We have, actually. Seriously considered it, in fact. We may make that leap if we get to the point that it becomes biologically hazardous for me to have another kid, i.e. In a few more years when the risk for birth defects and obstetrical risks starts skyrocketing.

I've meeeeesed you.

Hey girls!  Happy Fourth of July weekend! Hope most of you have at least on enjoyable thing planned!

Some range time, well deserved naps, & finishing touches on the house for custody's investigator visit on our list... USPSA shoot sunday, hope to improve on my miserable scores... simply not enough hours in the day to keep up with timing & accuracy this year. Bleh.

I really wanted my "I make boys cry" tee shirt this year...

Not really anything planned for tomorrow, possibly hang out with a friend and co-op some video games...

Range time and naps sound good, though!  Good luck with the custody investigator visit, hope that goes smoothly.

As for wanting t-shirts, I want this one... even if I don't think I would have the guts to wear it, except at home

rumor hubby and i are going to a movie tonight

for sure seeing Magic Mike with a friend in the morning

other than that, nothing set

i was off today, so i already had the nap

Gee, gals...we all getting real busy, or what??

Check-in seems to have hit a wall, so i'll bang my head against it...

Waiting on visit from custody investigator. I cry at the drop of a hat or kind word & have funny colored circles under my eyes... this little nightmare can burn itself out anytime... i've had enough. Dont wanna play anymore.

Plus side: our consolidating households only took 6 weeks instead of 6 months of unpacking because we had a home study to prep for! And we've become an expert furniture moving team, we dont even have to talk to each other about slowing down, lifting, speed up, blah, blah, blah... We'll be a better, stronger, smarter couple after all this, but gall DANG this is an unpleasant situation to go through.

Summer's flying by, hope everyone's been able to enjoy some of it!

Wasnt one of us expecting a lil one??  How'd that turn out?  

Anyone get any new toys to play with this summer?  Rumor has it i get a thumb extension for dropping my mags after finally driving my new hub crazy with my two handed mag change...

Oh yah!   Forgot to tell you USPSA went great! Best shooting i've ever done... unfortunately everyone else shot pretty well, too, but i was happy & didnt finish last overall :)

leaving on a 10 day vacation Friday am

beach with family

Super busy. Still waiting on my teaching lic. Feels like I'm in limbo waiting for it.

Its been a year and I still don't feel settled after having baby. My house is a wreck. I get up at 6:30am and start getting ready for work.

Me and baby head out the door at 7:30am. Me and her get back to the house around 5:30pm. We play, get her fed and bathed.

She goes down around 8pm. AFter that I am so tired I don't want to do anything around the house.

doc2B - Glad the USPSA went well for ya!

diabolical_chicken - Have a fantastic vacation

SPJ - Wish I could come help out on occasion, sweetie

As for myself, I'm still having headache/etc issues, but it's mostly tolerable.  With some careful budgeting I'm managing to stay on top of all the medical bills from the ER/hospital/etc.  I actually was able to FINALLY order myself a real mattress.  I've been sleeping on an air mattress for almost a year and a half.  I do my best at work to be as good at what I do as I can, so I get incentive pay.  That + 3 paychecks for this month + a friend giving me a gift card on Amazon + having Prime because of my dude and not paying for shipping = mattress for Fay.  Super, super, SUPER excited about it!  

I realize I'm several weeks late, but sorry to hear this, Naamah. I'm in the same boat (except I don't have any kids). We've been trying for two years, and nothing. For a long time I kept track of when I was ovulating, etc., but it wore me down. Too hard to deal with the let down when my period came. We finally started investigating as to cause of the infertility this year, and it looks like hubby issues... but his tests aren't great but not terrible, meaning it's very possible that I have issues myself that are compounding his. I haven't done an HSG yet, but that's the next step for us. We will see. Who knew it would be this hard to have a kid.

Anyway, since I haven't checked in for a while- my work life has been hectic and overly stressful (TGIF!). My dad had a stroke last weekend, but thank God, is actually doing well. The hardest thing now is watching him try to get on board with changing his diet habits to control his diabetes. I guess that's all I have to say. Feels like it's been a more or less crappy month. Hoping for good days ahead. Wishing everyone a fun weekend.

