First of all, I have a piece, which I think is very good indeed, sitting on the spindle, looking at me. It's about parenting during a bipolar episode, and the aftermath. Two different people have told me they're really impressed with it.

Which brings me to the question: what do I do with it?

My first impulse is to send it to BP Hope. One of my few arguments with the mag has always been that, while they have plenty of stuff about what it's like to parent a child with bipolar, they don't have anything about what it's like to be a parent with bipolar. Maybe they'll accept it; more importantly, maybe it will get the editors off dead center on the issue.

It scares me. Putting my work out there. There was once a piece in BP by a woman who is a writer and has bipolar. She said that she finds it just as upsetting to have her work praised as to have it criticized. She writes, she sends stuff to publishers, she does not discuss the writing with anyone, including never, ever reading anything a reader might send her. She can't deal with it.

I'm not that bad, but praise of my work can really throw me for a loop. So which would be worse, having the piece rejected, or having it accepted?

What I'd really love to see would be to have the piece accepted in two places -- BP and a general publication. But I don't even know where to start with that one. I think I'll aim for BP for now.

In case life isn't interesting enough, it looks as though my laptop has finally given up the ghost. It's more than five years old, so I can't complain, but we certainly can't replace it right now. That means that I'm tethered to either the PC or to P's laptop, which needs a new battery and has to use a cord anyway. I can't go out and write at the coffee shop. Not that I should be doing that anyway, right now. Out of work is out of work.

A week from today the kids and I will pack into the car with my mother and leave for the East Coast. I'm trying not to get all wound up about the trip. There's always the possibility of accidentally causing a problem with my mother, although she's been pretty good lately.

The other tender bit is finding time to spend with my in-laws. We have a pretty packed schedule, and there are only two days, one of them only a partial day, we can spend with them. The full day is a day when my mother-in-law usually works. She took time off two weeks ago to spend with me and F; I don't know if she can rearrange her schedule. Plus, it's short notice.

I'd as soon skip the in-laws. F is on shaky ground with her grandmother; if we'd spent another day with them, there might have been an explosion. She's not going to be eager for this. Plus, they're going to probably be full of questions about the car (not surprising, since it was in their complex) and I don't feel like talking about it.

And sometimes they're just tiring and frustrating to spend time with. They're wonderful people, but they are narrow, and they just think differently than I do. Dad is getting deaf, so Mom has to raise her voice to get his attention. That pisses her off, so she scolds him. Then she doesn't realize she's using the same tone of voice on everybody else.

I'm not proud of this reaction. But I spent a long weekend with them, and it was just plain difficult. I wish I had a couple of months to get my equilibrium back.

Ahhnnn, I'll be okay.

I want B to have a job, already. There are three different places that have taken him a long way towards hiring -- he's probably a top-three candidate at at least two of them. But we have to wait until they're finished with the hiring process before they tell him win or lose. I'm tired of waiting. I want to know *now*.

There are a few too many pressures on me. I can cope, but I'm hoping the East Coast trip comes off well. If it doesn't, I'm going to be a mess for three days afterward, which I hate.

Friends coming for dinner tonight. Time to check the pasta water. I need a dose of Damitol. Ha-ha, very funny.

...or so I think. I'm not sure what the next step is, so I guess I'll sit on my hands and wait.

In the meantime, my brain is churning. What next, what next, what next? it asks. What should I write next? What is my next big project? Perhaps a book using all the information and leads that I didn't follow up on for the historical article I've been writing for the past few years? I've got lots of information collected and most of the more exciting stuff did NOT make it into my final article.

I could do that.

then yesterday, talking with a friend about our earlier life experiences with drugs and people who did hard drugs, talking about how we came to the place(s) that we are today, I had another idea. It's been one that comes to me on and off every once in a while. A follow-up history book of the center that, in many ways, saved my life. While working on this present book, I often thought about how my life could have turned out very differently if I had not discovered a community within this falling-down neglected, threatened-with-eviction tenement building. I didn't fit in with either the smart kids who were going to go to med school or law school; I didn't fit in with the wastoids either. The most appealing lifestyle I could see was crime and even that I had a hard time wrapping my brain around.

then I discovered the world of radical politics, the Lower East Side, squatting. I discovered people who liked to read and think and weren't ashamed of it. But they also weren't complacent, they wanted to smash the system and THAT appealed to the side of me that loved the adrenaline rush. The part of me that wasn't a med-school-bound egghead.

