Lori Alexander 46: She Sure Is Highly Edumacated

[Briefly]

8 hours ago, feministxtian said:

Lori doesn't know shit about poverty. Right now hubs is rolling dimes for gas money until he gets paid. 

Fuck that bitch

Been there, done that.  My boss, just to be nice, took me to lunch today and then filled my car.  I did thank him, but I did not tell him that I was going to run out of gas very shortly (like probably this afternoon because my tank was so low) and it was going to be an issue since payday is not till Friday!  We have budgeted as much as we can for non-payday weeks, but sometimes it's harder than others.  Hubs has 2 or 3 payments pending from customers from our pachinko machine restoration business, but they have not paid yet.

[feministxtian]

The whole deal about picking the food up off the floor...

My kids were GREAT at tossing food on the floor...it's part of learning. Fortunately we had "Soap" and "Water"...2 of our dogs who learned...under the table was THE place to be at meal times! 

For the love of all that's holy...kid tosses food on the floor...the "punishment" is they don't get any more (after say 18mo-2y old) and they get to learn consequences of their actions. What the fuck is SO DAMN HARD about getting a broom and dustpan out and cleaning up the fucking mess? 

**need another dog, the cats SUCK at picking up food from the floor. 

@Briefly hubs gets paid one week from today. There won't be any bills paid out of it, it'll all go to gas tanks and groceries because...I WAS OFFERED A GOOD JOB TODAY WITH BENNIES!!! However, I'll never ever forget what broke-ass feels like...been there too many times. Sending you a gentle hug. 

 

[Frog99]

@EowynW I know it’s been said, but I am so sorry. What a dick move by your former boss- over text?? I pray that all of your needs are met and you find something even better. 

 

[Briefly]

9 hours ago, EowynW said:

Last night in the middle of our anniversary dinner, I got a text from my boss saying I no longer had a job. I burst into tears. That good part time job (in a very depressed and grungy part of our state where most jobs full and part time are fast food, hospice workers or overnight gas station attendants)  was our savings builder for buying a home and trying to get a better car. Lori doesn't understand anything. 

I'm so sorry.  I hope you can find something soon.  It's a tough spot to be in. Can you look into unemployment compensation?

[Carol]

EowynW, I am so sorry to read that you lost your job.  I'm sending good thoughts that you find another one soon.

[FluffySnowball]

16 minutes ago, feministxtian said:

I WAS OFFERED A GOOD JOB TODAY WITH BENNIES!!!

I’m so happy for you!!!!!! 

[EowynW]

29 minutes ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

I know TX is a right to work state, but did he give a reason?  Was that it  -- as in don't bother to come in today? What a mustard  (think 2nd letter of alphabet instead of M).

Thoughts and prayers that something much better comes right along.  And since I suspect you'll hear this from parents and in-laws:  Do not weaken and even consider that this is a sign to get pregnant.

 Hugs to you both

It was basically a "it isn't panning out like we expected so don't come in. We'll mail you your last check. And if it gets better we will call you later this year."

It was a local greenhouse that went too all out too fast. Her husband quit his job to help her run the business early this year and honestly, it was just too much too soon, they should've kept that primary job. I'm not totally surprised. But disappointed at how it was handled, since this is a Christian couple who owns the business. I would've liked one more week with a more thoughtful heads up. Ag/garden stuff is an up and down business and we go through slow patches normally, but just to be told "you're done for a good while,  sorry but it is how it is" the night before your workday was still a bit upsetting. 

And yea, I totally was sitting here this morning thinking "well, maybe they're right and my only purpose really is just to get pregnant and keep house." Funny how it's still so easy to get knocked back into that line of thinking after trying to run so far from it. 

We'll make it okay though. I still have my second job and all bills are being met with just a bit to still save. Mr. EW, bless him, never skipped a beat. That is the steadiest, most solid man I've ever met. 

