"I've Still Got It, Really, I Do!"

I'm going to start this post with a familiar beginning---- I did it! I did it! I made it through Christmas! I had no major meltdown, no evil vengeance, maybe a tear or two and a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach , but I got through Christmas with no crisis! For starters I was very busy in December. I had a few health issues to get in before the end of the year (insurance issues, drat!) and my beloved Open House to prepare for, then right after that I got my tonsils out - yes, what most eight year olds are doing, and that kicked my butt for awhile. But, like a Who in Whoville, I felt a warm feeling creeping over me and it was... I think it was... excitement for Christmas! Again I had my children working themselves to a faretheewell trying to make sure Mom was getting a good holiday ("pssst..she's had a bad year") and I let them go with that feeling because Dammit, I had! I can't say I didn't let a sick feeling pass over me now and then with thoughts of last year or years past or even the year I've just been through - who wouldn't -but I've sort of given myself a year to wallow in the mire of muck this has become. Although I know you can't put a time frame on these things, I'm going to rise like a Phoenix and get the hell out of living his life in my head! For crying out loud this is supposed to be a page about a Book Club. Well this Book Club Moderator hasn't been worth her salt and that must change and it will.

I was looking back on the books we've read in the past year and couldn't help but associate them with "I came to this meeting the same month Bob left?" "How did I manage to do that?" "And this meeting?", "How on earth did I get myself dressed and put on makeup and get myself to Borders for this one?" Well I was able to because although we are there to discuss books, I have made many friends and I have the support of them, having to be there was what has gotten me through the past year - I didn't make it to every meeting. The first two years of LBC I only missed one due to knee surgery. That goes to show you how this has wiped me out. I had that bomb fall on my life. The Red Cross has come in and helped me clean up the mess and things are looking up. I couldn't be more grateful for that and for all my LBC members.

"Wine with my whine, here's to the Holidays!"

I did it! I did it! They said she couldn't do it but indeed I did! I made it through the first holiday without you know who. I have my children to thank for it and a wonderful friend!
They kept me so busy I could even think that maybe someone was missing from the Thanksgiving table and ...there wasn't! It was the Norman Rockwell day I've always wanted and besides a great meal, boardgames were played well into the night . It was beyond my wildest dreams! I think this bodes well for a good Christmas. Things are looking up!

But the next big thing on the agenda is not Christmas, it's the Holiday Open House and what should have begun yesterday will begin today with the transforming of my place into a Christmas wonderland (Ha!). I do enjoy this and hope everyone else does. This one is especially important to me as this year it is MY HOUSE and there is a psychological component that it has about it. I can add a psychological component to anything. But for now I want to say a few things about want I've been thankful for since that seems to be the order of the season, thankful for this past year in spite of all the well...sadness it has also held for me.

1. The book club continues to do well and membership grows even though I've struggled, because all of you have taken up the slack. Thank you.

2. I redecorated the house and if I must say so myself I think I did a bang up job - I love it!


3. The outpouring of sympathy I rec'd when my beloved dog, Petal, died, it meant a lot to me.


4. The Longmont Florist delivery guy. He's always is a happy surprise - who doesn't love to see him at the door?

5. The "my husband dumped for another woman diet" has stuck! At least for the time being.

6. As I've said before, my kids. Even though my life has been a mess, they don't seem to hold it
against me or hold me responsible even though it's often inconvenienced them.

7. The fact that I got all the good art! He didn't dare to take it...when you walk away you're saying I don't want/need anything and in my book and that's the price he paid ...yippee for me!

8. I know my neighbors now! Mr. Antisocial was holding me back (who knew? He was a "pillar in the community" as he often told me). my neighbors on all sides...we speak to each other and even invite each other over! A new experience for me in the ten years I've lived here!

9. Guilt free dog ownership. I can have one if I want to! Or more cats! (Uh-oh cat lady?) I don't have to answer to anyone about that whole issue!

