Jeeves

The ONCE a year vacation? For JillR?

Lord, Amy is such a mess.

I spotted his weak chin in some photos way back then and noticed that he was usually careful about the angles when in front of a camera. He still usually is. At least the Duggars seem to have photogenic (and telegenic) genetics working for them. The Duggar sons have tendencies to go pasty and blobby in adulthood, but I think some of that is just living a soft lazy lifestyle. Generally, the male and female Duggarlings have been blessed by the Lord Daniel with pretty decent faces for TV. Jeremy, not so much.

I wonder if the fancy coffee machine in the hospital was free. I really can't see Jill or David giving the kids money to make all those fun cups of coffee that we saw. Although of course they could have shamelessly hit up Jonathan or Nathan for the money. Although I'm sorry she was raised by a narcissist mother, Nurie's just another IFB pastor's wife, hateful beliefs and all. I hope she's getting enough to eat now that she's married, and that her childhood experiences around food haven't left her with any hangups or disorders. We'll never know if Nathan is abusive to her behind closed doors because these are people who follow the Pearls who teach people how to beat children, from infancy. I can't believe that in their patriarchal belief system, it's a step too far for a man to beat his wife if he thinks she needs her spirit broken. Same with Jonathan and Kaylee, although they aren't really out of the honeymoon phase yet. They'll soon be into the baby-beating and blanket-training - which will never make it onto Jill's social media. Even Jill can edit herself that much. But we know she sent Nurie and a notNurie (Kaylee?) as teenagers to spend a month or two with the Pearls and Jill had to burble about that on SM so they are loud and proud about the connection. Jill's entertaining in a horrible way but this morning for some reason I'm just disgusted with all of them.

So I'm not the only one who thought "feral" about those kids. I also feel sorry for them.

I've had some pretty good food at Olive Gardens. But I'm not a foodie or gourmet, so there's that. (My least favorite kinds of social encounters involve making polite conversation with someone who is raving about some meal they ate somewhere, item by item, in detail. I do my best to be pleasantly engaged, often while mentally telling my late parents, I hope you appreciate this display of the good manners and courtesy you tried to instill in me.) I like their salad a lot. I almost always go there with a big family group for a birthday, or out of state relatives visiting. Actually, it's been awhile since I've been there. I may have to visit again one of these days.

Wow, what an arsehole move by that pastor. Apparently he felt the need to mark his territory and remind his flock of his absolute authority over his church. But then, it's the horrible world of the IFB, so I'm not surprised.

Too bad Jill hasn't put her grifting talents to use to get those lessons for her sons. No way, of course, would the Lord Daniel want her to pay, like, real money for such things.

I'd report that creepy anonymous text to the police in a New York minute. I've never heard anything claiming to be a full report, but I have heard that the Duggars have drawn some creepy attention (as I suppose all folks with any celebrity can experience). I once read something about a strange woman driving into the Dillards' driveway to see Jill or something. If I were in that kind of status and had already had some of that stuff, I'd definitely let law enforcement know about the text. It's almost too articulate to have been written by JB. It would have to come from someone with knowledge of their financial settlement, which did get press attention although I don't know how long the news took to get out after the settlement was reached. But man, it reeks to high heaven of butt-hurt patriarch, no matter who wrote it. Ugh.

Now that @Meow Mix mentioned, it I suppose it's possible that Jed or even J'inmate could have sent the burner phone text to Derick. I haven't tried to analyze the text but the parts we saw on SHP, quoted.by @dariafan above, were IMO the expressions of outrage at Derick's mistreatment of Jill's parents. Def a howl of outrage from JB's point of view. As to threats, we didn't see the entire text, which was very long and mostly blurred out on SHP. But what we did see, also quoted above, claimed that mistreatment of parents carried Old Testament "death penalties." For all we know there were worse things said, that were not exposed on SHP. TBH if I got an anonymous long ranting hateful text invoking Old Testament "death penalties" against me, I'd call the cops too. Not that I'd expect them to run out and arrest anybody just for that, but because that's scary stalker sh*t and I'd want it on the record in case the perp followed through with more threats - or worse. I can't fault Derick for doing that. I bet that Jill let it drop in talks with her siblings or even Meech, that the threatening text had been turned over to the cops, and I'm sure she let it be known that it had upset her. Probably prevented the Burner Phone Texter from sending any more nonsense. My takeaway from watching the family dynamics over the years as the kids grew up and married, is that JB worked that "headship" thing in his own way. Mainly because he held the money. Whatever lip service he paid to the idea that his daughters acquired new "headships" upon marriage, I think he expected to keep calling the tunes they all danced to. The first son-in-law to buck him was Jeremy. The show's editing monkeys had fun showing JB's discomfort with Jeremy before Jinger married him, in that trip to Laredo. Heh. And JB wasn't alone in the elastic concept of "headship." In SHP, a couple of the non-Duggar former IBLP members, said that in practice, the "headship" was the oldest male present. They were talking, IIRC, about the training centers where there were a lot of young people helping to run the place. But it sounds a lot like the Duggar hierarchy as well.