I'm strawberry_snaps.  Aka Snaps,  Snapple,  Puddles,  or SS.

I've been here for just about 10 years.  I'm an active shooter and have a side job of teaching women basic self defense and firearms.  My other side job is accounting.  My full time job is being a single mom of 3 Littles.  

We have 3 rules in our family:1) Love 2) Respect 3) Protect.  I think they sum up our family quite appropriately.  

I'm working on dropping 50 lbs and fighting for a dream that 99% of my friends and family won't support.

You got this. Just gotta train and get that run time down.



 

Fasts and Sprints for Fast Fat Loss by Fred Duncan. eta oops, meant to quote your post, Ms Snaps. Good luck!

Holy cow, 99% of friends and family won't support you? That's terrible but then I know how you feel.  I have no idea what your dream is but best wishes for success!!!

So....I had my second court hearing on the 14th.  I got up early that morning, I hadn't slept at all the night before (gotta love insomnia).  My sis drove me to the federal building and we had to walk about a quarter of a block from the parking garage to the building.  We had our hearing at about 9am and got home about 10:30 that morning.  The reason I don't go anywhere is because it causes severe pain for 2-3 days afterwards (sometimes longer) and this time was a bad one.  The rest of the day on the 14th was absolutely excruciating despite the very high doses of narcotic medication I take daily.  The meds wouldn't even touch the pain, which made Tuesday and Wednesday pretty much a blur for me.  Today I had a doctors appointment which I was just able to get to but fortunately the pain has eased up enough today to be bearable.  Yay!!!

Anywho, fingers crossed that the judge approves my disability benefits, if they deny it I'm done, with no income and medical needs that will only get worse as time goes on it's just not possible.  I was only 12-13 when my father died, his death in addition to the normal grief that comes with a death also left us penniless.  My father had no life insurance and the costs associated with a death on top of having to feed four kids and pay all the bills wiped my mom out financially so fast, the day of my father's funeral the electric company shut our power off.  We went from a normal family to a family that scraped to get by from that day on.  I had my first summer job at age 10 and after my father's death all the kids worked summers.  I worked every summer through my school years when my friends were all out having fun and then I joined the military.  After about a year and a half in the military an injury forced me out and I went to work and college at the same time.  I worked ever since and then in my late twenties a back injury took me off the job for several months while I recovered from the surgery.

I went back to work and stayed at the same job for several more years although the back pain was continuing to get worse until I decided to move to OKC for better opportunities but at this point my back issues were worse than they ever were.  Not long after moving  I got a job doing the same thing I had done for years but I was barely able to get around.  The place I was working at didn't want to hire me after seeing how bad my back issues were when the results from the Xrays and physical came back in but I talked them into it.  I lasted almost a year until my back problems became impossible to hide and they laid me off.  I was unable to work anymore nor could I get anyone to even consider hiring me.

I was forced to go back to a neurosurgeon who recommended immediate surgery.  Following the surgery I again got some relief but once again it didn't last long.  I lived in absolute hell for a few years, unable to handle the pain and doctors can no longer prescribe pain meds long term because of federal interference I was forced to use alcohol to ease the pain.  Alcohol is a terrible pain killer and you have to drink a LOT of it to do any good.  I did that for a few years until finally I got into one of the few pain management clinics in the area.  This is what I have lived through, constant pain so severe that you cannot walk, stand up or even have a conversation and now 24/7 heavy narcotics to just be able to walk around.  I can't go do the things normal people do and the times that I can go out I spend the next several days in excruciating pain.