[Chocolatedefrauded]

10 hours ago, Koala said:

There's a pretty lengthy exchange between Aunt Genny and Lori in the comments of this post:

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2014/01/my-moms-cold-hard-rock.html

Eventually Ken rides in on the Horse of TRUTH!

I read that whole post again & besides her being rude about her mother’s family, what strikes me as odd is the other commenters saying how much they regret their parents getting divorced. One woman still cries about it 30-some years later! She assures Lori that it is not every day anymore but she still cries about it.

why would they be so invested in someone else’s decisions? It is not your right to say your parents made a mistake in getting a divorce. Not your life, not your decision. Kids don’t know what their parents are truly going through sometimes. It seems like they would rather have their parents look respectable and stay married miserably than divorce & look for happiness elsewhere. Like they think it is shameful to get divorced. I don’t get it.

my hubby’s parents married early - she was 19. They divorced about 20 years later when hubby, the youngest, was under 10. Something about a key party invite not going over well. She did not want to swing. Both are happily married now to very different people from their first spouse. The 4 kids just got used to the situation and it was not viewed as a huge tragedy, just a relief that the fighting ended. There are some tensions with kids now over inheritance but the parents mostly have peaceful family events now. So I find adults so upset about a parents divorce 30 years ago a bit much....

[SuperNova]

46 minutes ago, Briefly said:

 Hubs has 2 or 3 payments pending from customers from our pachinko machine restoration business, but they have not paid yet.

That sounds like a cool business! I have an old wood cased Nishijin Super DX in my living room. No one really knows what it is when they first see it. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

14 minutes ago, EowynW said:

"well, maybe they're right and my only purpose really is just to get pregnant and keep house."

No. no 10,000 times NO. You are so much much more than a housekeeping baby making machine. Never, ever doubt that great things are ahead of you. That you have talents yet untapped. That you have so much before you.

This is a minor.temporary event. My mother always said if something didn't work out, then something better is out there.  My daddy always said you can do anything if you hold your mouth right. So deep breath and onward and upward, always onward.

Oh and as soon as you get your separation notice (ask for it)  apply for unemployment.

[Koala]

Quote

Everything you share is so economical and doable even for busy mamas with littles!

Huh?

These people REALLY don't get it.  For parents with no college education (as Lori advises), only one income (as Lori advises), many children (as Lori advises) this is not an economical lunch option at all.period.end of story.

Do you know what I grew up watching my grandfather eat for lunch?  Saltine crackers, hot sauce, and one of the following:

sardines / Vienna sausage / Spam / potted meat  

My grandmother fed me hot dogs or macaroni and cheese.  My mom?  Her standard dinner was bologna sandwich, Doritos, and Dr. Pepper.  

That was their idea of an "economical meal".  

Someone please weigh in and tell me how much it would cost to make this salad.  Then let's multiply it by at least 5, and see how "economical" it is.  

How clueless do you have to be, not to realize that Lori's target reader CAN NOT AFFORD THIS!  She's just rubbing it in their faces- that's all.  She knows they're broke.  She saw the picture of the reader's fridge- days til payday, and totally empty.  She knows, she just DOES NOT CARE.  

Get a handle on yourself, lady.  Your mom is sick.  Go be with her.  Nobody cares what you had for lunch.

[Lgirlrocks]

40 minutes ago, Koala said:

Huh?

These people REALLY don't get it.  For parents with no college education (as Lori advises), only one income (as Lori advises), many children (as Lori advises) this is not an economical lunch option at all.period.end of story.

Do you know what I grew up watching my grandfather eat for lunch?  Saltine crackers, hot sauce, and one of the following:

sardines / Vienna sausage / Spam / potted meat  

My grandmother fed me hot dogs or macaroni and cheese.  My mom?  Her standard dinner was bologna sandwich, Doritos, and Dr. Pepper.  

That was their idea of an "economical meal".  

Someone please weigh in and tell me how much it would cost to make this salad.  Then let's multiply it by at least 5, and see how "economical" it is.  

