My pre-teen Halloween story

There were always literally hundreds of kids out in our neighborhood on Halloween. When I was about 12, I got a gray wig and messed up the hair, a rubber mask with a large nose and lots of wrinkles, wore an old long plaid robe tied at the waist and socks with open-toe bedroom slippers. So here I am, messy gray hair, ugly face, robe and slippers and walked with a limp down the dark street. Two men were waiting at the end of a driveway for their children. Here I come, limping by and one man pokes the other one in the side and says, "Hey, Jim. Is that your wife or mine?"

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so I'm not up for that challenge. It has nothing to do with religion, or beliefs, or such....I just do not like Halloween. I did the whole bit when my kids were little, but never liked it (they could not tell that though!).

I don't like witches, or spiders, or cupcakes that look like them. Don't like pointy hats and long chins with warts on them and especially warts with hair growing out of them. Don't like to scare people or to be scared. Don't like hairy spiders hanging on a thread. Don't like green faces on little children. Don't like mucous-looking stuff dripping off someone's face or, worse yet, off another body part.

BUT I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE CANDY CORN!!! AND THE CANDY CORN THAT IS SHAPED LIKE A PUMPKIN.

I wish I had all boys! How do you deal with a teenage girl who continues to lie about everything. Sweet in your face one minute and the next thing you know it is all a lie. It is so devastating every time it happens. It breaks my heart. We have even tried counseling. This is a girl who has everything going for her. She's beautiful, talented beautiful voice (college scholarships), athletic and top student. She draws trashy boys like flies and tries to hide the relationship from us because she knows we will disapprove. Daddy teaches at the same high school so it is hard on them both. Him, because what she does reflects on him and the little respect he gets from his students and her, because I know it has to be hard having Daddy around all the time. But she has not earned our trust. There has been one incident after another for four years (She is a junior in high school). Just when we begin to trust just a little, we find something else. Last night while we were at a meeting, she had a "boyfriend" whom we do not approve of, come to our house. How she got her little brother to keep quiet I don't know but I will find out. (He is the worst secret keeper.)

My husband and I are struggling financially to provide the things she needs to further her talent and school activities and functions. The latest is giving up things we usually do for Christmas to buy her a used vehicle. Now, after this latest stunt I can't justify it or trust her enough to let her get into to go anywhere.

I'm not sure why you think boys are easier. I have both and they all try to pull the same stunts.

Most are doing great but one in particular (a boy) could just as easily have been your daughter. Lie, lie, lie and he acts like we have stupid written on our foreheads or were never teens.

With the last "minor" accident, but the 4th one, the car is locked up tight and Lord, you'd think we were depriving him of food and water. Thank God he has never hurt anyone or himself but when you already have restrictions, (no use of cell phone, no more than 1 kid and only a sibling in the car)...well...you just can't justify letting your girlfriend drive the car home because you were feeling "kinda dizzy"

........He just does not get the drift of the need to call home for any reason that he can not handle, and especially if your "kinda dizzy" 56 miles from home when you were supposed to be right around the block

...

He's sulking, trying to make our lives miserable, disrupting the rest of the household, but I've now put a chart up and for every act of defiance, whining etc, another week gets added to the lack of wheels... took him a couple of hours and 4 more weeks tacked on to realize I mean business.

You have to realize that your not her friend and the decisions you make now on your expectations and her inability to follow them needs to be cleared up. Hang in there, they do eventually grow out of this stage...only to head into another one.

not cystic. We've been to the dermatologist twice without success. He now uses a generic (Wal-Mart) version of Proactiv and it isn't 100%, but lots better. Accutane can cause you to be suicidal and to me the risks just are too great versus any possible benefit.

The blackheads can be handled with good hand washing, keep his hands off his face, washing his hair daily if it is oily like my son's, and washing his wash a couple of times a day. The white heads could be handled with a soft puffing, like those disposable pads that are on the market. There are antibiotics that might be helpful. There are lots of OTC products that might be a little pricey, but I would exhaust every possible option before trying Accutane. We have a local oral/maxillofacial surgeon that has a clinician in his office to help with skin problems and they sell products that are not prescription. I can't remember the name, but do a goggle search for acne products.

It paid maybe $.20 more than minimum wage. I think you can make more than that as an MT, don't you? You just haven't found your fit yet. If housekeeping is something you really want to do, go for it. It was a really nasty job, though. I'd rather do transcription at home than clean up after a bunch of slobs. Oh, disgusting. And the things people would leave behind in their rooms.