So, after I had gone through my entire retirement paying medical bills and such I finally had no choice but to file for disability.  Imagine my surprise when it was systematically denied.  I filed an appeal and it too was denied.  Their excuse was that my medical issues didn't meet the minimum according to their staff doctors.  What a huge load of crap!!  I called an attorney who specialized in disability and only gets paid if you win.  He looked at my info and said he would definitely take my case.  I asked why they denied me and he said it's extremely common for them to deny anyone below 50.  He's been doing this type of law for 24 years and he said they don't care how bad your issues are if you are young enough to have family to take care of you, you are denied.  I don't have family to look after me, I live with my sis but she can't afford to support me and my medical bills.  THAT'S just how screwed up the system really is.  It's corrupt and evil at it's core and without an attorney you have no chance at all to get the benefits you deserve.  However, if you're a 20 year old crack whore living on the street with no legal work history, you can get benefits within the week of applying.

Now I'm waiting again for a ruling and my back hurts like hell.

Sorry for ranting again...I needed to vent a little.

Back issues are awful. [hug]

The "elite team" I work for has a monthly conversion goal for bookings with our hotel chain of 15%.  My monthly average is over 30% and yesterday I had over a 50%.  So long as my other stats are good (which thus far they always have been), however much above the conversion goal I am = incentive pay.  

Its official !!!! I got my license and start Monday!!!

It's been so blazing hot here that I'm getting up on the weekends so I can be out in the yard cutting by no later than 7:30.  By 9 yesterday morning we already had a heat index of 100.
I've burned through two tubes of sunscreen too.  Will this mess ever end?!?  Usually it's only a week or so of 100+ heat indexes, but this year it has been going and going and going...

Congrats !!!!!!!!  

It's gotten super hot here as well in the last few weeks.  Gonna get in the pool to try and beat the heat.

Ack!! I hate summer in Oklahoma!  It's soooo hot here the fire hydrants have posted "dogs wanted" signs.

I'm gonna give this a little bump.


Why don't we share what brought us here?

Back in the day, I worked for Robinson Armament. I first signed up on this forum in an attempt to make some sort of reliable presence for my company. At the time, we had a banner ad and an industry section that was ignored by my employer.

It was all gravy until my boss publicly endorsed Mitt Romney. This forum shit a chicken, swarmed the industry section, bombarded us with calls and emails, a few even stalked me and dug up personal shit on me, like I was somehow related to all of it.

Long story short, boss stopped paying his dues, and the section was taken down. I stayed, though. Turns out this forum has a lot of good folks, good info, and I've met some of my best friends on here. Compass and I have been best friends since.. 2008? and we met right here in Women Shooters I attending her wedding this last may.

Nice

My introduction to Arfcom isn't nearly as interesting.  Manthing got me into guns, introduced me to them, even.  He was showing me the "you laugh, you lose" and such.  I lurked a few months before I decided to make an account

ETA: Er, nice except for people being fuckers and harassing you/etc

What brought me here was the hubs. I knew he was on here and bought him an extra membership. When he found out what I did he made me a profile. I lurked around and found Snaps. Then I found Compass and XCR. Been here ever since

 

what brought me here was compliments  

hubby had been a member for a while and were were attending meet up and shoots (this is when we still lived in MO)

hubby and i brought a grill and some hot dogs and apple brats to a shoot--i manned the grill while the boys played on the range

that night, all the guys were complimenting me, so hubby suggested i get my own account, so they could talk to me directly

d_c has been my online name since the mid-90s (back in the bbs days )--my avatar is Chicken Boo from Animaniacs

eta:  i have met many people from arfcom IRL--i have wimminz friends in Indianapolis i met thru wimminz, though i dont think any of them are active on arfcom anymore.  and when i moved to Ohio, some of the first people i met were arfcommers--people were so outraged i was "meeting people from the interwebz!"  

I've met a bunch of arfcommers. All wonderful folks.

RictusGrin
Ziararifleman
Goldeyeslayer
Cvptr
FNS2000
Kalahnikid
Compass
SPJ
Strawberry_snaps
Ptsklnana
Donne3
FrozenWinter
Sjuhockey


I'm probably forgetting a couple. The list is getting a bit long

I found Arfcom through a blog/website about disaster preparedness called "Listening to Katrina." It was written by a former member named Shane. The blog was mentioned elsewhere I hangout online. I was already beginning to get into guns through a couple of friends. I was a member here for nearly two years before I bought my first pistol, though!