True, the subject isn't going to be as exciting as the one I just finished, but at the same time, it *is* a piece of history that often doesn't make it into the books, even the books about the radical politics of the neighborhood. And, having already done a zine and loads of interviews about the place, I know I can do it. Expand it a bit more.

Maybe not into a book right away, but at the very least I can do a zine series. Start with a follow-up zine to my last one, track down some of the people who were instrumental in that first year and beyond...Ask them for their stories, their memories...what was it for them? What drew them to this shitty, falling-down building? What hopes and dreams did they feel they could freely (or maybe not so freely) express here?

And hopefully it would reconnect me to the space. Because right now, with the book having hung over my head and my focus on finishing it, my responsibilities there have been more like a millstone and I remember less and less just how important the place is. I have to remind myself that perhaps I too would be in jail--or maybe dead--and having hurt a lot of people along the way had it not been for that place.

I should dig out all those interviews that I used for that last zine, go over them, see if I can get my neurons firing about the subject. Then I can start mapping out a plan of action.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

The garden is some kind of crazy. I have loads of tomatoes now. They seem to be thriving amidst the 15 foot sunflowers. 15 feet! And zucchini and green beans and potatoes have all been producing. The next thing that will take over is the pumpkin. It is reaching out and spreading its tentacles. It is bizarre to watch plants grow. I'm convinced they have some kind of consciousness. I can't think about it too much or I won't be able to eat them. But they definitely are alive and much more active than I ever gave them credit for.

I set up a studio last week. Even if it is temporary, I decided that I needed to claim a space and use it- even if I only get 10 minutes a week to use it. I have actually been down there quite a bit. H loves to hang out with me while I do my stuff and he works on his own drawings too now quite diligently. I forgot how nice it is to hang out together in the studio. I'm not sure what I am working on, but it feels good to do something, anything.

I had pirate camp last week. I am still recovering. It was alot of fun- I had a bunch of little guys- 3-6 year olds- and we made pirate hats, built boat models, sang songs, searched for buried treasure, etc. I had one child that had some serious behavioral problems though. It unfortunately made my week really stressful. It is sad to see a three year old with such severe emotional distress. Bizarre, psychotic behavior. It was hard on the rest of us at the camp- but we made it through. And the kids all had the time of their lives. I think even the monster child had a blast.

I'm tempted to say I'm doing too much goofing around, but that's because I haven't picked up the ten-ton off-line journal in more than a week. I need to do it soon, because if I let it go too long, I get apprehensive, and the more apprehensive I get, the more I'm reluctant, and the more apprehensive I get. Spiraling.

What have I been doing? Walking, and a little hiking, which is significant because I need the exercise. Yesterday, B and P and I went hiking in one of the Conservancy areas. Originally we were planning a prairie hike, because we were dropping V and F off practically on top of the prairie area, but P had an appointment, so we couldn't do it.

Instead we went to the maple woods. We were planning to take the Nature Hike, as opposed to the Hiking/Skiing Path, because the Nature Hike is easier. It was supposed to be 1.2 miles, except that after a while, I was pretty sure we'd gone a lot further than a mile.

After a while, it was obvious that we had gotten off the Nature Hike, but we weren't sure where we were. We had to wander around and backtrack a bit, and in at least one case we realized we'd gone around in a big circle. We knew it wouldn't get too serious, because we were sticking to the marked path and the maple woods in any case aren't that big, surrounded on all four sides by private properties. But standing there at the conjunction of three paths, looking at an absolutely useless map with no idea of which way to go, was extremely disconcerting.

We did eventually find our way out, but we'd started marking the junctures with arrows so that we'd know when we were going in circles, and when we needed to try an alternate path.

I saw three kinds of trees that I know, maple, sumac, and oak. The maples are sugar maples, I think -- it's a sugar wood. I don't know about the oak. Sumac is impossible to miss, and if I had the guts, I'd go back for a hike in the fall, because sumac turns the most incredible red color. But I don't know that I care to risk getting lost in the woods again.

I want to go back in a month or two and check out the jack-in-the-pulpits, because they have funny blossoms. Once you see them, if you know anything at all about European pulpits, it's obvious where they got the name.

I saw a couple of different wildflowers that I know. Queen Anne's lace is easy; like the jack-in-the-pulpits, the reason for the name is obvious. There was some variety of red clover, although "red" is actually purple. We saw cornflowers in quantity by the roadsides, but none in the conservancy area.

