.

My little sister insists on texting me from her room when we live in the same house, asking things like this "Do u got ne soda?" "U makin dinner?"

The worst to me is that nothing is spelled right and sometimes she adds extra letters to words that don't need them.

He's got good taste. Cheerios rock! A box is like three servings and then it's empty.

We buy the huge ginormous box of Cheerios (with 3 kids and him, we kinda have to. One box would go in a day). I'm not home when he eats breakfast, he gets home from work @ 7:30am and eats breakfast with the baby. She's kinda into Cheerios, Kix and cream-cheese bagels, so that's what they usually eat.

No, man (sigh, man). I found rice in the cat's water bowl tonight, obviously flung by the rag-on-a-stick, see man.

Congratulations on your continuing adventures with reproductivity, and on Hubby for being able to cook anything, si man!

Your cat doesn't like rice-water?

Thanks for the congrats! We're in the market for a big house now, so that's my next adventure.

Holy Guacamole, CONGRATS!!!!!! There is only one appropriate response under the circumstances.

Thanks 5!

Aha, S-Bone! I knew that you were a typical gringa. The very sage advice of Mrs. T-B.'s grandma, in Quito, rings in my brain. After she heard that I was a good dude, she told Mrs. T-B., "Serve him! Serve him well!"

(Perhaps in anticipation of becoming a gringa through naturalization, Mrs. T-B. didn't listen to Grandma much, no man. By the way, I tripped over the rag-on-a-stick while coming into the house yesterday, uff man.)

Well my mother-in-law always tells the hubs to be nice to me, 'specially cause I'm pregnant. After running around like a lunatic all week, working, cleaning, cooking, taking care of the kids, bribing them to do their homework, scrubbing marker off the floor with magic eraser (thanks to the baby), the least hubs could do is make me an egg sammich & coffee on Saturday. Besides, he's kinda proud of himself that he makes something I'll actually eat.

You still haven't gotten rid of the rag-on-a-stick?

I see where your ol man is coming from. I use a mixing bowl for a cereal bowl and those all you can eat joints are always at the top of my list.

Sounds like my husband. He uses those for cereal too. He can eat like half a box of Cheerios easy, and he's like 150 lbs. soaking wet.

I do the vast majority of the cooking but I have to say, my husband has mastered the art of making egg sandwiches. What can I say, I get spoiled on Saturday mornings.

My wife is so stingy that is bothers me so much. We are at the table and the servings she makes are super small.she is not calorie conscious.i have told her many times to make enough food so that the person at the table wants another serving they can get it.she never understands that.she hoards food and saves everything to be eaten later.you only get one serving,period.it offends me really.i have told her about this so many times but she repeats the same thing over and over.she buys something special from the store and tell me i will put this away for now. we can use it at such and such occassion.i have never seen anybody like this before.please heklp.

That's not good. Like others have said, maybe seek counseling.

So how many out of 46 million on food stamps actually need them to feed themselves?

And by "need", I mean "would starve without".

They might not starve, they might just wind up homeless. Choosing between keeping a roof over your head & groceries is not pleasant. I've unfortunately been in that predicament once. I had family to help me. Some don't.

The problem is the people who abuse the system. As they say, one rotten apple spoils the whole barrel (I know there's more than one rotten apple!). I, like Amby, know people who get food stamps but also work. It's mostly because their income alone isn't enough to suffice feeding themselves and their children and paying the bills. I see more and more cases of husbands/fathers running off and leaving the woman to fend for herself and kids around here. It's a sad trend.

Then there's those people who abuse it. I've always wondered how the heck they were able to get away with that. No one ever checks up on these people!

Tennessee Tea Party Wants Slavery Removed From School Textbooks To Make Founding Fathers Look Good.

And here, silly me, thinking history was about the facts.

And what was Boehner so pissed off about, got to have his face plastered all over the nation, supported by his billionaire buddies, and got to sit behind the president. He should be happy, doesn't have a damn thing to worry about. Reminds me of nuts I met in a psycho ward.

He was pissed because they messed up his spray-tan at Casa del Sol. He looks like he's been hanging out with Snookie on the Jersey Shore. He looked even oranger on HDTV.

Now you are making words up.

I'm a trendsetter. Maybe it will stick, like Colbert's "truthiness."

But swagger is a real word: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/swagger

Magnus, look for tickets in March. I just ran a CheapTickets search and the roundtrip from DC to Lima starts at about $850.00. I know you might not want to wait that long but you'll wind up saving a lot.