How clueless do you have to be, not to realize that Lori's target reader CAN NOT AFFORD THIS!  She's just rubbing it in their faces- that's all.  She knows they're broke.  She saw the picture of the reader's fridge- days til payday, and totally empty.  She knows, she just DOES NOT CARE.  

Get a handle on yourself, lady.  Your mom is sick.  Go be with her.  Nobody cares what you had for lunch.

You can make a salad that doesn’t cost much per person. Add in avacados and pumpkin seeds and it would double the cost. You can get a bag of mixed greens for $4. Add in a bag of carrots, some cucumber, peppers, and tomatoes and it will be maybe $6 more. A bag of frozen precooked chicken for $7. A small bag of cheese for $3. You can get dressing cheap if you get an off brand, $2 or less. So we shall say $22 bucks for a salad to feed maybe four or five people. This doesn’t include avacados which are over a dollar for one. A bag of pumpkin seeds would cost maybe $3 or $4. This is in the mid west. 

[Frog99]

@feministxtian I missed your announcement when I was reading earlier- congrats to you! 

[pamplemousse]

2 hours ago, feministxtian said:

I WAS OFFERED A GOOD JOB TODAY WITH BENNIES!!! 

Yay! I hope this job works out well for you and you enjoy it!

[Hane]

Warning—The following has gone straight into TLDR territory, but I started feeling sentimental and I just had to write it—

Going back to something Lori said about the virtuous good old days when Grandma and Grandpa “hardly even held hands before marriage”:

My grandma was born in New York City in 1894, the daughter of Italian immigrants. When her mother was widowed, Grandma dropped out of school at 14 to work at a blouse factory. There’s a photo of her wearing knickers and sitting on a motorcycle. (My mom asked, “Was that a Halloween costume?” and Grandma replied, “No—that’s what we always wore to ride motorcycles!”) Grandma dated a lot, but told the guys, “I can’t possibly get married while my mother is still alive.” She was having too much fun. She managed to save $12,000 before she got married, while supporting her mother.

Then, when she was 28, my grandfather (a member of the family’s circle of friends, who was 26 and had put himself through Columbia University to become an architect) showed a romantic interest in her. He came up to her as she was getting ready to do some laundry (out in the courtyard of her apartment building) and asked her to go to City Hall and marry him. She said she would if it got too rainy to finish the laundry. I guess it rained, because they got married that afternoon. (They kept it a secret from his parents, because he lived at home and his mother wasn’t going to be happy losing his paycheck.) 

Grandma went home and told her mother about the wedding. Great-Grandma looked at her with tears in her eyes and gently asked, “Maggie, are you in trouble?” (Because, in the 1920s, the idea of a bobbed-haired flapper like my grandmother getting pregnant out of wedlock NEVER EVER would have occurred to anyone. /sarcasm)

No, Maggie wasn’t pregnant—she and “Joey” had gone out together in groups of friends but hadn’t formally dated, other than incidents of going out and “picking blackberries in the woods” (an activity Grandma INSISTED wasn’t a euphemism). 

The city hall elopement was on October 12. It took a few months for Grandpa to break the news to his bitch of a mother, and my grandparents were married at the Church of the Transfiguration on Mott St. in Little Italy on June 23.

They kept their first wedding a romantic secret, and thought of it as a formal engagement. Many years later, when Grandpa was on a business trip, he wrote her the most beautiful letter on the anniversary of that October 12. We still have it in our family archives.

When Grandpa lost his shirt in the Depression and suffered a minor nervous breakdown, Grandma kept them and their three kids fed by doing piecework at her kitchen table. By the 1940s, they were well-to-do. 

Shortly before their silver anniversary, Grandma had a heart attack. After she recovered, Grandpa threw a party to celebrate their 25th. At one point during the festivities, he took my mother aside and said to her, “You see your mother out there in the kitchen? Those big shots in the living room (VPs in his firm) aren’t worthy to tie her shoes.”