Hey! For once JillR has posted something that isn't about her. Cryptic as that post is, I say that because: Jill is so not "educated" that she writes "persons" instead of the correct "person's." Jill is so emotionally fragile that she's always bringing the dram-ah to social media. Praising or condemning. All the time. I wonder if she'll drop the name of this educated, emotionally strong person with the bulletproof mindset who's living in such holy alignment. Maybe it's Nurie? 🤣

Possibly, if the bottom stripe is green.

@SunnyBeBe, I hope they get the door fixed right for you. Today I bought a roof top cargo box for my minivan. I've wanted one for awhile. I got a (barely) used Thule, saved about $200 over the cost of a new one. I have no prior experience with these things, but the guy at the shop where I bought it, showed me how it all works. I'll need some help to hoist it up onto the roof and lock it in place, but otherwise I can handle everything else. The other sweet part of this deal is that my minivan (a Dodge Grand Caravan) came from the factory with not only roof rails, but crossbars. I just had to swing the crossbars out into place and secure them. The box fastens onto those. As the shop guy said, having crossbars already, means I didn't have to pay a few hundred more bucks for crossbars to mount the box on. Yay! Obviously I can't have the box on top of the car and put the car in our condo building garage; the clearances there are too low. I brought it home in the back of the car and now it's up here in my living room. It only weighs 34 pounds and is easy to move around on my little wheeled cart/dolly. It's a bit bigger than I thought I'd like but I'm happy with the size. I've just cleaned it up and will store it - with some closet Macgyvering - until I need to use it. I'm very happy to have it. I'm hoping to take some road trips when the weather gets a bit cooler. The rooftop box will carry a lot of my campsite stuff and a some other things, leaving the back of the minivan less crowded. So that's my silly little accomplishment for today. The next item on the minivan camping wishlist is a side awning to. use when camping. I've been researching these for awhile, and watching YT videos of vanlife folks who've used various kinds. They range from spendy brand name retractable awnings that mount on the side of the roof, to cheap strange-looking things, to DIY solutions with tarps and poles and zip ties. I've decided that although I don't want to spend to the max, I think the cheap and DIY stuff would be a waste of time and money because they're flimsy and not durable. There's a shop not far from here that sells them, so I'll start there with a lot of questions and see what they say.

Mine too. The law enforcement guys there are always making smart-arse cracks at the people they bust for smuggling or being ineligible to enter the country. Like they can't just do their job, they have to rub it in. I like the NZ shows in that they focus so much on keeping pests out of the country, whether in food products, sporting goods, or otherwise. I just watched the NZ episode where they refused entry to the guy from the US who was a very regular pot user, on the basis that they believed he'd be using if allowed into NZ. Wow, that's a high level of discretion they exercised, but if their laws allow it, so be it. Anyway, that guy was such an ugly American, total smart-arse, mimicking the accent of the woman officer who was questioning him, acting so entitled like hurry up and quit delaying me - that I confess I wasn't sad for him.

I looked at a few resources, and I think a Walmart employee is expected to be courteous and respectful to customers. I found a Code of Conduct online that mentions that expectation. While employees are not to tolerate threats or harassment (they're supposed to call the cops actually in those cases), I think that listening to a customer for a few minutes of conversation wouldn't be out of line. I feel for those employees in the store; they're sitting ducks when people approach them and want to just yak instead of talk about something related to the store. The employee has to be open and courteous at the customer's first approach, and then I suppose that if the customer wants to proselytize, the employee has to figure out the most graceful way to bring the encounter to an end. And on the corporate policy level, heaven forbid that any retailer even gives the impression that it discriminates against any religion, so I'm sure they give the Bible-beaters like Jill some room to do their thing in the stores. Walmart is headquartered practically in the buckle of the Bible Belt, so I'm sure they've got a handle on this at least at the corporate level.

Yep. It was a creepy text from someone using a burner phone. They showed screenshots of it on SHP with a lot of the text blurred out. It was a long message. On SHP they did show the parts of it noted above. Derick reported it to the police, and I suppose they found out it was sent from a burner phone. Derick was asked on SHP if he thought JB had sent it and said no, he couldn't speculate on that. I've long believed that Derick and Jill hit JB where it hurt JB the absolute hardest - in his bank account. The timing and longwinded text of that message to Derick leads me to strongly suspect JB sent it. I doubt anybody else would be so incensed at Derick and so motivated to rant at him in a long crazy text message like that. On a burner phone. This is your weekly reminder that JB Duggar is a POS. Just saying.

