Our church often makes care packages for kids in other countries. You can select a child from their list and make a package based on their age, needs, etc. Everyone always chooses the babies and small children first. I always choose a couple teenage girls and give them clothes, pads, tampons, deodorant, hair brushes, lip gloss, books on self-care and puberty, stuff like that. My mom didn't give me a lot of guidance when I was a teen and I guess I just have a soft spot for them.

I give people business advice, but I've never owned a business. I've just worked with so many of them that I've seen what works and what doesn't. My best advice is always to keep clean books. How can you be profitable if you don't even know what's going on? How are you going to know if you're doing well or not if you don't keep good records? And- be involved. The most successful businesses have owners that are there -a lot- and are involved in the day-to-day operations.

I was a child once. And even as a child I found many children to be annoying. I was a quiet cerebral kid who loved books. Kids my age were often very LOUD not to mention fond of teasing. Even at a young age I had a lot of empathy and would stick up for the picked on kids, often leading to me getting picked on as well. I found middle school horrendous. Packs of kids forming cliques and ostrascizing certain kids. To fit in, I would have had to ignore or pick on certain kids, so I was often an outsider. Mean girls would torture this one poor child, I remember her name still...Vivian...by throwing spitballs in her hair, giggling behind their hands, making up mean poems about her, putting pencil sharpner shreds in her backpack, kicking her and pushing her. Vivian finally left school, she was so tortured. I disliked gossip and had kind of nerdy interests in high school. I was part of the french club and math club. Those kids were fine and I always had friends, but really...I thought most teenagers were brutal and obnoxious. So yeah, I WAS a child but not a typical child. And I still dont care for most kids. The whole "you were a kid once" statement just really strikes me as odd. I WAS a kid and even then didn't like kids much.

I get tired of people telling me my 9 yr old son is weird. He would rather watch a TED talks video than play video games. He hates seeing women in bikinis because he thinks they are showing too much of themselves and that men think less of them for it. He loves to read books way above his age range and then talk about them. He is fascinated by the ocean and space and thinks there is more there than what we know. I think all of these thinks makes him brilliant, but to everyone else he is weird and they pull their children away from him.

I get that 50 Shades of Gray is crap. I have read it and hated the relationship and I found the sex and BDSM scenes not to be that well-written. However, I do think that 50 Shades allowed women who thought that some of the sex things they liked but were ashamed of to be more vocal in the matters of sex. Personally I didn't even know there were books about BDSM or where to look. I was ashamed that I liked that sort of thing but I read 50 Shades and heard the bad parts and the comparison to other books with a BDSM theme. I read them and learned a little bit more. I started to do my own research and talked things over with my husband who was willing to experiment. Once again I found the series horrible but it did open up some things for me.

I read the FSoG books when they were free on the internet because they were Twilight fanfiction. They'll always be about Edward and Bella to me. I don't really care if the movie sucks or people criticize the books heavily. I'm just really freaking happy that the author of freaking Twilight fanfiction hit the big time. What a great thing for her!

A friend of mine is asking for books for babies instead of cards at her shower. Obviously I don't want to get one that everyone else will go for like any Dr. Seuss or that "Love you Forever" book. Does anyone have suggestions on unique (and reasonably priced) childrens/baby books?

I am the product of my dad oopsing my mom. He wanted a baby, she wasnt ready, we are Catholic, they were using natural family planning. One night they came home from a party and my mom was quite drunk. My dad insisted on sex, 9 months later I was born. Everything was good until I was about 8 or 9, then my moms resentment of me and disinterest in me started to show. By the time I was about 15 she was always looking for a reason to punish me, and never showed any interest in anything going on with me unless an opportunity to yell at or punish me might show up. Ages 15 to 17 were hell for me. She listened when I was on the phone, went thru my school notebooks, folders, and backpack a few times a week when I came home (sometimes I had to stand in front of her while she did this, that depended on her mood) I never got into any big trouble or anything like that, there was no reason for it.SHe just seemed to want to punish and/or humiliate me all the time. Soon after my 18th birthday, I walked in after school, she was waiting at the door, she "come in the dining room and stand by me while I check your school stuff!! " I said "NO!! I am 18 years old and you are not going to treat me like this anymore!! You are not going thru my school stuff or anything else!!Stop looking for things to punish me over! I will live on the street if I have to!!" I went upstairs to my room and locked the door.I didint even care at this point if they threw me out of the house. A few minutes later, I could hear her on the phone with my dad.She told him what happened, then it got quiet then she slammed the phone down. By now about 20 minutes had gone by. I went downstairs. She acted like nothing happened. So did I. She wasnt perfect after that but she treated me a lot better.

Ulk Sylvia Browne is such a terrible person. I will say i read her books and I did enjoy them but I do not like her at all.

The op of the anxiety cycle confession might want to check out some Sylvia Brown's books, especially Past Lives, Future Healing. Yes, I know, she's a psychic and a lot of people think she is full of crap but her writings on past life regression are pretty interesting. For years I used to have a dream about being stabbed in the ribs and actually had terrible pain in my side. I even have a birthmark in the place where the pain would occur. Call me insane but that book really helped me.