Well, Diana, you've just broken the poor "teddy bear"'s heart! See how dejected she is? Actually that's her usual pose, in the middle of the kitchen floor with her legs folded up underneath her like a camel. She is a goofball! And she's also as fat as a toad thanks to all of the treats that she's been getting lately (the vet says that she isn't...SHE insists that she isn't but I know the truth). She was delighted enough to give the box a big "snoof", that was treat enough for her. Plus she helped my son play with all of the bubblewrap :-). But thank you. She is very cute and very goofy and she makes us laugh a lot. She's a rescue rottie. Nina

DTSKH, Wow you live in Ohio!!! I am moving up to Columbus, hopefully in June, but I will get back to that as I want to say something very important to you about being baptized.......open your bible and find where it says that you can not enter heaven unless you are baptized....it is not in there. Christ died on the cross for our sins so we can have eternal life with him, he finished the job on the cross, what he did for us on that day alone is what allows us to spend eternity with him. My ex mother -in-law who was raised Catholic was very upset and told my ex and I that if we had a child, the baby would need to be baptized in case it died so it could go to heaven. I respected her fear and would have baptized the baby (had we had one) so she would have peace but I also her that works do not save us. There is nothing we can do that will get us into heaven except accept Christ. He alone covers our sins, we are not saved by "works" but by faith. Also, the act of being baptized is a public profession of our accepting Christ as our Lord and Savior, it is just a public profession, it symbolizes dying to our sins and being re-born in Christ. If we were saved by works alone or with additional works, then where is it written which works will do the trick???? I do not know which denomination you belong to, I am non denominational as I just do not care for man made traditions and did quite a lot of research on the Catholic faith as I noticed there were a lot of man made traditions and understand now why there are so many. All we really need to remember is Jesus died for our sins, accepting him and having a relationship with him is all that is needed. I am quite positive your mom is in heaven with my mom and they are each looking down at us and praying for us. I too feel the exact same way you do about feeling that one day more is one day without mom but one more day closer to being with her. I look forward to seeing her again, hugging her, feeling her soft skin, hearing her laugh, seeing the sparkle in her eye. Satan is not only the father of lies, but the master of trickery and deceit. He will plan false notions in your head to make you think things , whisper ever softly if you are sure your mother is in heaven, when these thoughts enter just say out loud, "Christ died for our sins, my mom's sins and because of this she is with him for eternity" and she is. I also heard in the sermon on Sunday, and for some reason I thought of you and wanted to share this in case you were thinking it, but it was about Christ dying for our sins and there is no purgatory that some believe when you die you need to go to purgatory and this is wrong thinking. The pastor said, "Christ said when I die I go to prepare a place for you, not two places for you, but a place for you." Jesus never said he was going to prepare purgatory and we had to go there or some of us had to go there before they could enter heaven,,,,,,it is not written in the bible, there is no proof to support this. Jesus simply died on the cross to atone for our sins and he finished the work on the cross, his death alone sealed our fate to enter heaven. I could go on and on but I think I made my point. God is good and faithful, since 2005 I have endured many losses but God does not give us more than we can handle and he allowed all my pain and suffering to occur back to back like they did because they truly helped me deal with the loss of my mother. had I not had to mourn the loss of my baby, the loss of ever being able to be a mother, the loss of my husband through an affair on his part, I would not have been prepared to face the loss of my mom. And I see how he prepared me and walked with me and at times carried me and still is. The Lord does work in mysterious ways that is for sure, just look at us, we connected on this forum and we both lost mother's who we were so very close to, miss terribly, and you live in Ohio and soon I will be too. God ordains our paths in life, he leads us to a place in time that we find others who can help each other walk along the path he has chosen for us, and who will help us along the way, The Good Lord works through people, that is how we know he is still a living God. I think our paths crossed for a reason and I thank God for this. You are a blessing to me, and I pray I am one for you as well. Maybe one day we can meet and have lunch and share stories about our mothers. Do not worry about her, I am so sure she is in heaven. I will check back again and I am not sure if we can put our email add's in here but here is mine if you wish to contact me via email summerngreece@yahoo.com. Have a good and blessed day...

