HoosierJen

For anybody who's a Garth Brooks fan, here's a cool story for you....three girlfriends and I took a weekend girls trip to Chicago in the late '90s. While shopping at Nike Town, we bumped into Garth Brooks who was shopping alone! He was so sweet and talked to us in the store for quite a bit, and ended up inviting us to his concert planned for the next night. He had us arrive at 4, and we got to watch rehearsal first. And then - as if the night wasn't incredible enough already - we hung out with him in his dressing room after rehearsal until he had to get ready for the show. He was literally the sweetest person ever -- he ordered pizza for us and told us stories about his kids. It was like something out of a movie. We tried so hard to play it cool, but every time he left his dressing room we were snapping pictures like crazy!

In regard to last week's episode with the college student found on the soccer field.....my two kids both went to the same college as the murdered girl when this crime happened. Neither of them knew her personally, but my daughter knew her tangentially -- a 'friend of a friend' kind of situation. My daughter knew only good things about Halee, and said that from everything she knew, Halee was a very sweet, well-liked girl. I think part of the shock of the crime was that even though Evansville is the third-largest city in Indiana, it still very much has a small-town feel to it, and people don't expect things like this to happen.

I'm wondering the same thing . . . or are they running it for the new owners or something? Anyway, I really liked it. I thought it was cute and I liked all of the main characters -- especially the little boy. And the relationship between the kid and the uncle is nice.

Every time I watch this show I can't help but think about these kids' former teachers. I teach high school, and every year I have some students who are lazy, unmotivated, full of attitude, and lacking in intellect. It seems like I'm always telling them that they will need these skills someday and that eventually they will have to show up to a job on time and do what the boss tells them -- even when they don't particularly want to. But then I watch Teen Mom and I see that apparently I'm wrong. You don't always need basic reading, writing, and math skills. You don't have to work well with others, show up on time, or put in effort in order to keep a job. Somewhere in the world are the former high school teachers of Amber, Farrah, Tyler, and Cate. I can't imagine how frustrating it would be to watch former students like that and know that these crappy people now make triple (quadruple?) what you -- an educated professional -- make. It would make me sick.

I absolutely loved Tom in the first episode! He broke my heart, though, when he kept calling himself ugly; I thought he was adorable. I hope he and his lovely lady can make it work. The second guy I didn't like at all, though -- I fast forwarded through it.

Thank you, everyone, for the congratulations; I appreciate it. Went to the doctor today with daughter and her boyfriend and saw a little blob with a heartbeat, which makes things feel more official. Of course, I can already tell that the little blob is extremely cute and very advanced. @auntlada I don't mind questions at all. My family is . . . I guess the best term would be 'nicely judgmental'? I'm sure when they find out about daughter's pregnancy the phrase "Well, I still love you" will be thrown out quite a bit. I hate that phrase so much. It's like "In case you don't know, you're a horrible sinner, but I am a good Christian and am still willing to do my duty and love you anyway." There probably will also be a few snide comments about my parenting and my liberal ways, but I'm used to that. As for marriage, they have no plans, which was kind of a relief for me. They are planning on getting an apartment and raising the baby together, but marriage is something they aren't even thinking about. I'm good with that, though, because I don't like to see people make huge life decisions based on situations like this. Anyway, we made it through Christmas without any of us (me, my daughter, her boyfriend, my son) slipping up and telling anyone, so now we're just waiting for her to decide when to share the news. Again, thanks to everyone for the kind words. It feels good to have someone to share with.

My daughter -- a senior in college -- came home for her Christmas break and told me that she and her boyfriend are expecting. While it isn't the exact way she saw her life going, I'm absolutely thrilled at the idea of having another little one in the family (my first grandchild!). I'm also thrilled because my daughter has had some health issues and both she and I had our doubts that she would ever be able to get pregnant -- I'm so happy that fertility issues aren't a struggle she will have to face. She hasn't told anybody else yet and wants to wait until after the holidays, mainly because she doesn't want to make it all about her. My issue is this -- my family is incredibly conservative Christian, and I know they will have issues with the fact that she is unmarried. My fear is that they will be critical and judgmental and ignore the positives -- that this is a new life to love and that when the baby is born she will be 22 years old with a college degree fresh in hand, which I think is a pretty good start. I'm afraid of what's going to happen when she tells everyone because I feel like the first sign of negativity will cause me to cut that relative out of my life -- if you can't be happy, then stay the hell away from me. I think I just wanted to put that all on here because I'm not allowed to talk to anyone about it for another week or two, and I just wanted to share those thoughts with someone. Thank you, kind and anonymous internet neighbors, for listening. And since this is the only place I can say it -- I'm Gonna Be A Grandma!!!!!!!!

Saw it last night, and I thought it was okay. Mainly, I wanted to see it in the theater so that I could appreciate Idris's sexiness on the big screen. I really liked the survival story half, but didn't really enjoy the love story aspect. And during the love scene my focus was on the fact that Kate's armpits looked freshly-shaven . . . hadn't they been on the mountain for weeks at that point?