These lights are adorable. If you weren't going to have the kids make them, perhaps you could make them up ahead of time to "decorate". Twinkle lights are sold at the dollar stores nowadays for a buck!!!

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Your Halloween Party sounds fun!!! I was thinking about doing one for my 6-year-old, having the kids dress up.

But I do have to ask, just because you are a Christian does not mean you can't celebrate Halloween. In fact, you ARE celebrating "Halloween", just on a different day. I understand the meaning of Halloween isn't the best, however, that is the day that is set aside and Halloween has been totally commercialized anyway, so it is not like I am sitting at home worshiping un-Christian like things or trying to be a witch. Do you see what I mean? I am not trying to be mean, I too am a Christian, but we do take the kids out on Halloween.

This will be my 1st, usually my sister-in-law does it. I picked up A Taste of Home's Halloween issue and if that doesn't inspire you to do something this fall, then you might be dead...pun intended.

For dessert I am going to make little witches that will make a neat centerpiece. Here's how you do it: Take 16 large marshmallows, oreo cookies, coconut slivers (for the hair that you dye green with food coloring), Hershey kisses and peanut butter cups (miniature) that will be the top of her hat (place candies on top of oreo chocolate cookie (minus one side of cookie and the frosting). Use pretzels for her broomstick. These things are so cute I can hardly stand it.

2. Spider cupcakes. Use chocolate EVERYTHING and for the legs use 8 small pieces of licorice dangling from the cupcake and anything small and red for the eys (M&M minis) or red icing.

There are tons of ideas and recipes. The main dish will be Witch's Brew Stew and it looks awesome! If you want the recipe, email me. If not, then drop dead.

Oh, and for the kiddies, I will be playing games like pin the stem on the pumpkin and bobbing for body parts (will probably call this game something else), but you fill up a large tin bucket, stain the water black and put things in inside. Each kid takes turns using their hands to try to find 3 things you tell them to find in this nasty mixture of stuff using their HANDS, not mouth.....

So, get your invitations out, dust off your printers and have fun! I'm doing this mid-month, not on Halloween since I am a Christian and we don't celebrate Halloween.

I was hired by MQ in April for clinic work. The clinic account was huge and always behind when I first started. There were constant emails begging for people to work extra and on weekends. Slowly, it started running out of work and they started slowly adding more and more accounts to my pool until I think I was up to around 20 (yes, 20). Most of this work was ER notes. I complained several times. The ER notes were done by some of the worst dictators I've ever heard -- mostly American's, but sounding like they were eating while competing in the world's fastest talker competition. I complained -- several times -- about no work, multiple accounts and the quality of dictators. Finally, I received an insulting email from my supervisor telling me that I should be able to do this work. I promptly replied that I could "do" this work, but that they did not pay me enough for the headache and resigned on the spot. They really complained about everyone sending things to QA and QC, but with most of the accounts I was on, every report went to one or the other. I'm not used to turning in reports filled with blanks and I and was not comfortable with the quality of work I was producing. I'm certainly not the best Transcriptionist in the world, but I'm not the worst either and I actually care about what my work looks like. With MQ I was lucky to make 100 lines an hour. With my current job where I have been almost 2 years I make about 200-250 lines an hour and I also have gotten another part time job working for a local person where I make about 250-300 lines an hour.

I already had a full time transcription job with a smaller company I love and only went with MQ part time for tax purposes. My experience was not a good one. I personally would not work there again nor recommend employment there. On a side note, an MT I used to work for locally went to MQ, she lasted a little over a year. She referred someone who started 2 weeks before me and she lasted a little over 2 months. These MTs left for basically the same reasons. I can say that experiences will vary depending on what office you are at as will pay. An MT I know was hired by a PA office at 7.5 cents a line for acute care (15 years acute care experience). I was hired by the Dallas office at 9.25 a line for clinic (8 years clinic experience). My base was actually 8.25. I had to produce 6,000 lines in a pay period with 1600 of these lines done on the weekend to get the extra penny a line.

Letterman went on and on about wanting to be on Oprah's show. Well, Oprah never called or took his calls. Then she was reported as saying that she doesn't watch Dave's show and doesn't know what he is doing. So Letterman finally laid off and didn't say much more about it because she never called.

So to him it probably was the event of the decade because he has been wanting to see her for so long!

My pre-teen Halloween story - happened about