I'M GETTING A CRITTER! For real! Mal's done with dealing with him, and after the school year ends, he's coming here to live!

Just got back from the hospital. TJ apparently kinda broke a rib snowboarding, and then truly broke it in a coughing fit on the porch outside my office window. Watched him drop to his knees, then ran off to the ER. Vicodin and six weeks worth of resting is what was prescribed.

Spring is in the air. It hasn't snowed (anything measurable) in weeks which is rare for Maine. Day time temperatures are approaching 60 degrees. Two weekends ago I went to Ferry beach and walked it and saw all the little (and big) doggies out to play. It was so refreshing. I cannot wait for the moment when everything turns green again.

I got accepted to Clark University for grad school. Full scholarship too. Not so sure about moving back to Worcester, but Clark is an amazing school and its very hard to say no to a free ride. I am waiting to hear from Brown (any day now) and BU (not sure of decision ETA). Got rejected from UConn, but didn't want to go there anyway. I am so excited and also terrified! I've had my professional brain on for so long I am nervous to get back into school mode. I hope I can transition smoothly. Its very bitter sweet. There are people and places I am going to miss.  Daddy is here, and my big brother (who turns 30 this 4th of July ). I'm on a bunch of committees at church that I am sad to leave. I have a great circle of friends here that I love and will miss (thank goodness for planes, trains, automobiles and Facebook).

The most amazing thing recently is the man that I met. I thought I had sworn off relationships. I was doing the casual dating/sex thing and loving it. I told myself I didn't want a boyfriend here because I was going to move away for school and didn't want anything to hold me back. And then Ethan stumbled into my life. We met at a bar (I know, I know) and we instantly clicked. That first night I could have talked to him all night. That was a month ago yesterday. Right around the 3rd, we decided to make things "official" and I couldn't be happier. He makes me feel beautiful and smart. He's 34- 10.5 years older than me, and its absolutely perfect. I've heard whispers from people who think that's a large gap. I must say that the age difference is not even palpable, unless we make cultural references ( then we just laugh about them. Like when I say " that song reminds me of middle school" and he says "I was a sophomore in college when that came out). His maturity is what matters. I don't have to teach him how to be in a relationship. He has a bachelor pad, but not a gross one. He loves his momma more than anyone and is very close with his family. He treats me with respect, as an equal. It helps too that he's so handsome we can barely stop touching each other. Its only been a month, but it feels like a lifetime (in a good way). My lease in Kbunk is up in April and I'm moving in with him. It saves us both money (which is important, as I am moving to Worcester soon). I'm there every day/night these days anyway. The thought of it doesn't even scare me at all. I have to hold onto that.

Shortly after my split from my now ex-husband, I made a for-real list of things I do and don't want in a partner. Ethan fits that list TO THE LETTER. I hadn't even been looking, and he dropped into my life so unexpectedly. We joke a lot about "all those old people being right" that "it just happens. When you're not looking and you least expect it." I feel so blessed and so lucky.

School? He totally wants me to go. He's so proud of me. Its not something we bring up a lot because it makes us sad. But we do know that I am going and we are going to make it work. The program at Clark and BU is 1 year. Brown is just around 2. We'll find a way to make it work. I feel like we have to. Our feelings grow stronger every day! 

Long story short: My life is so so good right now. I feel extremely blessed and lucky and happy. I'm the happiest I've been in a long time.


'Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth "you owe me." Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky' -Hafiz a Persian poet of the 1300s

Current Mood: happy

Just got rehired at work! It's on-call work with a 40-hour week doing ProFlowers again (remember when I swore I'd never to PF again? I'm a wage whore I guess). Then in September I slide back into regular seasonal status. This means a year-round hiring, which I've only had once before. I'm psyched! As of the 22nd I am an employee again, and can start on Extras Needed hours right away. I'll get scheduled some, when they think it'll be busy like with a catalogue drop, but mostly it will be up to me to get in there and snag extra hours. I can SO work that around going to the gym!

And I have realized that going to the gym every other day was a mistake. Too easy to skip that next day for some reason, and then suddenly several days or a week have gone by without working out. So now it's every day, nearly without fail. I'm doing well, too -- I never slowed down on my reps or lightened the weights, and I'm not sore a bit, though I am pretty shagged out after a workout. MUST get into better shape before Rites of Spring -- nothing like tromping up and down that mountain in bad shape. Bleh!

Not a whole lot happening other than this. Marriage continues fine and there's lots of love. Things with Critter have calmed down some for the nonce, so we're grateful. Work on harvest Revel has tricked off to a dead stop as nothing else can be done until more program proposals come in.

So that's it. Gonna finish my Clementine (yum!) and make some honey-butter biscuits and maybe get dressed. (Yes, Fnoxib, I'm "computer-clad"). :o)

Been thinking of Critter when he was little, how we would snuggle together. How much love there was. And now how much crap he's been through. Would it have been better if I had quit my job at the bank and gotten us into a Massachusetts shelter to live? Would we have been taken in by anybody? Would my mental health have deteriorated to dangerous levels? Would it all have been better anyway, keeping my son with me? I will never know, and I regret spending so many years away from him. I am very sad.

The Transition Initiative | Orion Magazine

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Here's a Pictoral for those interested. Whats amazing is that its March and there's almost NO snow!

http://pbckt.com/sp.Jy5

Oh my gods, Harvest Revel is moving RIGHT along! Got fire spinners coming, people are volunteering workshops and I've got one vendor already! I only put out the info a couple of days ago! Whee! I'll be really excited when the registration forms start coming in. I wonder if I should offer a Paypal option? Right now it's just check or money order made out to Harvest Revel (got a DBA account at my credit union).

I'm finalizing the logistics, the paperwork, the files, everything. When this is all done, next year it will just be updating info and the website. I won't have all this to DO next year, planning it all out THIS year. What shall I do with my time?? :o)

I realized that I missed the less-busy time of the day to go to the gym, so I'm trying to be a weenie and not go at all. Bad me. Somewhere I lost four pounds, though, so I'll take it.

My Critter is a broken animal.

When he and Mal moved to Maryland all those years ago, my son was basically tortured, stolen from, beat up, and picked on for five years. It's beginning to tell on him now... he's not obeying at home, and is speaking VERY rudely to Mal and Mal's girlfriend. Today he was told by the girlfriend how to put things away properly and said there IS no proper way to put them away, and then engaged in abusive language. He and Mal have anger issues and sometimes nearly get into it. The girlfriend intervenes successfully, but today it was directed against her. Mal stayed out of it, intelligently. But it did escalate nearly into violence, started by Critter.

Critter is going to be getting counseling soon at home, and it will continue here this summer if I have the money.

He may have Oppositional Defiance Disorder, because even at age 6 or 7 he wouldn't do what other people told him, other than me and my parents. He definitely has depression and anger issues. He has talked out at school about how certain rules are "bullshit" and in fact had an in-school suspension for saying that to a teacher.

At the same time, this is the child who is extremely polite, helpful, is in the Straight and gay Alliance at school (he's straight so far), and is my dear and loving son. Why are the teen years so difficult?

I don't know what I will do if he engages in such things with me this summer. I've never had trouble with him before, but is that just luck?

I am sad and scared.