There were either blackberries or black raspberries in the twilight zone between the prairie and the woods. Obviously I'm not going to pick them in a conservancy area, but just looking at them brought back memories. My brothers and I used to pick black raspberries in the mountains, back east, when we were kids.

Next time we hike, we're going to try one of the prairie conservancy areas. We'll have to do it relatively early in the morning, though; after an awful lot of unseasonably cool weather, the heat has finally arrived. I just about died yesterday; we were hiking in jeans, because the mosquitoes are fierce and sometimes the underbrush is a bit aggressive.

While we were under the trees, it was okay, except for right at the end. At the end, I'd been exercising enough for that odd temperature rise that hits me after even a little exercise to kick in, and I was out of water. But the trees were all right except for that. The prairie, though, the prairie was hot. And I don't think it was even in the nineties yesterday. I didn't quite consider lying down and dying, but I hate the heat, and it was bad.

B and P were very unhappy that, because we had the Civic, we had no bug spray. (It lives in the Accord.) They won't make that mistake twice. As for me, I wouldn't have used bug spray anyway. I'm not big on mosquitoes, but some bites and itching just don't stack up against the stink and the stickiness of bug spray.

The whole reason for having the Civic was to let P practice driving. Both of our cars are stick, so while he pretty much has the driving bit down, he's still struggling with shifting. The Civic is nearly ten years old, and will probably need a new clutch soon anyway; if P trashes the clutch, it isn't that big a deal. The Accord, on the other hand, is only a couple of years old, and shouldn't need a clutch (or much of anything else except routine) for a long time. So P practices in the Civic.

This was my first time out with him. Back seat, which I hate, because B is still officially in charge of driving instruction. (I don't have the patience or the nerves.) I'm not as much of a control freak as I claim to be, but I wasn't looking forward to it.

He still shifts incredibly roughly. "Jackrabbiting" is his middle name. But he didn't stall out, which, from what I've been hearing, is pretty good. He overrevved the engine a couple of times trying to shift around corners -- he hasn't yet learned that when you miss getting it into gear, you not only have to let the clutch out, but let the gas up. He'll get it, though.

The kids and I are planning to drive East for a couple of weeks in August to visit family. I can't drive the whole thing myself (actually, I probably could, but I'd rather not do it all in one day) so my mother is flying out and driving with us. Then she'll drive back and fly home. (She's paying for our gas, too, because if she didn't, we wouldn't be able to go.)

I know P is dying to help out with the driving, and highway driving wouldn't be too hard for him, but I talked with B yesterday and told him no, I don't think so. He was in favor, but the fact of the matter is, my mom isn't quite ready to concede that a fifteen-year-old is okay in a car, and I'm not quite ready to concede that he can handle the clutch well enough to take on the Accord. I'm suspending judgment until I see how well he's driving in two weeks, but somehow, I think he's going to be stuck in the back seat.

My private journal, where I have recently started letting it all hang out (in all of its ugly glory) progresses slowly. It's hard to look at all the things I'm feeling; no wonder I sometimes have trouble being happy. But if I can get it all on paper (or a BUS drive) I think I'll exorcise a lot of demons. I'll certainly leave an eye-opening legacy for whoever reads my journals after I'm dead. I think I'll eventually make a specific provision in my will, because there is a classic "three generations so that nobody will be hurt" item. Assuming anybody ever wants to read my journals.

I've been what B calls "flat" and I call "mildly depressed" for a couple of days. I'm not getting any exercise, and I haven't been "out of the house" in the sense of going somewhere just to be out, as opposed to going on an errand, in five days. And waiting to hear from four or five different companies, all of whom are very enthusiastic about B and none of whom are far enough along in their hiring process to tell us anything more than, "We'll keep in touch." B says he's flat, too. I would say that it's time to go have some fun times outside the house, but most of the things I can think of cost money. Maybe I'll look at the Chicago with Kids book.

I've been getting up and going to the farmer's markets most Tuesday and Saturday mornings. I like getting up early, because they're more likely to have interesting stuff. Later on, they start getting sold out. Most of the time, one of the kids comes along, which is nice.

This morning, we ran into T and her kids. F proceeded to spend the rest of the time "jabbering," as she calls it, to J2, while J1 stuck with her mother. I had a good time chatting with T, although it's true that it's harder to get the shopping done when I'm yakking! But I love to yak, and there aren't that many people I can yak with.