Spiderella2, thank you for your concern. Yes, she's fine . . . she's actually 21 now and perfectly healthy (except for those holes in her heart). Nobody knows she has a heart problem unless we tell them, and everyone is always surprised to find out -- she looks like the picture of health. As far as the advice that Briana was given, it sounded right. We were told to always watch my daughter to see if she seemed out of breath or abnormally tired. She goes to the pediatric cardiologist once a year to get the holes measured -- as long as they are within a certain size limit, no surgical intervention is needed. This summer was actually a big moment for us because it was her last visit to the 'pediatric' cardiologist -- her next visit will be to a regular cardiologist. The only physical restriction she's ever had is that she can't scuba dive. One thing that I remember the cardiologist telling me when my daughter was a baby was that I was to treat her exactly like I treated her older brother . . . if he played soccer, let her play soccer; if he climbed a tree, let her climb as well; if I was a spanking parent, spank both of them for the same infraction. He said the problem comes when parents treat their kids differently and try to protect the one with the heart defect. He said it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy -- you keep them out of sports and try to cushion them from everything, hence their body doesn't build up its strength. I hope that Briana gets this same advice and treats both of her girls the same. Briana is the type of parent that I usually love to meet in the cardiologist's waiting room -- new baby, just got the diagnosis, scared to death. I remember how that felt, and I think it makes them feel so much better to see my daughter -- college senior, beautiful, strong, played volleyball and ran cross country all through high school -- becuase they realize that a heart defect will not prevent their child from doing anything in life.

Yeah, Briana, that's a really rough life you've got there. As opposed to when I found out that my baby had holes in her heart and I had to -- you know -- go to work the next day. There are lots of parents who have children with health issues, and we don't all get to sit at home all day and collect a paycheck from Mtv. Some of us have to continue to go to work and stress over how to pay the regular bills along with the pediatric cardiologist bills, all while worrying over our child's health. But with that stupid sister complaining how they never get a break -- shut your stupid mouth. You all are getting paid to sit around and bitch.....and here I am doing it for free!

They were both very friendly during commercials . . . they came out into the audience a lot and took pictures with audience members. And they seemed to get along well and be really friendly with each other. And with the cell phone lady, they weren't mean or anything, but were just kind of laughing about it. Also, they both seemed incredibly kind to the people behind the cameras...apparently one guy has a new baby and they were congratulating him and saying how beautiful the baby was. I haven't really watched the show a lot, so I had no expectations about what they'd be like, but I thought they both seemed very sweet. And very tiny!

I was in the show audience Tuesday, Sept. 19, and a woman's cell phone went off during taping. Most people would have been scurrying to shut it off, but she just sat there like she couldn't even hear it -- the thing rang for about 20 seconds! Gelman, Art, all of the producers and camera men were glaring up at her and security was running up to the balcony....it was just so weird. But, the thing that shocked me was that they never told us to turn off our phones. I know most people would realize this already, but I thought that since it was a live show we would get several warnings about turning off phones -- we didn't even get one. The only thing that was said about phones was that we could take pictures but please don't take videos. That's it. During the commercial break, Kelly said that the phone totally made her lose her train of thought and that she had a David Muir story to share that left her mind when the phone started ringing. David Muir said it was an embarrassing story, so he was thankful to the phone lady. And then Kelly said the same thing happened to her during church, but she was so embarrassed that she just looked around like 'Who's phone is that?'

My 21-year-old daughter just started her senior year of college. She happens to be a beautiful girl....like, the kind of beautiful where people stop her on the street and she's done several modeling jobs. Because of her looks -- and her tendency to say whatever pops into her head -- it seems as if her teachers have always treated her like a dumb blonde and never expected much of her. Last fall, she took a bio class at college and absolutely loved it. After studying political science for the first two years, she suddenly decided to change her major to biology and become a doctor. I kind of had my doubts (mainly because she was now so far behind) but told her to go for it. Today, she got her MCAT scores back and she scored in the 90th percentile! I'm just so proud and so happy for her....she called to tell me and we both cried for a half-hour on the phone. It just makes me want to call all of those teachers who didn't seem to think she could do anything.

I live near the small town where they shot a lot of this film. In honor of the 25th anniversary, they've parked the Peaches bus from the movie in the center of town so people can stop and get their pictures taken with it. It makes me smile every time I drive through there and see kids standing around the bus to get their pictures taken. And when it's a bunch of little girls with baseball gloves, it just makes me tear up.

I teach drivers' ed at our school during the summers. The school is about five miles away from my house in our small town, and I have several students who live within a block or two of my house. Every summer I have parents asking me to drive their kids to/from drivers' ed. I know it's not a big deal, it's only a short trip, and getting your kid to and from school for a four-hour class each day is a pain, but I don't want to haul your kid around! And they never offer to pitch in for gas because I'm going anyway. It annoys me so much. I like my quiet time in the car and I don't want to ride around with teenagers!