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DD's JRA has flared up again, her foot is hurting, causing limping, and her knee is swollen.--read more

Well, the pounds keep melting off! I went to landsend.com a couple weeks ago to buy two new swimsuits for the summer and found, much to my surprise, I was now a size 22!--read more

DH and I have completed the Pre-Adoption Training Classes and have the Certificates to show it! Here's what mine says:

(my name) has completed 12 hours of Special Needs Pre-Adoption Training on:--read more

Hello everyone,--read more

Yesterday was my last day at work, I'm officially a SAHM again. This is mostly due to the fact that I was terrible at the job and miserable about it.--read more

Louisa Mei is seven years old today!--read more

Sam and Lana are twins. They are seven years old. They have a best
friend named Jazmin. She is six.

Rose is her cousin. She is four-teen.

“MAGIC.”

BY JOSEPHINE M. S. ARK

1.--read more

Have you gotten the Great Respiratory Virus of 2008?--read more

I.M. Town is a story. these people are main characters.

Caroline: the actress. Soul card: The Hierophant.

Tia: oldest one. Soul card: The Hierophant.--read more

INVISIBLE LOLZ!

Totally invisible, because I'm miserable. I've been trying to muster the energy to update the software here, and I just haven't had it. Now I know why. I'll try to make sure JJ goes through the comments queue tomorrow morning.

I've been slowly and steadily loosing weight since last fall and I've now reached my first major benchmark, I've gone down a whole size!--read more

I've noticed a lot of visitors to the site are using "Fun Web Products." There's some debate as to whether this is spyware/browser hijacking software. But I thought I'd at least tell you guys what to do about it. Best tip: Use Firefox. It's far and away the best browser.

I am so frickin' not ready for this.

Today Josie and I went to Freddies and bought her four little teenie bras. She doesn't really have anything much to hold up yet, but not for long. And she does need that extra layer under her shirts now; she's noticeably, uh, pointy in the chestal area.

oy.

According to the British website alljoinin.com, the average British housewife would earn £30,000 were she actually paid for her labor. That's well over the actual average wage in Britain. At the current exchange rate, that's just under $60,000. That number has stayed amazingly consistent--this isn't the first time something like this has been calculated out.

So should homemakers be paid a wage? I say no--I mean, who's paying?--but we do deserve more legal protection than we have.

For 20 years now, I haven't had a closet with a door on it--the entire time I've lived in this house. When I lived in the downstairs bedroom (now Josie's), it came with a curtain over the door, which was the first thing I removed when I moved in. When we remodeled the upstairs, we ran out of money and space for a proper closet in our bedroom, so we made do with a couple of cheapo fabric-covered wardrobes that fell apart almost immediately. And yet we continued to use them, because we had no alternative.

Until now.

Last night we finished up installing two lovely new wardrobes from IKEA. (Heilsa IKEA!) And now we have not only enough room to hang all our clothes, but also a proper shoe rack, and room for John's large collection of boots. (One of his nicknames is "Imeldo.")

What makes the wardrobes the most lovely is that they have doors. Real doors, with, like, hinges and handles, and they're made of wood, or a wood-like substance anyway. We still have room for shelving in the wardrobes, which is a project/IKEA run for the week.

aah. adulthood at last.

My Valentine's Day present to JJ was a bag full of goodies that cannot be discussed on a family forum. The girls got bouquets of flowers from their daddy. And I got three hours to myself at a writing workshop featuring Kim Stafford.

I haven't been to a writing workshop in 25 years. That last time, I embarrassed myself so thoroughly with my own pomposity that I couldn't face doing another one and have actively avoided the teacher (a fairly prominent regional novelist) assiduously ever since.

One of the prompts was to write a love poem about the most beloved inanimate object in our houses. Since I have fibromyalgia, that would be my Tempurpedic bed, which I worship. Here is the poem:

Oh, bed. Oh, my bed.
In winter, you are comically hard when I first slip into you
Needing my heat to soften you to the point where you don't feel like a frozen board
Like I'm lying on the tundra, the permafrost
But oh, my bed
When you warm under my body, you mold around me and hold me up
All flannel and warmth, reflected back, my own warmth captured and transmitted into softness
And next to me, under the down and chenille
My boy, drowsy and moaning in his sleep
His mouth so soft and childlike and the little gray patch in his beard
I turn over on my side, careful of the box in my chest that keeps my heart from stopping
And you hold me up another night and let me sleep
Oh, my bed.

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all.

Josie has her own room again, after nearly 7 years of sharing one with LouLou. Lou kept the old room upstairs with us, and Josie got the guest room downstairs off the dining room.