10. Last but not least and certainly there are many more...my Kindle. A Christmas gift last year from, yes, him. But I love it and I can down load books I want to read "someday" ...it holds 3,500 for crying out loud! I stroke it's smooth plastic and wrap it in gossamer before placing it on it's velvet pillow before bed. Truly a thing of beauty, a marvel to behold!

Bonus thought - My Book Club - without it I surely would have gone crazy this year and put a bullet through my brain, I'm thankful I didn't.

"and he's no George Clooney"

I'm still writing about my divorce. I keep saying I will stop it. As I was looking for creative inspiration a moment ago I saw the Halloween candy bought for the trick or treaters and thought of how this year I'll be answering the door by myself. BASTARD!! Please hang in there with me reader(s). I will get through this or really try to have a book club tie in. It's been ten months and if only all the Anniversary's would pass and his damn weekly emails. Now those are going to stop. I'm putting a stop to those. What's that all about? And coffee dates? Am I whoring myself out for thirty minutes at Starbucks so he can see that I'm doing sort of okay and he doesn't have to feel guilty? From next week on he will hear from me when I need new tires and my car serviced as it is stated in our agreement for the next three years, (pretty good deal I think!). Book Club tie in, thank goodness for the extra week this month! As I've said and should probably keep to myself, I haven't been able to focus and read the way I used to the last ten months, and I need this week to finish the book which I am liking. I find myself staring off into space rather than reading like I used to. Members are picking great books too. I've really enjoyed the first half of them and it is with shame and remorse that I'm not getting them finished. See, I can say this here as I don't think many of you read this - this can be a test case scenario. I always say I'll go back and finish them and I still want to. I even, like most of you, had a list of my own reading I used to get done in between meetings. Oh how I wish I could get back to that time. BASTARD!! See it keeps coming back. Almost all negative things happening to me or that exist in my life I can relate back to Lying Cheating Bastard. It's just a fact, not me being a bitch. But we move on....I do consider myself so fortunate. I'm not living in some basement apartment. I was able to pay my Vet bills and all other bills for that matter, and still live the way I was used to. Some of that may change soon as our arrangement changes the first of the year. BASTARD!! But I have my home which I do love, and my book club with all it's members that I do love, whether they think I'm a nut case or not. They seem to put up with me and I do try to maintain things with the appearance that I'm not overwhelmed with a divorce (really it's just a legal separation that he wants to keep that way forever - hey! what's with that?!) and keep an illusion alive that I'm getting along just fine. I only need a book club to keep me going, well really it does make all the difference in the world. Now if I would read that book and go to the meeting and hold my head high THAT would make a difference and be a step in living right. BASTARD!!

a Rose by any other name would be called Petal

As they say, if it's not one thing, it's another, and this past Wednesday, I had to put my dear little dog to sleep. When will it ever end. I'm about to hang it up and if it wasn't for the fact that I have a daughter that phones me and expects me to answer periodically and a couple of other kids that think I'm out here on the planet at their beck and call I might have just bagged it right along with Petal. I don't like being totally alone now. Her little clicks of her toenails along the wood floors are greatly missed and her scratching on the door even. Ex husband has already suggested getting another one - I believe to assuage his guilt over leaving me alone - he felt the dog was company enough I guess when he left in January. Well isn't that considerate. No dogs for awhile I think, I'm not ready to replace that sweet faced little thing. My fear at this point is that old adage of things happening in threes and I don't have a third thing to spare - I don't! So I hope it can come from something back a few moves like my computer crashing or losing my dining room set to the lying cheating bastard or something like that...does that qualify? I hope so. The other thing this has created that I didn't expect is a whole other loss of routine... I lost that when Bob left and here again with Petal gone. We got up and went outside and as much as I complained it was nice to greet the day and come in and make coffee. Now there is nothing to make me get up and start that routine. Bob, prior to Petal had a strict OCD routine that was much more involved, but at least it gave my day structure and now I drift. Today I was going to start my new life without dog and I haven't gotten off to a very good beginning. I will try again, with trying to do what I have wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, or go somewhere, but I hated leaving her. I always took her in the car with me and she had a little booster chair. Ahh Freedom! Soon it will feel good I imagine. No more boarding worries when I want to go somewhere. No more finicky eating. Right now I would spoon feed her with my son's silver baby spoon if she were here and it would help. I would drive her around in the car , going nowhere special if she liked it. That little dog was a part of my life that came to me when I really needed her and now maybe I will learn I don't need her and can be alone. Perhaps, I just liked that little dog around for that cute fuzzy face, and there wasn't a cuter face than hers, that loved me no matter what, yea, I think that was it. Goodbye Petal, I miss you so much. May 16, 2007 - October 6, 2010. I didn't get to keep you very long but you'll stay with me forever.