At the CL market I bought beets. I would have bought red beets, but they had Chiogga beets, which are funky. They have concentric circles of red and white when you slice them. I've heard of them, but since they're unusual and I don't grow them myself, I'd never seen them before. I think I might buy beets at the W market after this, though; I was having too much fun saying hello to the vendors and didn't notice that these beets came without greens. No, no, no. I'm all about the beet greens. The beets at W always have greens.

I also picked up eggs, which is currently making me feel mildly stupid. Apparently I wasn't paying attention during the last shopping trip, because we already have two dozen eggs in the fridge. Maybe I'll hard-boil some. I bought broccoli at the W market, and I could sprinkle chopped hard-boiled eggs on it when I prepare it.

That was the first thing I bought at W, closely followed by kohlrabi. I've seen kohlrabi, of course -- our snooty supermarket carries it, and naturally it's in all the seed catalogs -- but I've never tried it. I asked the vendor how to cook it last week, but didn't buy any because I already had all the vegetables I could use. I did say I'd be back again for some, and I was. Peel the bulb, slice it up, and eat it raw or stir-fry it; treat the greens like cabbage. Mmm. Sounds good. I can't wait to try it.

That was it, except for some baby pickling cukes for F. She's funny -- she refers to them as "cumbers!" (always with the exclamation point) even though she's nine and certainly knows perfectly well what they are. But they're her favorite vegetable, so I guess I can ignore her being affectionate and giving them a nickname. Or be charmed by it, my choice.

I'd love to try the natural beef sold at W. It's not "grass-fed" -- apparently the animals have to eat 70% grass to be "grass-fed" -- but it is all natural. We haven't had a lot of beef, except for ground beef, to eat since we bought a quarter a couple of years ago. It just isn't something we buy a lot of. Mmm. Now I'm thinking about roast beef. Decadent, aren't I?

There is also a stall at W that sells local wine. They had samples, but I was basing my morning on a piece of toast and a cup of coffee, which is not enough to cushion me in the carbs department. (I'd also think twice, given that I was driving and alcohol sometimes interacts in a peculiar fashion with my meds.) Plus, there's no piont in me sampling when I'm not going to be buying any time soon. Wine counts as a luxury, so between the fact that I'm not supposed to have it and I don't want to spend money on it, the wine can stay with the vendor. I did pick up a flyer, though, in case things change. I do drink a little wine occasionally -- I love red, as long as you keep the Merlot somewhere else -- and I'd like to stick with local food as much as possible. And for now I'm assuming that B will, in fact, get a job. I may panic later, but for now I'm assuming.

I wish I could combine locations for local food. In PA I could get local milk and local flour (all grains, as a matter of fact -- the oatmeal was very nice). Here, I can get local vegetables for a chunk of the year, local eggs year 'round, local meat year 'round. Local cheese. It's possible that N will start selling milk along with his eggs and meat. (Pork and goat, yum-yum.) If I was willing to bake bread often, and if B was willing to use homemade bread for toast and sandwiches (I can't blame him for complaining that it's more crumbly than store-bought), we could eat maybe 50% of our diet locally.

Anyway, the farmer's market is a lot of fun, it's nice to, as T says, "Put a face on the food," and the produce is very nice. Tomatoes should be coming in soon. Since I didn't grow any of my own this year, and my crops in past years have been sad, indeed, I really look forward to the farmer's market tomatoes. One of the farmers specializes in heirlooms, and I can get all different colors from her. I like to make multi-colored tomato salad for guests.

Tomorrow I have 14 babies coming my way. Sewing camp. It is very old-fashioned. We sew. And we play games and tell stories and it is very sweet. My good friend is sending his 5 year old tomorrow and is very worried whether or not she will enjoy herself. I told him that she will have the best time of her life. The kids who came last year did. It's hard to explain to someone how much simplicity can be enjoyable, but they really do flourish in the relaxed atmosphere with a little encouragement. Parents these days want rockets and rollercoasters and math and science and and and and... the kids are happy just to learn a whip stitch. I'm worried since it is my first time being completely responsible. Last year I was just the teacher. This year I'm the director and it stresses me out. I just have to remember that it is simple. We sew. We laugh. I can breathe.

Tomorrow is Friday, which should mean that I'm going skating with V, but doesn't. She's going to be at a friend's. We can't do it Saturday because of the martial arts test. Maybe we can manage it Sunday; if we can't, we have to wait until next weekend. I'll be disappointed if we have to wait; for the first time in a while I'm committed to moving around a bit, and I have a buddy.

