Boy, Hayseed..you just wrote my story..Today, it occured to me...

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Layoffs in the North Pole

Story by Bill Perkins

In a press release this morning Santa Claus announced the layoff of nearly 800,000 elf employees. The announcement was completely unexpected despite the current economic situation.

Due to the failing economy, and many companies cutting costs wherever they can, including advertising, Mr. Claus has lost several endorsement jobs.

Mr. Claus is seeking government aid, requesting his own bailout package from several different governments. However, he is meeting a great deal of resistance. Many toymakers and distributors, namely Walmart, Playskool, and the Chinese government, are lobbying against the bailout. They say Santa's "Free Toy for Every Child" program is a seasonal monopoly, and it generally takes four months to recover the losses sustained from his "good deeds."

Children across the globe will feel the impact this Christmas, particularly the naughty ones. Traditionally, naughty children receive lumps of coal from Santa on Christmas. Mr. Claus has no coal to give, though, as it was part of the elves' severance packages. It is Santa's hope that it will at least be enough to keep his former employees warm through the winter.

When asked if there was any hope of the elves returning to work next year, Santa replied, "It doesn't look very promising. The elves are like family to me; I love them all very dearly. Unfortunately, illegal immigrants work for a lot less, and I don't have to provide benefits, so that's probably what I'll have to do. It was a difficult decision to make, but it's necessary if I want to keep the business in operation."

The elves aren't the only ones hurting. The reindeer are suffering a great deal more. Mr. Claus has had to auction off much of his breeding stock just to stay operational until Christmas Eve. (See related story on page 5, "McDonald's Debuts new Christmas Menu.) It is questionable at this point how much longer Santa will be able to make his annual flight.

Could this be the beginning of the end of Santa Claus? Only time will tell for sure.

My best friend just returned from a trip back home by herself. There, she met up with her high school sweetheart - 20 years later. His mom and her mom are best friends and they were both there for a funeral.  She cried her eyes out at lunch today.
She learned while on her trip back home that the love of her life was divorced, has 3 kids - his wife left him for another man. My friend is married with 2 children.
To make a long story short, my friend is a true lady. She told him all about her life here and he just listened. They were near water (a gorgeous beach) on the docks and it was just the 2 of them and he began saying things to her that made her so sad. He went on and on about how he never stopped loving her and would look at her and say, "you are just as gorgeous as you were back in high school."  She said she would just laugh and tell him he was crazy.  She said she saw him on and off during the trip because she "had" to. They have families that are very close.  Every time he would see her he would give her a big hug and call her gorgeous.  She said the night before she left they were on his mother's porch swinging, eating ice cream and he cried like a baby. She cried. Nothing inappropriate happened between them.  She said it was a connection none like she had ever, ever experienced before.  She said that he made her promise that if anything were to ever happen between she and her husband that she would come back and be with him. He promised that he would wait for her, even if she were 80 years old.  My friend cried and cried.  He cried and cried.

I cried and cried.  I know this lady's husband.  The have a good relationship.  But she and I both know that we did not marry our soul mates.  I don't even know where mine is (we broke up many moons ago), but I know he was the one for me.  There was no infedelity to this story at all. I believe her.  They lost contact when she went away to college, moved on, and that was it.  She would talk about him periodically with me, but nothing real serious.

I don't know how many women (I sure haven't) met up with old flames or lost soul mates and have the experience she has.  She is a Christian and says that if she didn't love Jesus, something would have happened between them. She was able to use her love of God to witness to this man (who isn't a Christian).  She said that she wouldn't be able to live with herself if something happened between them and that his soul was more important to her than her selfish desires.

I commended her for that.  I don't know how many women in her position would have been as strong.  She cried so hard when she was telling me this story. Lunch lasted 4 hours!! I'm glad I was off today. Anyway, it just has me thinking about my ilfe, too, as a married mom and wife. My husband is the most unemotional, unaffectionate, doesn't-believe-in-soul mates-kind-of-guy. I can't talk with him about these kinds of things.  I just wish he were mine OR I was with mine.......

I have a daughter  that is a sophmore.Wamted this certain college.  Could not convince to stay in state.  It costs her 10,000 dollars more being out of state.  She goes from wanting to b there to not wanting to be there to liking it it to hating it It depends on what day you talk to her. Joined the band dropped out, had problem with boyfriend moved across the campus, than they started dating again, then he ends it. She gets upset wants to come home.  I get a phone call every night.  Everytime we decide to have her transfer or come home she decides to stay.  Has changed her major three times.  What worries me is she is on Student loans that she will be responsible to pay when she graduates. If she leaves college she will have to start paying immediately, where she would have 10 years if the stays in college.  This month she is already over 80 minutes on the cell phone and there is two weeks more to go.  She spends hours talking to the ex-boyfriend and they are on the same campus.  My husband and I are going to talk to a therapist about this because I want to do tough love.  Hang up when she calls crying at 11 p.m.  Telling her if she does not get her act together she will have no choice to leave etc.  He is the softy.   Nothing makes her happy. 

