SheSue Experience

The studies showed that the marital relationship declined after the first child was born and declined more with each additional child. Household chores tripled for women which has been found to be a large part of relationship woes. Meaningful time spent together with your spouse was stressful and difficult to find. The studies found that most marital relationships improved after the children were out of the house, even though household chores did not diminish much for women.

I think a big part of the change in these studies over time has to do with the woman’s role in society. In my mother’s time, women did not work outside the home. Their job was caring for the house and raising the children. When the children left home, so did their job and their sense of purpose. I would liken this to men who retire from stressful jobs and find themselves completely lost.

I doubt these studies found many statistics on women of today who are stay-at-home moms like I was. I found myself asking what my purpose was in life after my children left. When searching for a job, I found that I was very behind the times in regards to technology which kept out of a lot of jobs. At home I would wander the house trying to figure out what to do with myself. For me, keeping busy has been my life saver.

Today people can easily drive to the upper level of Oregon City. So why keep the elevator in operation? After all, the city pays to keep the elevator staffed 7 days a week and doesn’t charge a dime. Perhaps it’s for the fame. After all, the elevator is the country’s only outdoor municipal elevator. There are only 4 in the entire world.

The ride to the top is smooth as any indoor elevator. The attendant sits in a small glass enclosed booth within the elevator. The attendant’s shift is 6 hours. The operate the elevator and serve a tour guide. Approximately 14-1500 people ride the elevator each day with many using it as a means to get to work.

At the top of the elevator is a glass enclosed viewing platform. Windows give you a glimpse of the lower level of Oregon City plus the Willamette Valley surrounding the city. In the picture here you may be able to see Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood in the background. Along the walls under the windows are a series of murals that tell the story of pioneer migration and the development of the town. The murals are in 3-D, they change as you move to reflect the development in progress.

But hey, it was a new experience and I’m all about checking out new experiences. After they figures out who was going to play, they pulled out that many playing cards. Everybody drew for where they would sit. Everyone put in $10 to start and they all received the same value of chips.

The game is played in rounds. Each round lasts 20 minutes. Only 2 players ante up at the beginning of each hand. This ante goes up in value with each round. The play is similar to 7-card draw. You are dealt 2 cards. You bet on these cards. Then 3 cards are placed face up on the table. These are communal cards. Everybody uses these card combined with the 2 initial cards you were dealt. You bet, another card is placed face up the table, you bet, then 1 final card. And the winner is the one with the best 5 cards out of 7.

Of course there are additional rules like when someone “goes all in” which means betting all the money they have left. There are lots of serious players, and many not so much. Some get too cocky, but mostly it’s a lot of luck. In the end, my niece won the tournament. The last 2 in the running were she and her husband, so lots of silliness.

As long as you don’t take it seriously, a Texas Holdem party can be just as fun as any social event. As people lost their money, they socialized with the others. The poker gives the party a purpose and makes a nice ice breaker for getting to know others.

They even have a computer tucked into a corner where you can check out the blog: Traveling Friends of Molly. Here you’ll find food ideas, recipes, stories, pictures; anything about travel and dining worthy of sharing.

Their menu has some interesting sounding dishes. They call it food without borders which means they mix and match dishes from Ethiopia, Hawaii, Thailand, New Orleans and Jamaica. For lunch I had a sandwich made of jerk chicken and mango sauce. My son-in-law had a volcano sandwich which was a very spicy pulled pork.

Ask Todd Curtis, an aviation safety expert who keeps a detailed database of airline accidents and crashes at Air Safe. Here you will find answers to all sorts of grim (and not so grim) questions about flying. Ask Curtis where the safest seat on a plane is and he will tell you outside the plane. Or ask these kids, maybe they have the best idea.

What can you do to improve your odds? Most accidents occur while a plane is either taking off or landing, so it’s best to fly nonstop. This will reduce your exposure to these accident-prone stages of flight. Also, as a rule, larger planes are safer than smaller ones. Partly because they are subject to stricter safety regulations, but also because they have more structure that can absorb energy during an impact.

If it makes you feel better, there are nearly 40 airlines in the US and Canada who have not had a fatal crash in over 35 years. Some of these are Aloha Airlines, American West, Hawaiin Airlines, Horizon, JetBlue, PanAm and Southwest.

So, I sought out the support line at my web hosting service, Blue Host. I was pleasantly surprised! The fabulous young man I spoke to was very personable and patient. He explained what had happened in pretty close to non-geek. It took a while to fix my problem and he kept coming back on the line to let me know that I hadn’t been forgotten. I had lost a great many of the files that make up my website, but fortunately my site had been backed up so I was saved. Then he took me step by step through a new back-up process.

If you are not techie, Blue Host has an entire site of tutorials. This site has video tutorials on several subjects plus it has a forum. When I get brave, I will attempt to add my new website again using these tutorials. If I get lost, the young man at Blue Host invited me to call back anytime.

Blue Host is one of many hosting services that offer low rate hosting. Once you sign up for the membership, you can set as many domains as you wish. They offer:

• Domain purchase, registry, transfer and re-direct
• Email, auto-responder, forwarders
• Mail list creation
• Statistics on all your domains
• Shopping cart
• Search engine submitters
• Site builders