"Just gettin' by on gettin' by"

Sometimes if you wait for creativity and imagination to come before you do something you're waiting an awful long time. So you begin and hope that those things come as you go along. That is what I'm hoping for now. Since my last post there has been much to write about. Book Club musings, and my all time favorite- personal blather. Book Club is still and will always be my baby and something I hope very near to my heart. I hope every month it becomes (or stays) happy and healthy and I think for the most part it has. The biggest problem with it is me. As I have often stated - I have lost the ability to read since January. This activity has been replaced by absently staring off into space. I blame this - you guessed it - on the Lying Cheating Bastard. My mind just wanders and everything reminds me of how I got from there to here and how I will get from here to somewhere else. As one of you told me, "Life is a cinch by the inch but a trial by the mile" and while that may sound corny, it has gotten me through many a moment of grieving. I know I haven't been the same person and I apologize to those I've hurt and lost patience with, and I thank those who have shown me kindness and a handful of hope along the way. But enough philosophizing. It's been nine months now and I'm so grateful that much time has passed, but also can't believe it's been that long as I'm still in shock and amazed at the daily affect it has had on my life. Life goes on whether you want it to or not, there are bills to pay, Dr's appointments, and kids grow and change, and things around the house need repair, pets get sick and decisions have to made that I thought I wouldn't have to do alone. But what I've learned in the last nine months; I'm not alone. The Book Club will survive without me. LBC members are the best people in the world. If I reach out, there are many friends who are there for me if I have the courage to ask for help. I have the ability to know when I'm wrong, in fact, through all of this, it's much easier to admit the small stuff. Life is short. Who knows which way the wind is blowing? I'm still standing every first and third Saturday with an attendance list and reading guide in one hand and my small skinny vanilla latte with one equal in the other and no ones taking those things from me until they can pry them from my cold dead fingers. I hope that's okay..... is that okay? That is okay isn't it?

"Let's all lighten up a little, shall we?"

Here's a little something that alway's cheers me and has even given me goosebumps a time or two. When you're feeling down or just want a reason to smile and motivate yourself to do something big and loud and wonderful, watch this. Of course looking at my kids always cheers me up too..)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlfKdbWwruY

And have a great day!

"And the World Spins Madly On"

Whoa! What a lazy poster I've been. Overwhelmed with life I guess. Not that I'm sitting around in a fetal position, but not taking the time to try to be clever - that takes energy! Let's get up to date on a few things, shall we?

*I've redecorated my upstairs, downstairs is next. Enjoying this project immensely but I don't like watching the $$$ go so quickly, but I figure it's for a good cause - making the house mine - all mine. oh yes - no trace that anyone else ever lived here. I have heard negative comments through the LBC grapevine of disapproval about what I'm doing, but too bad - I'm doing what I want and a few comments from people that hardly know me are not going to sway my life course - egad! If I was that easily manipulated I'd really be a mess!