I've met a few members at an IL HTF gathering last summer. Most of the Arfcom members I've met are also on Illinois Carry, as there is a good bit of crossover.

I've also met LoneEagle0614 - he's the fellow who lived in Muskegon Hgts, MI, and walked his daughter to school in their dangerous neighborhood open carrying his .22 rifle (Spike's Tactical later donated an AR to Lone Eagle, and other Arfcommers donated a 1911, ammo, holsters, AR accessories, etc.). I went to Michigan in May and went shooting with LoneEagle (Mike), his wife, and daughter. Taught the daughter and wife to shoot on my Ruger SR-22 (daughter) and my two 9mm pistols (wife). It was a fun time and Mike and family are great folks.

Now I know why my ears were ringing... Good to see you Marie.

My ex was a member of arf back in '99 and I joined as well b/c he got tired of me reading over his shoulder. Different username. Can't even remember what it was it's been so long.

Arf was a different place back then.

I followed cowboy in here like an old senile cat that seems to only want to cuddle right before it throws up on your favorite sweater.

But really, I saw him talking with the Rictus group and wanted to join luckily they were all cool with that. I learned a lot in those threads. Met a lot of really awesome dorks that I would be happy to call my friends in real life. Even got to meet Snaps and Compass!amazing opportunity to train with them for a weekend. Can't wait to do it again some day.

Now I don't visit as often and when I do I find it hard to put in the effort. Hope things pick up in here soon. I'm trying to come up with new topics and a new direction for this particular area. Maybe it will reach its full potential some day.

For now I'll plant my garden, snuggle my barn critters and reach my fitness and heavy lifting goals. Oh and those two scary beautiful children I have.

Wow, you all have been doing a lot, since the beginning of this thread, and I recognized several names.  :)

I'm Annarchy.  DH, Gunslinger808, is an avid reader and spent/spends countless hours here.  He encouraged me to join, way back when, and he chose my user name.  Go figure.  We've been married 34 years and never had any children.  

I am retired.  Now days, I do the paperwork for his company, garden, and take care of the home, plus, a plethora of other things.  

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.

Checking in.  Been a member for a long time, but I'm hardly ever on here.  

Home state: Minnesota
Longest residence: Arizona
Current location: Virginia
Occupation: Technician
Age: 36
Marital status: Single
Guns: Check
Dog: Check
Bacon: Check
Hobbies: Bikes, hikes, shooting, cooking, reading
Tattoos: Check
Piercings: Ears
Children: No

I honestly don't remember what brought me here...

o



I have a similar story to that of XRCmonger.  I joined as an industry partner for a firm that manufactured California Legal Lower receivers.  I joined on the urging of LeeLaw who was dating GabbysaurasRex at the time.  (Not sure if that tidbit was needed?)





I wonder where all the greats have gone?  MrsBeerSlayer, MrsGungho, Daisy, I'm horrible with names darn it.  

Hey, gals! Not been shooting much. Took up scuba diving and got certified a month ago. Now diving season is essentially over so I'll get back out to the range soon.

sounds like fun!  I've been enjoying shooting with my youngest.  







When we are shooting or hunting I've been training him basketball.  He sure is a lot of fun. Growing up too fast but becoming a nice youngman.







Here we are at last week's Halloween party





 

Hi all!

Giving this thread a little bump up - not sure how I missed it before.  

Started on here a few years ago, a friend (who is now the bf) encouraged me to check arfcom out for info as I got into guns and shooting.  I try to check in periodically.  Been super busy with the rest of life and would rather spend my spare time shooting than typing.  

Starting to have Spring-like weather here and looking forward to doing more outdoors stuff.  Hope everyone one is doing well!

Hey DC how are you doing?  Judy was wondering how you were doing so I got on here and snooped around and found this thread. We have just moved to Milford it's been hectic as hell. Hope everything's going good with you will talk later .

your face is my favorite

I do so miss your face!

Get a room.