And it's not off-peak, as December/January/February/Early March are popular times for travel to Peru because of the summer weather. I went in August once, the weather stunk (dreary, cloudy) but my tickets were $475.00 round trip. October was also a cheap month to go.

Tell that to Clinton.

Clinton had the charisma necessary to woo Kim Jong-Il into doing what he wanted. We call that "swagger."

I have to say, everytime I hear stories like this, I'm super impressed by the skill and mission-impossibleness of our special forces.

NM

Found this article about Germany. Very interesting, especially this part. I think this makes a huge difference & refers to what a few posters were saying.

The Mittelstand now employ millions of people and seem to put a higher priority on employing Germans than do publicly traded multinational giants. Many Germans believe that since the Mittelstand are privately owned, they focus more on long-term growth than short-term profits.

The Secrets of Germany's Success

Do they use all three last names when they get married? If so that would make for a super long name.

Some of them do, some of them drop the 2nd one, a lot of them never use the "de Husband's Last Name" It's super confusing, there's no rhyme or reason to it. Official documents have the paternal & maternal last names on them. Wedding invitations come addressed to (example) Sr. Rodriguez y Sra. de Rodriguez. Some people like to be called by their middle name instead of their first name. I like the USA one last name system better.

If you think that THAT'S complex, try to figure out what Latinas do when they marry. Not one of Mrs. T-B.'s sisters has remotely the same name, no man.

It's very weird when I go to Perú with the hubs and we share the same last name. That only happens with siblings over there. People just don't get it. In Ecuador, your wife would be Sra. Father's Last Name Mother's Last Name de T-Bone. Not to mention her middle name(s).

Desafortunadamente, esto pasa mucho en Lima. Siempre hay que estar preparado. Felizmente, mis amigos me advertieron que los Drs. de la embajada cobran un montón y piden muchas vacunas... y con anticipación mi esposo sacó sus carnets de vacunación y se hizo algunas vacunas necesarias ANTES en la clínica local. Cuando fue a la Clínica Angloamericana, llevó sus carnets como prueba de haberse hecho las vacunas y no podía insistir la Dra.

Solo dejo esta información para la gente que aún no ha tenido su cita médica.

Amigos, tienen razón en muchas localidades en EU pueden ser caras la vacunas. Pero, en algunos departamentos de salubridad local de EU como donde yo vivo, el cobro es según el ingreso y gratis para personas de ingresos menores. También en Lima con el seguro médico SIS y en el departamento de salubridad MINSA las vacunas son de costo reducido para los adultos.

Tiene razón, pero USCIS requiere que vaya a un "civil surgeon," y no aceptan seguro, ni medicaid, solo cash! La cita misma cuesta $100-150 y no importa si ella había hecho las vacunas en el departamento de salud, tiene que hacer cita con el civil surgeon. Si hace las vacunas en Lima, no tiene que hacer nada cuando llegue aquí.

Solo le digo para que no estes sorprendido. Es un costo adicional que muchos no esperan. Yo tenía suerte, como tuve una amiga que hizo el mismo proceso y me advirtió.

https://egov.uscis.gov/crisgwi/go?action=offices.type&OfficeLocator.office_type=CIV

He has the added pressure of needing to provide for his mom and three siblings, who he cared for in Nicaragua, and feels like he has failed at that because he cannot work right now.

That's hard, and it happens a lot. Luckily, we don't have to support my husband's family in Peru other than a few emergencies (FIL's eye surgery, for example). If this is really affecting him, maybe talk to his family. Are they putting pressure on him? That really won't help.

I wish the best for you guys, I know he'll pull through it. It's rough at first. My husband was lucky to have the boys to drive him insaneI mean keep him busy, but there were those times when you could just tell something was up, and he did have that "useless" feeling too. Now he just wishes he could have 3 days off in a row.

Do you guys still go on dates and do romantic things? Or is couple time pushed aside? It seems like you are working a lot, I would be depressed too sitting and watching my spouse work that much...

I'll give some advice about making time for each other.

We have 3 (almost 4!) kids, but we still make Saturday & Sunday nights "movie nights." Put all the kids to bed and rent a movie from the Redbox, make some popcorn. Once a month or so we get grandma to babysit & go out to eat or something too.

We both work opposite shifts (I work days, he works overnights). You have to make time for each other, even if it's as simple as renting a movie and hanging out on the couch. Sometimes that's the best, too.