*Next up. Book Club back lash; As some of you know I was publicly eviscerated and I didn't take it well. Whether or not I decide to quit my post as moderator is still in the thought process - it may be time for me to step down. It's been a rough year for me and I haven't given it my very , down to the last cell in my body, all as I usually do and so It may be time for somebody else to do so. Although I still enjoy it, I don't need a lot of criticism right now, so to those of you that think the book club is not running in apple pie order - can you do a better job and would you like to apply for my position - let me know by email.

*Trying to have a life with friends and not be alone and lonely and looking at that empty chair is still a struggle but I'm working on it. I've only made about a dozen major life changes and I need to catch up to them so please bear with me.

I think that's enough for the time being. I'm not spending the day in my pajamas, I do get dressed and put on make-up every day. I even was going to the gym until "Tal" got so cranky I switched to water aerobics. Now the weirdness of the LCB (lying cheating bastard) wanting to meet with me for lunch weekly I can't quite file anywhere in my mind of "where did this go wrong and what the hell do you want from me" folder but I'll attempt to find an agenda at least for a while and then I think it's ixnay on the unchlay. Come on - we didn't lunch this much when you didn't have a girlfriend. You're messed up man! The cabin is someone elses and that is a sad thing for me - you traded it in for your groovy LoDo apartment (900 sq ft for $400,000.00 for you and girlfriend to trip with the hip). But you are 65 years old!!!! And you bear absolutely no resemblance to George Clooney! Let me tell the men out there - charm... charm takes you a long way. Charm and a nice shirt. A nice shirt is really good for cleaning up the cat hairballs in the basement too, he's beginning to wonder where they are - wants them before Summer is over. Well, Mick Jagger and I know you can't always get what you want.. but if you try sometimes, you get what you need.... he has plenty of shirts, and I needed some rags for cleaning up hairballs. Thank you for letting me catch up and getting it in writing helps me see what I'm doing and where I'm at. As I've always said LBC members are the best!

"kids, cabins and contracts"

As they say, the more things change the more they stay the same. For years I made the trip to Estes Park to see my boys. It was agony most of the time. There were all sorts of convoluted ways of getting the job done. Having dinner at my ex-house. Trying to take them to a restaurant (like trying to dynamite them off the sofa!). Even trying to share custody of my ex-house - boy was THAT a bad idea! Then at some point it was decided I should rent a cabin so I could spend more time there. This can be done very inexpensively in the off season in Estes Park, so I did. This worked well. Not exactly like I thought it would, but nothing is ever like you think it will be. The boys didn't come by after school for cookies and video games or spend the night or anything crazy like that. It was still me hauling massive amounts of groceries up there and preparing meals for them to eat and take with for later and them leaving and me feeling less guilty. After moving to a nicer rental cabin that we improved to a level of cuteness that I hated to leave behind, it was suggested we purchase our own place. This was terrifying as I had spent fifteen years in this town that weren't very happy, however, is buying real estate a bad idea? I went along with it and it was fun. Finding a cute place and fixing it up was about the only thing my then husband and I ever built together. It worked out great! It was picture perfect inside and out, a dollhouse. The boys came over two nights a week and I made massive amounts of food and they took home (to their "real" home) stacks of gladware leftovers and I was even less guilty than before. They were older now, and so was I. They finally spent Thanksgiving and Christmas with me. Three years in a row! These were almost normal and the best holidays in my memory. But then things changed. Most of you know what changed , but what else has changed is these boys have grown up. The oldest one is gone from May to November and the younger one has a full time Summer job and will go to school in the fall and the need to schlep massive amounts of groceries to the mountains every week no longer exists. All my years of complaining and dreading has finally come to an end and I can stop doing what I've been doing for ten years. Now , of course I'm sad about this. The other thing making absolutely sure this happens is the cabin has been sold. This breaks my heart. It was taken from me before I was ready and for that I'll never forgive him. I tried to buy it. I wanted a family cabin. It was not to be had. Probably better to cut loose and go forward. But damn it was cute! It was mine, mine, mine. Somehow it became his, his, his and I want vengeance! I then remember that the best vengeance is living well and I look at my three beautiful "children" who although they are grown, will always be mine and something that can never be tainted or corrupted, like the cabin was, by someone who is just simply stupid. I know I got the best end of this deal.