V whisks around the rink at four million miles an hour while I just toddle along (okay, I can do more than just toddle, but I'm no speed demon), but she comes by every couple of laps to say hello, and skates a lap or two with me every once in a while. Last week, she taught me to spin. I'm barely able to do it even once in a while, but I kind of get how it works. I'll practice again next time we're on the ice.

I have the "scholarship" money from my parents to go back to skating classes, but they're at an awkward time of the evening during the summer, and I really want to get more comfortable and more in shape before going back. Skating once a week isn't going to do it, but it will get me somewhere between 30 minutes and an hour of exercise and the chance to practice some more.

Having V along makes a big difference. I'd started dreading skating lessons, what with being out of shape and feeling as though I'd hit a plateau, but it's fun to do anything with V, even drag my middle-aged ass around a skating rink.

B has finally said straight out that he'd like to see me join the rest of the family at the martial arts classes, and I've finally said straight out to him that as long as I can barely do three laps around the rink at a time, it isn't happening. I don't know if I could even get through warmups without stopping. And I don't want to go in there and do a half-assed job of it. I've done a half-assed job at nearly every sport I've ever tried, because I was out of shape at the beginning and got discouraged quickly. I'm not doing it again. I'm not sure how to get in shape again, but I know it won't work to crash into a hard program and try to force it.

I'm upset about money. You would think it would be about B's job, but we're still okay, and haven't touched savings yet. This is about P's bank account.

Somehow, he managed to overdraw by about 80 cents. We never thought to link his savings to his checking, so the bank hit him with a fee. Because they don't have to notify him when they charge a fee, he didn't know he needed to pay it, so his account was even more overdrawn and they hit him with another fee. And another. It's been only a couple of weeks (he caught it when his bank statement came in) and they've piled up $250 in bank charges on him.

Naturally, the first thing we did was close the account so that it doesn't get any worse, but there's still the matter of all those charges. We'd hoped the local bank would waive them, because P wasn't notified in time to avoid the charges, but the matter has gone up the chain to the main office all ready. Heaven only knows what they'll do. If P has to pay all those charges, it will wipe out his savings.

Yes, he should have kept closer track. And we should have warned him about always leaving some money he doesn't touch in the account so that this doesn't happen. But $250 in charges over 80 cents when there was no notification is ridiculous.

And I'm unreasonably upset about this. What do I seriously think the bank is going to do to him? This can be worked out. But I'm still upset.

I hate money matters, I really do. I'd just ignore them, except that ignoring them makes trouble. Someone has to pay the bills and all the rest of it. I'm not even the go-to guy on this one, though. B takes care of all the kids' money issues. And B is good at handling this sort of thing. So I need to relax already.

Right now, P is at class and B has V out at a meeting about a historical reenactment the local conservation district does every fall. P has already gone to a meeting; they're both enthralled with the idea. I honestly don't want them involved in more things. I'm tired of being a chauffer -- I always swore I wouldn't be the mama who was constantly in a car, so how did I get here? More to the point, is there any way out?

Only by being the bad guy, not just to the kids but to B. He'd fight me every step of the way if I called a halt to the kids' activities. Part of it is that he didn't have very many chances to do extra stuff as a kid, and he wants his kids to have all the chances he didn't. Part of it is that we homeschool, and he thinks the activities are important to that. And maybe they are. But I am not getting anything out of this for *me*. And I don't think I'm being selfish for finding that to be an issue. Somehow, somewhere, there has to be something for me in this gig, or else why am I doing it?

I just spent half an hour painstakingly trying to create a linked blog entry sharing the ways that outside supporters can help facilitate prisoner access to media.

I am slowly learning some html coding and the ins and outs of drupal 6.something (whatever the newest version is).

I have just learned that if you click a link that you *think* is the option to save without publishing, without, say, copying and pasting this information to another, more secure place first, that half hour of painstaking work will vanish into the ethernet.

There is no getting it back.

The best you can get is a blank screen waiting to be re-filled.

Blah.

Perhaps this is the universe's sign that says that I should be using this time, with only the hum of an air conditioner to break the silence and a printer, to type in the revisions I scrawled yesterday while waiting for food that had been forgotten.

I can always try tackling that post again after I get some food in me.