Hi Kmttsmom, Thank you for being kind. I'm really not trying to get a reaction or hurt anyone and I think I've stated it over and over, but it bears repeating. :) I'm hurt too, and confused at how my estrangement got to the point it did. Years and years of misunderstanding, letting things go when they really should have been talked out then, not feeling like I could say anything because it would be taken the wrong way. So I'm just trying to understand it from a mother's point of view. And it seems like a lot of mothers are defensive (that's ok, they have a right to be, but then they take it as I'm attacking) and words like "spoiled brat" come into the picture. I'm not, nor was I ever, a spoiled brat. I was raised one of the least spoiled people you would ever meet. No electricity, no television, catchment water, no neighbors. No Christmas tree, very few presents for my birthday. My mother never bought me a car, paid for insurance, college, rent, bills, etc. I had to give away my toys to more needy kids time and again. We recycled everything. I moved out at 14 to live with my dad because of her emotional abuse, and I lived pretty much on my own because he had to work 150 miles away and would be gone for days at a time. I walked to school a few miles away and walked home, did my homework, made myself dinner, and went to bed. And I forgave her in high school. I was able to put it all behind me and move forward. And I included her in my daughter's birth. And when she needed a place to live, I let her move in with me. And then I realized she was an energy vampire. She literally sucked me dry, blamed me for everything, took my friends and started to turn my daughter against me. And she walked all over me. Time and again. So, my defenses go up too, when mothers just say that kids just need to respect their parents, and "get over it". It's a very emotionally charged situation. I didn't come on here for support, I came on here to learn what others think. So I think part of the conflict is our approach to what we expect from this board. I'm shocked at being told to go away, that my opinion is not wanted or needed or valued because I don't agree and I'm asking questions. It seems it's either one way or the highway. And when I apply this to what women here are saying about their damaged relationships the correlation seems too blatant to ignore. I don't think anyone here is a "Bad Mother". The fact that people are even talking about it indicates that they are truly trying to be good people. I'm sure everyone on here has their good and bad moments, and it can be hard to judge emotion when it's in writing, without any facial gestures or other non-verbal clues. I guess this isn't the place for me to be asking my questions because it is seen as an attack, and I felt just terrible the past few days, because I feel bad that people are taking my words that way, and now I feel attacked too. Thank you again, for your very clear, from the heart post. I do wish you the best in your situation. No one should have to feel like this. ~Silver

1) I didn't even think about custom cabinets as an option because I assumed they would be too expensive. When I received a quote for the semi-custom brand I planned to order, I was shocked at the cost, so decided to get a few custom cabinet quotes just to see. They were surprisingly close in price (some custom lines were actually much lower). Since I wasn't limited to specific sizes, it greatly improved my whole design, allowed me to get a bigger sink and some other custom options. It also changed the entire look of what I originally planned. I went from full overlay, raised panel to beaded inset, recessed panel doors. It's really more like the look I wanted all along. 2) After demo, we decided to move the main kitchen doorway over a few feet, which allowed us to include a buffet which will house a much needed appliance garage and provide a lot of extra storage. 3) One of the last minute changes was to a farmhouse sink. I had originally ruled it out based on the likeliness of it chipping, but someone on GW mentioned the video demo of the Kohler cast iron apron front sinks and I was sold. 4) One change early on in the planning stages involved the windows. We had a large, beautiful bay window where the kitchen table was and a very small window over the sink. There was no question we were going to change the sink window to three much larger windows, but I was playing around with the idea of eliminating the bay window altogether and extending the run of sink windows. We did that and it brought in so much more natural light and we gained so much more cabinet space. It greatly enlarged the whole kitchen area.