My grandparents weren’t demonstrably affectionate with each other, but damn did they ever have a great love story.

[EmiGirl]

1 hour ago, Lgirlrocks said:

You can make a salad that doesn’t cost much per person. Add in avacados and pumpkin seeds and it would double the cost. You can get a bag of mixed greens for $4. Add in a bag of carrots, some cucumber, peppers, and tomatoes and it will be maybe $6 more. A bag of frozen precooked chicken for $7. A small bag of cheese for $3. You can get dressing cheap if you get an off brand, $2 or less. So we shall say $22 bucks for a salad to feed maybe four or five people. This doesn’t include avacados which are over a dollar for one. A bag of pumpkin seeds would cost maybe $3 or $4. This is in the mid west. 

Dont forget everything has to be "organic" and non gmo

[Lgirlrocks]

21 minutes ago, EmiGirl said:

Dont forget everything has to be "organic" and non gmo

How could I forget that. In that case the cost for your salad just doubled. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

6 hours ago, Briefly said:

Hubs has 2 or 3 payments pending from customers from our pachinko machine restoration business, but they have not paid yet.

You reminded me of something to put on my fantasy "if we ever won the lottery" list--get a pachinko machine! My grandpa and uncle each had one that a cousin brought back from Japan in the 1950s or 60s. I always loved playing theirs when we visited! (My dad chose a fancy Japanese camera for his gift the cousin brought back.)

I think my uncle still has his, and my oldest sibling has Grandpa's. If we ever scrape up the money to get them fixed up, I might need to send you a PM. 

@feministxtian-- Congratulations on the new job! I'm very happy for you!

@EowynW--What a horrible way for your boss to "let you go".  I agree with @Red Hair, Black Dress and everyone else who says this is not some kind of sign. You and the wonderful Mr. Eowyn are working hard together to make your life the way you want it. This is just a temporary setback. 

[Krissy]

9 hours ago, Chocolatedefrauded said:

I read that whole post again & besides her being rude about her mother’s family, what strikes me as odd is the other commenters saying how much they regret their parents getting divorced. One woman still cries about it 30-some years later! She assures Lori that it is not every day anymore but she still cries about it.

why would they be so invested in someone else’s decisions? It is not your right to say your parents made a mistake in getting a divorce. Not your life, not your decision. Kids don’t know what their parents are truly going through sometimes. It seems like they would rather have their parents look respectable and stay married miserably than divorce & look for happiness elsewhere. Like they think it is shameful to get divorced. I don’t get it.

my hubby’s parents married early - she was 19. They divorced about 20 years later when hubby, the youngest, was under 10. Something about a key party invite not going over well. She did not want to swing. Both are happily married now to very different people from their first spouse. The 4 kids just got used to the situation and it was not viewed as a huge tragedy, just a relief that the fighting ended. There are some tensions with kids now over inheritance but the parents mostly have peaceful family events now. So I find adults so upset about a parents divorce 30 years ago a bit much....

Because study after study does prove how devastating divorce is. Who knows how much this persons life changed after the divorce? Maybe their needs weren’t getting met because mom was struggling herself. Some kids or adults are more resilient than others.

11 hours ago, Koala said:

Lori's humble brag:

Lori's complaints:

So if you don't listen to Lori, you don't have a "soft, teachable" heart.  

I would suggest that it's Lori who doesn't have a teachable heart.  She certainly didn't seem anxious to learn from the older women that the Lord has put in her life....

@FluffySnowball

I can.

Here are the references to that incident:

This can be found in this post:

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2012/03/breaking-their-will.html

In the comments she says:

In another post she writes:

She continues:

In the comments she says:

The above can be found in this post:

http://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2016/05/to-train-up-child-chapter-one.html#idc-container

There may be more, but that probably answers your question.

 

I hate her. It’s a total mind game guilt trip she’s playing. I’m going to wrap this up as godly and holy so you can accept beating your kids and when you don’t fall for that I’m going to attack your character by saying you’re not godly enough. 