"Something awaits out yonder - maybe...."

What the heck shall I do next? I've "redone" my house and I'm having you all over the 19th of June after book club - that is if you want to - nobody is forced to come - to show you that I got the "Bob" out! I think I really did it. I still at times wonder who lives here...It doesn't quite feel completely like home yet but it will. I am really trying to get my LBC mojo back and I think I feel that coming on. Words out that I'm looking for a random fling with a random man so that's in the works. "Works" a form of the word "work". I think that is next up. I think I may need to actually work, as in lift a finger, get up on time, figure out what to wear.... oh my, it all sounds overwhelming - I must go get a glass of my daughters famous Sangria to steady the nerves that this whole idea is causing. I was hoping something delightful and creative would find me. Would that be too much to ask? A lot of people work the grapevine, that was my plan. So come on grapevine, grow this direction and give me some direction. I know I don't want to live out my days sitting around here with a cat on my lap, but a very nice cat she is, but work? GACK!!! It's enough to make me cough up a hairball. I know people who do this, work that is, someone the other day at book club mentioned she had worked someplace for 37 years! There is nothing in this world I've done for 37 years except maybe eat, sleep, and breath. How proud I would be to stay somewhere for a length of time. Now I did have an abrupt ending to something not work related that I thought would be a longer term thing, I'm not counting that although I had high hopes there. So this is the time to reinvent myself and make some changes and really get in touch with my inner employee. I think maybe if I live as frugally as possible maybe this work thing wouldn't even have to be an issue. Maybe it's time to call in all the favors - the loans to my kids. Except I told them long ago - I don't loan money. Once I give it to them I consider it gone and just pay it forward. It seems they have taken me seriously. You know, there isn't a big rush, I think I need the Summer to really get in touch with "who am I" and "knowing myself"....! Yes! That's it, what good is all this worry if I don't even know myself? I hope to meet me somewhere in the not too far away future.

"Surreality doesn't stop this Party Girl"

Oh happy day! Riveting reading from your greatest admirer. As you know I've had Randy painting and I've been purchasing and repurposing just about everything I have so everything around me feels new and different and hopefully reflects my personality. I really like what I have done. One little problem. It all feels so surreal. I feel like I'm living in a dream. I know I'll look back on 2010 and it will easily be classified as a dream/nightmare. But I will move on. What concerns me more today is "what is my personality and do I even have one anymore?" "Ye Gods!" That's a terrifying thought , I've so piggybacked myself onto someone else for so long I don't even know what my own personality is anymore. Right down to the music I'm listening to right now. I like it, I think. I've stifled myself that I can't even pick out a video without thinking, "is this what you-know-who would want to watch? When he isn't even here to watch it anyway! Julie! Get a life! One area that I always was in charge without interference was book club and especially book club parties! And we have one in May! 3rd Saturdays is having their 3rd anniversary and I hope to come up with something truly mind blowing and unforgettable. I better get busy, it takes months of prep and with all my own life makeover, I've let this take a back seat which is so wrong and I know it! So, if anyone has any ideas, please send them to me and they will be considered and as usual, only the best is good enough for us, the creme de la creme of the book club world of Longmont and the tricounty area. Don't forget - Party Time, May 15th, and a book discussion, yea, a book discussion too.

"In With The New"

With all three book clubs going great guns I continue to marvel at all the interest it still holds for everyone and I continue to be grateful. Those of you who are always thanking me must remember that it's you that make it happen, I just built it, you came - It's a "Field of Dreams" sort of thing. As I pull myself out of my doldrums a little more everyday it's with the help of my book club friends who saved my life. How could I not feel a huge debt of gratitude and renewed sense of energy to put back into the Most Excellent Longmont Book Club. Okay, enough seriousness..