Yep. Blame the mechanics, Jill. For not magically fixing your 20+ year old RV with heaven knows how many hard miles on it. Which has been housing, and hauling around, a large family for the last several years.

Maybe he's met a hot woman who likes him, but is not into the IBLP and isn't interested in marrying a wholly owned subsidiary of Jim Bob Duggar, Inc. (Well, we can hope . . . )

I'm not at all expert in these matters, but I believe that these days a publisher expects an author to be actively involved in promoting their book. I can't slam Jinger or Jill for diligently - or relentlessly - promoting their books. They're basically just doing their job. In the "old days," authors tried to get as many bookstore appearances as they could, when they had a new book out. The better-selling authors were taken around on multi-city tours to make those appearances. I have a few fond memories from the 90's of attending appearances at indie bookstores by authors whose novels I really liked. The internet and social media have changed the world in so many ways. Including putting more of the promotional work in the authors' hands.

Absolutely. One gorgeous cat. Thanks for sharing that photo. Also, thanks for the report on your trip. It's great to hear that you enjoyed it and that your mom had a good time. Seems like she really needed that boost. I know you did so much to make it happen. As your mom's contemporary in age, I just want to reach through the screen and hug you in gratitude for all you are doing for her. ❤️ That is all. Welcome home!!

I'm no Duggar or Spivey fan, but I hope that Claire and whatshisname are doing some family planning (they are young) and not struggling with infertility. That's a bad enough mess for most couples, and I think it must be worse for people in the IFB/IBLP world. Didn't IBLP teach that children were a gift from God and if you sin you will be denied children? IOW, if you don't conceive you need to figure out what sins you've been committing and change your ways. That is evil sh*t to lay on people.

Several months ago - and I almost hate to admit I spent time that way - I browsed her Facebook feed and looked at the timestamps on her posts. I think her posts were in the Eastern time zone and I'm two hours behind that. So I allowed for FB maybe showing my time vs. her time. Even with that allowance, several of her posts were shown as being posted in the wee hours of the morning. Since then, there have been occasional comments here (or on Reddit) noting that she posted something in the wee hours (anywhere from 2 AM to 4 AM). I think she has some kind of narc energy that keeps her up and probably keeps her household buzzing, and means her kids often stay up past what would be considered regular bedtimes. It wouldn't surprise me if she starts some project in the evening and just keeps going on it for hours. Since she seems to have a habit of having her kids "help" her with those things, I would be surprised if those kids go to bed before Mahmo's project is done. TBH I hope I'm wrong. Those kids need their sleep even if Mahmo doesn't. Of course, I'm sure the Hunk gets all the zzz's he wants. Probably dozes off in his recliner while watching the map.

Sounds like a worthy successor - and logical follow-up - to their ALERT faux military training. Play soldiers, then play pilots, then play disaster relief, then play pararescue jumpers . . .

@Leeds, I'm sorry you're experiencing that. It's so hurtful. I have no advice, just virtual hugs.

I totally agree! But of course, in the all-knowing opinion of Master of the Family and Umbrella of Authority JB Duggar? The kids did not have a choice. Kids having choices is not a thing in his worldview. Kids might choose to step out from under his umbrella of authority and he won't allow that - as he famously said in another context. Thank goodness that despite his religious delusions, the laws of our land recognize the legal autonomy of persons of legal age (18 in Arkansas), and also that minor children are entitled to protection from abusive exploitation and fraud. I agree with your comment above that Derick was probably able to succeed in pushing JB for Jill's payout (and I assume a bit for Derick who appeared in several episodes), because perhaps the contracts themselves were sketchy, and definitely the way the kids' signatures were obtained, was deceptive. I enjoy imagining how the negotiations between Derick/Jill and JB went down. I think we heard that the Dillards hired a lawyer. Who no doubt read all the contract documents, heard how the signatures were obtained, and laid it all out in a demand letter to JB. Then JB would have totally lost his sh*t over the letter, and demanded that his lawyers shut Derick down (if not run him out of town or have him jailed, LOL). Whereupon JB's lawyers (Travis Story or someone else) would have read the letter and looked into the situation, and had to tell JB he was f*cked if all that went before a judge. And it could open a can of worms not just about the Dillards, but about all the other adult and minor kids involved in that fustercluck of JB's genius creation. Of course, we don't know that's what happened. But if the Dillards did hire a lawyer, I think something like that probably did. We know that JB paid out and AFAIK no actual lawsuit was filed about the matter. ETA: I wonder if JB had lawyers other than Travis Story on his TLC deals. We know JB had Chad Gallagher on board as an advisor, and from the context of Jill's comments on SHP I think that was the case prior to 2015 so it might have gone back pretty far. If Gallagher was advising JB on PR/entertainment issues, he may have linked JB up with legal counsel who had more experience/expertise in that area than good old Travis.