Arndt Man Boys & Mary-Elizabeth living out their own unique stories

[MarblesMom]

19 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

Maybe they are trying to appear normal

  They are going to have to harken back to old Avis commercials, and try harder....

[Howl]

What's strange to me (a clutter-y person) is a lack of clutter anywhere. 

[Hane]

I don't think that piece of furniture is a changing table. It looks a lot like an antique piece of furniture my aunt had, called a "dry sink." I believe it was used as a place to put a dishpan when you washed dishes, back in the days when you had to lug water into the house from the well out back.

[Black Aliss]

27 minutes ago, Hane said:

I don't think that piece of furniture is a changing table. It looks a lot like an antique piece of furniture my aunt had, called a "dry sink." I believe it was used as a place to put a dishpan when you washed dishes, back in the days when you had to lug water into the house from the well out back.

I'm sure you're right. At first glance it looked like there was a pad on the top but now I don't think it is. I know a few people who used a dry sink, either antique or a reproduction, for a changing table, because they were into antiques and/or they didn't want to spend money on a piece of furniture that was clearly designed for that one use.

[Palimpsest]

26 minutes ago, Hane said:

I don't think that piece of furniture is a changing table. It looks a lot like an antique piece of furniture my aunt had, called a "dry sink." I believe it was used as a place to put a dishpan when you washed dishes, back in the days when you had to lug water into the house from the well out back.

Yes, it looks like a dry sink to me too.  The top has raised sides to contain the splashes from the basin and water pitcher. 

As an antiques lover, I have a metal lined dry sink in my kitchen.  It looks more like a hutch than the Arndt's one and is used as extra kitchen cabinets.  The sink part is where we dump mail, my purse, and car keys.

And they did move the baby lotion!  That's funny.

[Suz8710]

 

 Kathy's cleaning looks so organized. I make a total mess of my mess when I clean/organize. I love the things they feel the need to share on the FamTeam fb.

Speaking of fb, I find it totally telling about how enmeshed this family is when every Arndt with a fb plus the fam team page (8 at least: Mark, Paul, Jude, Luke, James, John, Jacob & Seth) only has pictures of themselves or with family members. Maybe they post others only their fb friends can see, but prob unlikely.

[JermajestyDuggar]

On 2/14/2017 at 11:47 PM, Grimalkin said:

 

21 minutes ago, Suz8710 said:

 

 Kathy's cleaning looks so organized. I make a total mess of my mess when I clean/organize. I love the things they feel the need to share on the FamTeam fb.

Speaking of fb, I find it totally telling about how enmeshed this family is when every Arndt with a fb plus the fam team page (8 at least: Mark, Paul, Jude, Luke, James, John, Jacob & Seth) only has pictures of themselves or with family members. Maybe they post others only their fb friends can see, but prob unlikely.

I'm thinking that Cathy had to be clean and organized if she wanted to homeschool and have 14 kids. So I'm not terribly surprised she doesn't have a cluttered bedroom and has quite an organized closet. 

[DancingPhalanges]

5 hours ago, Suz8710 said:

 

 Kathy's cleaning looks so organized. I make a total mess of my mess when I clean/organize. I love the things they feel the need to share on the FamTeam fb.

Speaking of fb, I find it totally telling about how enmeshed this family is when every Arndt with a fb plus the fam team page (8 at least: Mark, Paul, Jude, Luke, James, John, Jacob & Seth) only has pictures of themselves or with family members. Maybe they post others only their fb friends can see, but prob unlikely.

The fact they appear to have a phone system similar to a small business is interesting. I've spotted the phones in several rooms. I'm a former phone switch programmer so my eyes go straight to the phones. Especially when a lot of people have given up land lines. 

[Carm_88]

5 minutes ago, DancingPhalanges said:

The fact they appear to have a phone system similar to a small business is interesting. I've spotted the phones in several rooms. I'm a former phone switch programmer so my eyes go straight to the phones. Especially when a lot of people have given up land lines. 