I know you must be wondering "what has helped me feel so much better?" Well let me tell you, one thing, I got rid of THE PURPLE WALL . Gone! It's now a lovely shade of Granny Smith apple green, I know some of you might think that is strange but the interesting thing is I was lead to it. After enough samples to paint an entire room, something lead me to this shade and it has revived my soul. I don't know and I'm not going to question it. It has had some kind of effect on me -rearranged my chakras or something. Getting rid of the BOBpurple and all of the stuff that went with it and creating my own space is changing my entire outlook on life. We all need to make things feel like our own. Like a White Sox fan at a Cubbies game you don't want to feel like you're somewhere you don't belong, and I'm starting to feel like I belong here. Strange, after living here for almost ten years it's finally turning into my space. Now, I'm not done or anything - it's still a work in progress, but that's the fun of it. When I'm done I'm having a party and you're all invited! Like the book club, we change a little and we get new people that soon become old timers, and we make little changes in our "rules" but we stay the same people by and large and I am so lucky to have you all to get me through this wall painting business which is another name for divorce. I am keeping his self defense baseball bat handy for something else I have in mind..... maybe a windshield or something a little more fragile, like a kneecap, a person needs to vent their feelings or they get all balled up inside and that's just not healthy!

"Making Lemonade"

Holy Blog, Batman! This is so overdo for a new post I am ashamed of myself! With the thousands of readers I have just waiting for something new from me to read, I have been wanting for inspiration but sometimes you have to just shoot from the hip and hope the you are going to make it happen. Wow, what an order to fill! First of all I want to thank all members of the book clubs for bearing with me as I know I have been posting meetings later than usual. You may not even have noticed, but I have. Same with writing the book's synopsis's, late again. But all that is changing. I have been given a new lease on life and am going to change my lackadaisical ways. A new day is about to dawn on this LBC member. The divorce thing just took the wind right out of my sails. Now why should it? From finding out my husband had a girlfrind, to filing for divorce was just a little over six weeks. What is that in a lifetime, really? It will take me longer than that to clear out his side of the closet. And when I do boy howdy will I have a great closet! And now I've decided I deserve new furnishings. Yippee! If he gets to live it up in LoDo, than I'm going to live it up in Longmont! Hey, it could happen! He gets whatever I decide he can have, and I'm keeping the good stuff. Today my brut of a son is coming to help me cart off whatever I decide that is, to a storage unit so I can get on with my life and back to the business of reading. Yes, I'll admit it right here. I have been derelict in my duties besides maintaining websites. I don't think I've read a lick of anything - not even Glamour Magazine - since the bomb dropped on my life. Fortunately, I've already read the books on the lists, but that is changing. My fellow members in their bookish ways have chosen some books long sought after, but not yet read books from my to-do list and I need to get busy! My life shifts and darts and dodges around, but the LBC stays pretty steady and I'm grateful for that, giving me peace where sometimes there isn't any. I've got to remember that, and I've got to remember to keep the good stuff! ( I'm going to hide his black Italian silk shirt though!)

"The Anteater Challenge"