Sometimes paper is the only thing that will listen to you.

days are flying by and i'm not ready. tho most of the time it's been really chill and relaxing. peep is growing fast and i start work next weekend. only one nite a week, so it won't be too bad, i'll still have tons of time with peep. i haven't been doing much but hangin out with him and doing ALOT of reading and watching movies. i haven't really written much, an article for the red pill here and there, which always slows down in the summer. i've also been bellydancing alot more as well, which is tons of fun, this is an especially busy season for us as summers usually are.

it's weird that when i was first pregnant i thought i'd be all alone cuz there were, it seemed, very few mama/parents in my life. now i'm surrounded by them with kids of various ages. JP and my doula, L, are expecting in sept. and my sister in law has one and is also expecting in sept. we've been hanging out alot more since i had peep and we realize that we have pretty similar parenting styles. she's getting more into attachment parenting and home births, when before when i decided on a home birth she wasn't totally supportive. she has since done her research and apologized for not be so supportive, so i'm there for her in anyway i can be for support. we have a huge library at our house so she borrows books--ina may, immaculate deception, birth w/o violence and the like. she really enjoys them and i'm glad we're closer because of it. especially since our family isn't as supportive sometimes. tho my mom has definitely come around in the last year.

my step dad loves peep so much and allready has such a special relationship with him than his other grand children. i'm not sure why, maybe he just sees him more often than the others and peep is so sociable--he likes being around grandpa. my bio-father hasn't met peep yet, but he can't wait and we've been talking alot more lately, which i've really enjoyed.

M is helping financially and sees peep a couple of times a week. i wish he saw him more and he admits he needs to be there more, but i'm not sure what holds him back. he's great with him and is always willing to watch him if i'm busy or just if he wants to hang out. he has a bit of a drinking problem (which he acknowledges but hasn't changed) and i think that has hampered his hang out time due to more hang over time, but i'm not sure what to do or how to approach the subject,, or if it's even any of my business. his family is very supportive and come down about once a month to hang out, i'm glad their so involved.

C hasn't been coming around as much and he recently revealed to me that he is bummed with how things have changed since i had peep and now other responsibility. he's not sure where he stands in my life or peeps and feels that at least if he was the father, he would kno where he stood. i felt kinda hurt and he feels maybe they're selfish feelings. i haven't heard from him since. i saw him a couple of days after that and he just gave me a half assed wave, which kinda hit me in the face really cuz we've been hanging out for three years and he's so good with peep and now he doesn't know what's up. i told him his feelings were valid and that he can always talk to me about them. i told him i miss our more carefree times together as well, but things change. peep will ALWAYS be the #1 man in my life and if some people have a problem with that then we need to renegociate what we have. i also told him i love him. i have for a while but never told him cuz i wasn't sure how he'd react. i guess the whole thing with C kinda caught me off guard cuz i wasn't expecting it and he didn't seem to have a problem with the whole thing before. i guess i'll just leave it up to him at this point and see where he wants this to go if anywhere at all, maybe after all these years, he's just done.

lastly, i've been hangin out with a really cool guy lately--Q. he's been a friend for quite a while and we've hung out often, but only in the past couple of weeks has it turned romantic. he's a sensitive poetic type and i love spending time with him. he is so great with peep and peep enjoys hanging out with him. our relationship is in that kinda limbo of no labels yet and i'm not sure where it's going to lead. i'm kinda freaked out by a commitment to monogamy, which he knows (at least i had told him at one point, what he thinks about it i don't kno) we had been hanging out alot and he saw us romantically involved as the next logical step which i really didn't see till recently, cuz to me he was off limits (i have a personal rule about dating w/in a circle of friends--he's friends with J and JP, both of whom i had dated for some time--but since it's my rule i can break it--which i do very rarely, but i guess it did feel kinda natural and JP and L said they saw it coming). Q and i took peep to orvis last week--(the lithium, clothing optional hot springs near ouray) my most favorite place i think, it's so nice and relaxing and peep loved the water. we had such a good time. it was the first time he was in water besides the shower or bath.

my life is great to say the least i love every minute of it. of course there's ups and downs, life would be boring if it was a straight line, but i'm am doing much better than i was in oct, nov, dec. or jan. (all mostly unhappy times with M, everything else was fine) happy those depressing times are over, but not regretting that i went thru them. i love the summer most of all and have been enjoying all i can. hope all of you are doing great this summer--happy solstice to all!! : )