Well I think they still have the court reporting business, so they do have a small business. They also have the wedding photography/videography business. So that may have something to do with the phones. 

[Iokaste]

I just had a look at their FB "Fam Team"-page and it is seriously one of the saddest experiences I've had this week.
It's kept in a "reporting" tone, as if someone outside of the family was writing it, no one comments and posts have 2-3 likes, 4 at the most. 
Rick, we all know it's Rick writing this, refering to himself in the 3rd person.
And the things they find worthy of a post? Seriously? "Cathy has flipped a page in the calendar"! They have seriously become a charicature of themselves. 

[JermajestyDuggar]

I just looked at their FB page and came across this picture of Walmart groceries. WHO NEEDS THIS MANY PROTEIN DRINKS?! I'm so confused. Do they all drink a protein drink a day? Why? Don't they get enough protein in their diet?  Are they trying to build muscle for softball season? 

BTW, I've found that protein drinks give you gas. So I bet that house full of 14 grown males regularly drinking protein drinks is one big fart cloud. A Farndt cloud if you will.  

[halcionne]

21 hours ago, Hane said:

I don't think that piece of furniture is a changing table. It looks a lot like an antique piece of furniture my aunt had, called a "dry sink." I believe it was used as a place to put a dishpan when you washed dishes, back in the days when you had to lug water into the house from the well out back.

Today I learned!

IMO it looks funny in the bedroom without a commode on it. Maybe commodes don't belong on dry sinks? But I'm thinking dry sinks don't belong in bedrooms, either...

[Palimpsest]

13 minutes ago, halcionne said:

Today I learned!

IMO it looks funny in the bedroom without a commode on it. Maybe commodes don't belong on dry sinks? But I'm thinking dry sinks don't belong in bedrooms, either...

The Arndt's dry sink is better suited for a kitchen. 

Thread drift ahead.

The bedroom equivalent of the dry sink is usually called a washstand and would have a basin, ewer, soap dish, etc. on top.  Washstands sometimes have marble tops.  Commodes (to me that means a chamber pot) were not kept on top.  They would be hidden under the bed or put in a compartment behind a door in the washstand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamber_pot

Commode is an interesting word.  It can mean a decorative item of furniture but I always think potty!  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commode

 

[Carm_88]

1 hour ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

I just looked at their FB page and came across this picture of Walmart groceries. WHO NEEDS THIS MANY PROTEIN DRINKS?! I'm so confused. Do they all drink a protein drink a day? Why? Don't they get enough protein in their diet?  Are they trying to build muscle for softball season? 

BTW, I've found that protein drinks give you gas. So I bet that house full of 14 grown males regularly drinking protein drinks is one big fart cloud. A Farndt cloud if you will.  

Farndt Cloud made me laugh so hard. 

That being said, I think I remember from a lovely FamTeam Video that they are picky about what proteins they eat. There's some serious food issues in that family and I don't think it's because they didn't have enough. 

[desertvixen]

Those Premier Protein ones actually taste pretty good and they don't taste super fake-sweet.

[johnhugh]

With the baby lotion business, They do read here as a few years ago someone commented on here about what the SOTDRT looked like and within hours one of the older manboys posted a picture of the dinning room table. Also the playing with ducks, Lego etc suddenly stopped.... Hi Rick!

As a personal trainer and I train with weights like the manboys, it is hard to get the required amount of protein in a 'normal' diet to achieve muscle gains. But buying individual protein milk drinks is very expensive compared to the powder tubs. 

 

 

[Carm_88]

The "Prego" sauce is the only thing that will be prego, if those may boys don't get on the move!

[DancingPhalanges]

9 minutes ago, Carm_88 said:

The "Prego" sauce is the only thing that will be prego, if those may boys don't get on the move!

OMG I wondered about the Prego sauce but didn't comment. Yours is the best! The guys drink proteins shakes and eat spaghetti. Thanks for the laugh!