[Botkinetti]

Lori is used to just deleting people who disagree with her or sending Ken in to write his paragraphs of bullshit. Much harder to do in person. If her aunts and other members of her family are around to be with her mother I can’t imagine they are deferring to Lori and it must be making her crazy. She thinks of herself as being the voice of authority and while I hope there is no outright hostility to upset her mother I doubt the rest of the family are tiptoeing around Lori . All comfort and caring should be directed to Lori’s mother and her father .

[Krissy]

7 hours ago, Botkinetti said:

Lori is used to just deleting people who disagree with her or sending Ken in to write his paragraphs of bullshit. Much harder to do in person. If her aunts and other members of her family are around to be with her mother I can’t imagine they are deferring to Lori and it must be making her crazy. She thinks of herself as being the voice of authority and while I hope there is no outright hostility to upset her mother I doubt the rest of the family are tiptoeing around Lori . All comfort and caring should be directed to Lori’s mother and her father .

I wonder if she had bad parents myself because of how Lori is? It’s really too late now to examine because her mom is dying. Most families do protect abuse so her aunt confronting isn’t surprising. 

I do notice her kids, daughters especially, aren’t supporting Lori on loris blog. That’s really the biggest proof of loris life legacy is did it work? Are her kids rising up and calling her blessed? You know, how the Bible says kids do for godly parents. Where’s the fruit of loris testimony? Also, her kids are relatively successful so I almost wonder if she’s actually doing what she preaches on her blog?

[SongRed7]

14 hours ago, Koala said:

We always had clean-up games when mine were little.  I would turn on a fun song, and we'd have a race to see how many things we could put away before the song ended.  We also did, "Okay, let's see who can pick up ___# of toys!"  Worked every single time, and I have such sweet memories of those days...

We played a similar game. When my two oldest (25, 22 now) were little there was a show on called Big Comfy Couch. At the end they had a segment called the "10 second tidy" and they play fast/fun music and the character ran around and cleaned up. I used that phrase for my kids "OK, lets do the 10 second tidy" and they enjoyed running around picking things up and cleaning up after themselves.    Positive reinforcement and both of them are fairly neat to this day. 

[EowynW]

A comment from today's post. 

"The stability that comes from the fact that we can live this full, rewarding life without ever leaving our front porches is the icing on top ”

 

 

[EmiGirl]

I'll be the first to admit that I have never known poverty. I'm incredibly thankful for this. But I will also admit that due to my inexperience I can't tell others to just do what I do because it may not work for them.

That being said, I do question people like a family member I have because this person will buy her and her boyfriend's wants (lots of beer and cigarettes, tattoos, game systems, etc) before buying really food to feed their kids. 

[Alisamer]

43 minutes ago, Krissy said:

Also, her kids are relatively successful so I almost wonder if she’s actually doing what she preaches on her blog?

NO. She isn't. She didn't. She worked outside the home while her first was a baby, then sabotaged her birth control (so submissive!) so she could get pregnant as an excuse to stay home with the second one. She went to college. She sent her kids to public and private schools (I think there was a small amount of homeschooling, but certainly not their whole schooling), and they had plenty of normal activities like dance classes. After they had a few kids, they used birth control to prevent more. She has a housekeeper. She had a nanny for her children. She wears short shorts and low-cut blouses, and uses the excuse that "Ken likes them". She rails against nail polish, while there are plenty of recent photos of her wearing nail polish. She wishes there was no alcohol, after having posted many times about enjoying her wine. She encourages women to stay in relationships where they are being abused, while in her own SHE is (or was) the abuser. She counsels women to just trust God and stay home even in poverty, when she has never truly struggled for money in her married life. She teaches to men all the time, while claiming she doesn't. She talks about sex constantly while counseling women to be "modest and discreet."

Her whole schtick is that she was "transformed" - conveniently late enough in life that she didn't have to actually DO almost any of the things she wants other young mothers to do. She is 100% hypocrite.