My mom said, "But where will I sleep when I come?" Josie will move upstairs to her sister's daybed, and guests will use her bed as they always had in the past.

It took us nearly two days of work to get the guest room ready, Josie's stuff downstairs and put away, and Lou's room mucked out. And I mean mucked out.

I don't know how they managed, but we've mucked out their room three times this month, and each time it's as bad as the last. It's one of the reasons we gave Jo her own room, so that they're responsible for their own messes now.

Josie has kept her room fairly tidy so far--and is living in there, I never see her it seems like--and Lou has actually made a few strides toward tidiness herself. I got her out of bed last night (she wasn't asleep yet) to put away her books and toys, and this morning when I went into her room I could actually see the carpet. So there may be hope yet for this family.

Well, we've been mucking out the front bedroom, it's fairly empty in there right now, but most of the stuff that was in there is now in the dining room or in the living room.--read more

Well, I got the introductory packets of information from the AdoptUSKids organization and from the Boy--read more

So, DH and I have decided to get the ball rolling to adopt a child (or two). We've talked about it for over a year and we're ready to start the process.--read more

I'm getting old. I can tell, because silly things make me cry.

Today, for instance, I got a notice that someone had looked at my profile on classmates.com. Went and looked; it was an old boyfriend of sorts who'd looked me up before, no big thing. But elsewhere on the page, I saw a name, a name I'd sorta been looking for, a name I'd even googled once. For here, I'll call him A. He was...well, I never really said it before today, not even to myself, but he was my first love.

A was brilliant. I mean, really brilliant. I mean, I'm smart and I felt slow around him. I mean, he didn't take calculus in high school; he helped teach calculus. He was sweet. And he was beautiful. Stunningly, amazingly, unconsciously, heartbreakingly beautiful. As much as I love my husband, and as handsome as he is--and friends, my boy is darling--A remains the most beautiful boy I have ever seen. Green eyes, golden hair, swimmers body, perfect teeth. And he liked me, for a little while at least. He was the first boy who ever asked me out, and I worshipped the ground he walked on.

Of course, it didn't end well.

One of my greatest regrets in life is that I had the chance to kiss him, for him to be the first boy I ever kissed, and I blew it. I was in his arms, and we were saying goodnight, and I went to kiss him but I was so nervous I kissed his cheek. And then the moment was gone and I never got another one.

For all I know, he's gay. For all I know, I was just something to pass the time when he came home from college (he was two years older). For all I know, the embarrassed look he gave me as his sneering best friend drove them away the last time I saw him wasn't embarrassment but shame. For all I know, he's never thought of me once since. For all I know, he's thought of me as often as I've thought of him, but I doubt it.

I just wrote him a quick note via classmates. I don't expect to hear back, so I told him what I needed to tell him: That he had been so special to me, and that I hoped he was well and happy.

And now I'm sitting here crying. I'm nearly 47 years old and I'm crying over a boy from high school. I'm getting old.

--read more

I've been slowly emerging from my funk this winter and one of the things that I now feel like I can cope with is our finances.--read more

I cant believe its been over a year that Ive been on here. I remember the support I got from here and I miss it! --read more

Hi everyone,
I was hoping that i would be able to get some answers to why you choose to stay at home rather then put your children in daycare. --read more

So, there was a sprinkling of snow last night, thus, naturally, the greater Portland Metro Area is having fits. "ICE on the ROAD!--Save yourselves!" And DD's school is on a two hour delay. --read more

I'M BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!
It feels so great! Pretty soon i won't be ten. In nine months, i'll
be ELEVEN! I'm so excited! But today, was I.M.T.s prime moment!--read more

There's a lot, so I'll bullet point. (Just now learned how to do this in HTML for this post, impressive, non?)--read more

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Household energy consumption is a topic of increasing interest among homeowners. This is for two reasons: rising energy costs and global warming.--read more

I always said that the day Josie gave up her bosom companion Snow Bear would be a very sad day, and here it is. Lou came into bed this morning with me, holding Snow Bear. "Oh yeah," she said, "Josie gave him to me."

Snow Bear has been Jo's best stuffed buddy since about age three. He has gone everywhere with us in that time, even to church. I've had long conversations with him, with Jo supplying his sweet, gruff voice, and most nights when I said good night, I'd always add "Good night, Snow Bear," and get a low "good night!" in return. Knowing that I won't hear that ever again saddens me greatly, but children grow up.

I asked Josie about it, and she said she just didn't need him any more so it was time for him to go to Lou. It's true. About six months ago she stopped taking him outside the house, and then she stopped worrying about if he'd be okay by himself in the house about three months ago. (She used to settle him on the couc