[ladyamylynn]

All that food and only a little package of grapes and tomatoes. Everything else is processed garbage.  Out of a household that contains so many adults apparently they all have the palate of a bunch of children... Oh... Wait.

[Black Aliss]

12 hours ago, ladyamylynn said:

All that food and only a little package of grapes and tomatoes. Everything else is processed garbage.  Out of a household that contains so many adults apparently they all have the palate of a bunch of children... Oh... Wait.

To be fair, that is just the Costco run, and perhaps they buy their fresh fruits and vegetables elsewhere or they have a massive vegetable garden in the summer and are still enjoying all the food they put up last year. Also it looks like the area nearest to the cab contains fresh produce. But it does appear that ketchup and spaghetti sauce are their main vegetables. Which isn't unusual in a family with  a bunch of little boys.

[ladyamylynn]

Fai

39 minutes ago, Black Aliss said:

To be fair, that is just the Costco run, and perhaps they buy their fresh fruits and vegetables elsewhere or they have a massive vegetable garden in the summer and are still enjoying all the food they put up last year. Also it looks like the area nearest to the cab contains fresh produce. But it does appear that ketchup and spaghetti sauce are their main vegetables. Which isn't unusual in a family with  a bunch of little boys.

Fair point about the vegetables but what about the meat, fish,  cheese, bread, nuts, etc? Maybe Costco doesn't sell that stuff? 

[Palimpsest]

1 hour ago, Black Aliss said:

To be fair, that is just the Costco run, and perhaps they buy their fresh fruits and vegetables elsewhere or they have a massive vegetable garden in the summer and are still enjoying all the food they put up last year. Also it looks like the area nearest to the cab contains fresh produce. But it does appear that ketchup and spaghetti sauce are their main vegetables. Which isn't unusual in a family with  a bunch of little boys.

I agree.  Costco is wonderful and sells everything but I don't buy much produce there because the quantities are so big that it goes bad before we can eat it.  Unless I plan to can or freeze, I buy most fruit and vegetables from our local farmer's market or supermarket.

If someone critiqued my Costco runs they would probably assume that I lived on dog food, organic canned tomatoes, nuts, quinoa, rice, chicken, and energy bars.  And used a hell of a lot of toilet paper.  

[Black Aliss]

47 minutes ago, ladyamylynn said:

Fair point about the vegetables but what about the meat, fish,  cheese, bread, nuts, etc? Maybe Costco doesn't sell that stuff? 

Oh, Costco sells that all that stuff, in mass quantities. (I assume. It's been at least 10 years* since I was in one of their stores.) But if they are picky about their protein maybe they keep half a grass-fed steer in their freezer?

*I found shopping at Costco to be an utterly soulless experience, where I routinely purchased things I didn't need, or bought perishables that were packaged in quantities too large to use up before they went bad, or settled for brands that weren't the ones I preferred. In the long run I didn't save money and I didn't eat as well. Also it galled me to have to pay for the privilege of shopping there.

[Palimpsest]

@Black Aliss, I'm a big fan of Costco but it takes organization and planning to make the most of it, you need enough storage space if you buy in bulk, and you need to resist impulse buying.  They do sell organic meats and grass fed beef that break down into smaller freezable packages, but they need freezer space too.  I do think the quality is good overall, the staff are really pleasant, and I usually manage to get there when it isn't crowded.  It's chaotic at weekends.

I originally joined because it was by far the cheapest place to buy my greyhound's seizure meds (they were $$$$!) and other prescriptions are cheaper there too.  When we crunched the numbers, it turned out that it was worth the savings to make the hour long round trip drive to Costco once a month, and I think we have saved money on the groceries and paper goods we bought over time.  We also got a really nice area rug there cheap!

Since we lost the epi-hound to cancer last summer (God, I still miss that boy) I've only been going about every 6 - 8 weeks.  I'm considering dropping my membership when it comes up for renewal.

[quiversR4hunting]

Anyone watch CMT MUSIC? 

I just caught a new artist Lizzy McAvoy. In her "Brave" video, is she trolling the Valley of the Vine?