By any chance is your son going to a college in New England. 

the original post.  Sending my son to a boys' home is obviously a last resort.  I don't mean an orphanage or foster care.  I mean a facility that can help to retrain him if I can't.  I love my son very much.  I would rather suffer the pains and guilt of having to send him to a reformity, then to watch him grow up into someone who would hurt someone else and ruin the rest of his life.  I love all of my children equally. 

Secondly, when I took my child to the child psychologist, I had several visits with him first to see if there was something I was doing wrong.  I continued to attend each session with my child, including private sessions for myself after his meeting with my son. 

Thirdly, your comments were not helpful, just nasty, and that's not the kind of help I was looking for.  Anyone who's ever been in this situation already feels inadequate as a parent and doesn't need someone else to slam them.  Thanks for taking the time out of your busy day to do just that.

The check was a voided check to Wal-Mart and the Loan company, CNH Capital, knew that and cashed it anyway.  I thought it was illegal for someone cash a check that did not belong to them. 

passive people just sit back ,allow bad things happening, and then whine about it, while aggressive people actually DO SOMETHING about matters they disagree with.

Here is what happened.  When you write a check at this Wal-Mart here, they have you sign something and give the check back.   I stuck it back in my purse.  They are supposed to void.  I was cleaning at my purse that day and paying bills at the same time.  I wrote a $250 to pay a loan.   I really don't know how it happened but I must have torn that one up and sent the $10 voided check to the loan.  A week later, i was looking at my acct online.  I notice that that $10 I had written to Wal-Mart went through twice.  I called the bank and asked why.   They said, "oh, it looks like Wal-Mart double dipped." so I was refunded the money.  I don't know who refunded the money, was it the bank, Wal-mart, I don't know.  Anyway, I became concerned about why that 250 check didn't come in so I called that loan company.  They said $10 was credit to my acct.   I did not connect the 2 at the time.  I thought, 10, I don't write $10 to this acct.  The man told me he would look into it incase there was a mistake.  He called back the day later and said that was a  $10 originally written to Wal-Mart and we cashed it.  So I called the bank and told them.  They then had me go to wal-mart because they said I owed them $10 back.  I go to wal-mart and they say no it is the Telecheck, company they use for this service and they thanked me for trying to clear it up and said Telecheck will be contacting me.  So I get a letter in the mail saying I owe $40 plus I am not allowed to write checks anywhere that uses their service until I pay that $40 back. 

What scares me is that that check said VOID on it and that other bunch was still able to cash it and get their money, which I think was dishonest of them...also my bank let it go through.  Now what if I were to loose a bunch of those type checks and someone cashes it AGAIN.  Man I would be out a lot.  Do you think any of this is right?  TIA.   

Just looked at your web site (from under your MT Stars name).  What a dream your place is!  Congrats for making such a dream come true for you.  Thanks for sharing.

what you do in your spare time when you aren't MT'ing and tending to your farm . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd_tSRsxzvI

I'm going to work on becoming a little more savvy with this stuff, really appreciate your time!  Most days, this board is my main source of entertainment (except for Jake now, of course) or consternation depending on the subject, and you are always a bright spot in the day...

For anyone interested in another puppy story, we adopted him from a shelter, had been put there by a family who decided they didn't want him, had a little kid, but I think the truth is, and the people at the shelter thought, that the family just didn't know what having a puppy was like, so their loss, our happiness!  He's a labradoodle and found him through an internet rescue site that came up when I was searching on it.  We had seen a tan one at a house for sale that we were looking at (I thought it was some kind of terrier or something), and my DH fell in love with that dog, so I did some searching...and there he was.  About dropped my teeth when I found on searching what breeders are getting for these dogs... as somebody pointed out to me, they are just mutts, after all...But I was happy to find him at the shelter, have always adopted dogs like that, am always amazed at the wonderful animals that get dropped off.  My wonderful Boxer had been rescued from a puppy mill situation and many moons ago I had a little German short-hair pointer/Brittany mix that was very ill at first, didn't think she was going to make it, but she lived to 17.  I don't usually do all the little doggie accoutrements, like scarves and such, but he was pretty matted and dirty so had to have a professional trim the first time (dang thing cost more than my haircuts!! so I guess the scarf was part of the doggie-do package.)  Wish I could find the pic that stole our hearts at the shelter, like Misha's pic of Cedric.  Anyway, thanks again Hayseed, you rock!

fair either, to me or the dog. I appreciate just hearing your comments and understanding that I am in a bad situation. I certainly thank everyone who has commented. So many of us have a deep connection to God's magnificent creatures. There is nothing like it in the world.

I just 4 Advil an hour or so ago, so it's not too bad.  The Anbesol works for about 15 minutes and then it's like I never used it.  Just hanging in there until I can call the dentist tomorrow first thing.  I think I'll live.

Thanks for asking!