Everybody has played Pac-Man or at least heard of it I hope, if not, read no further because this post is of no interest - maybe of no interest anyway. Well, Anteater is much the same. An Anteater runs through a similar course eating ants trying not to bite off worms accidentally and if bitten by a spider - watch out! Loses a life! Now you get more than one life. Somewhere along the way the Anteater picks up energy as they do in these arcade and video games and gets to keep on going, like the energizer bunny. Lucky for the Anteater. Life is like that for me. I lose a life but somehow get to keep on going - even when I don't want to. Those who know me, know I'm taking a ride I didn't buy a ticket for. I can't stop this train and I want to get off! The Anteater in the Arcade game once begun, can't turn around and go back to the starting point and begin again either, much as the player would like to and either can I. So we, the anteater and I, muddle through the muck and eat the ants, and get bitten by spiders. In my case, the what I think are witty and clever emails don't get sent, the updates aren't updated, and my reading is way behind. Generally speaking, I fear I need to keep on going like the energizer bunny when I would rather let the batteries die. But, I suppose somewhere along the way, like the Anteater, I'll pick up energy from somewhere and get new life, like an arcade game, and keep moving on and finish the game, if not a winner, at least a finisher. Which at this point is good enough. Starting with "Push" for First Editions" due on the 6th of February then "The Help" which, thankfully, I've read already, that's picking up some energy I guess, and I move along inch by inch and get 'er done. My challenge, I asked the 3rd Saturday Book Club, was to give me a topic for the Blog. The topic from Laura was "Anteaters", not easy!! I've exposed my personal life more than usual, oh well... I am what I am and accept me or not, I guess today I'm an Anteater.

"Jon's registered at Target"

Anyone who knows me five minutes knows I like to shop. I also like to celebrate life's special and even a-little-better-than-everyday moments. We have had a lot of those in The Longmont Book Club I'm happy to report. First that comes to mind is babies! I think April was first with Jack who just turned one, and then Cynthia with Patrick who is almost one I think, and after Thanksgiving Annika had baby Luna and Denise just had the twins Naomi and Hollis and Tuesday Danine had Xander! Whew! That's a Jr. LBC right there! I usually like to lunch when I know it's a birthday (not everyone reveals that information - I should ask for it on sign-up day). I was thinking though that others need to be recognized, those that aren't childbearing, we are to be honored for "holding it together and bearing up" for at least nine months out of the year as well. I know, after three children of my own, that all that birthin' babies is an uncomfortable business to put it politely. Getting through each day for me is sometimes a huge obstacle course! The very fact that I'm vertical and have my make-up on is a God given miracle. So to those of us without a cooing infant, the regular guy and gal, Persona non grata, it's time we had a shower for us! When was the last time you received a set of wine glasses just because we know how much you tip it back? In the months to come in 2010 and beyond, lets see if we can spread the baby showers around, we'll call them "buddy showers". And hey! If you're pregnant or planning on becoming so in the near future could you please let me know so I can start baby browsing in bulk? I'm in the mood to go shopping - I can always get vertical and my make-up on for that! (And Congratulations on all those beautiful babies and may they all sleep through every night!)

"Having kids, it does get easier, different, but I think it's a little easier, maybe..."

My Cherubs. They always ask "Mom, how's book club?" When I know they don't care. I mean they would care if they knew how incredible we were, they are just trying to be nice to me. I think that is nice of them. I'll give the one in the middle a break. She is actually a member, one of the originals, but she works every Saturday. She does some of my graphic and photo type work if I need it. She took my oh so cute photo for the web page. She's a photographer. This is Christmas Day and it turned out rather nice, (did I mention I got a Kindle?) my kids were fun, and funny, and funny with each other and you realize that even when every other person you see is a women with kids under age five, you can still enjoy these old kids. Even more maybe. Although you never, ever stop worrying about them, when you have these old babies, they can help themselves and help ME, ask ME how I am, get ME another whatever it is I need, they still wrestle and fight like they were five years old and then they sing a three part harmony of "Build Me Up Buttercup". It's a party, a picnic, a zoo and I love it. Of course my life changes every ten minutes. If John cuts his hair any shorter or Andy has another party at the cabin or Lord help me either one of them joins the military or Lynsey takes on any more work, volunteer or paid, I am going to be so mad! Well, the military thing will kill me. I can't adopt them out or spank them or even quit speaking to them as much as I'd like to some times. We're all stuck with each other, that's the beauty of it. And, since you've asked, the book club is going great guns! Come here and I'll show you the web pages, all three, I know you're dying to see them......, then there's the blog..... hey there's your picture.....