I don't have an answer to that. It is not simple here in the Kingdom. If OM were still here, she could stay with him but now that option is gone too.

As I sit here waiting for my friend to pick me up and transport me to bliss, I feel like a failure. My first attempt at crockery and I blew it. Everyone said it was easy. Not to me. I am inspired by the Neil Young song blow.

BTW, don't know if I will have web access. Hopefully so but if not, will talk to y'all late Tuesday.

My life is changing in so many ways
I dont know who to trust anymore
Theres a shadow running thru my days
Like a beggar going from door to door.

I was thinking that maybe Id get a maid
Find a place nearby for her to stay.
Just someone to keep my house clean,
Fix my meals and go away.

A maid. a man needs a maid.
A maid.

Its hard to make that change
When life and love turns strange.
And old.

To give a love, you gotta live a love.
To live a love, you gotta be part of
When will I see you again?

A while ago somewhere I dont know when
I was watching a movie with a friend.
I fell in love with the actress.
She was playing a part that I could understand.

A maid. a man needs a maid.
A maid.

When will I see you again?

Bye Todd,



...better get ready for 'withdrawal' symptoms on both sides!

ToddAC,
Roaring laughter at your crocktale! It sounds like maybe you need to hire a cook to prep a weeks worth of meals for you weekly that you can just heat up. I had a friend who did this and it worked out quite well for her. She picked the menu and the hired cook did the grocery shopping and cooking. This may be the easiest way to get what you want when you want it. Did you like the lyrics I sent you last night?

Pio,
I think you love getting dirty, love the loud noise and constant chaos of the DDs...you would be lost and depressed if you were not surrounded by the demands of the girls and life in general. If/when G comes back you will need to decide if you are going to share the responsibilities and work as a team to create a family environment. Sounds like before you each did your own thing and then had some family time...is that about right? That would be my ideal...having us all cook together and do the yardwork and home improvement stuff together instead of working independently. H and I do our best when working together on big projects.

Nams,
I was just bust'n your chops about the Bushwhack'n...everyone has their own opinions and that is what makes life so interesting and adventurous...how boring if we all agreed...think that is a huge marital issue with folks including self...hard to agree to disagree and respect each others opinions and feelings if they are polar opposites...even harder if they used to be similar to yours and then overtime and with exposure to OPs they evolve to a distant place...

Kiwi,
I just realized that I bet you cringe reading some of my posts...I 'm not big on editing or spell checking etc so feel free to jump in and let me have it...

Hello to BK, Believer...Myrta hello we haven't met before
If I forgot anyone don't be offended I haven't had my quota of coffee yet

UPdate: H spent night at friends as we had earlier agreed on...called this am and invited me to go out...took me to breakfast and to a secret garden...no R talk, kid talk, fighting etc. It was very nice...felt that old electricity back...it only made me long for things to be better and made me kinda sad...I didn't show it but I was. I am trying to be optimistic but wonder if I am trying to fool myself just to try and be happy again or if I"m just having an emotional insecurity episode. Of course the garden is somewhere he has never been with me but was "told about" be a female friend. I guess I just want to go somewhere that will be a first for both of us...is that asking too much? Should I just be happy that he is making some type of effort? I have no idea how any of this is going to turn out...I perhaps should just look at it as an adventure and try to have as much fun as I can since I don't know how long it will last.

Now Pio,




...don't go telling this to G. she may take you up on it!

Well due to a strange quirk of fate, WW has not gotten that email. So I asked SIL's OM to replace it with this email (since WW is expecting an email)

I asked him to give her this instead:

We agreed that you would go to Mexico and take enough time to think about what it is you want with your future. That you would take enough time to decide whether you wanted marriage or divorce. You have only been there a couple of weeks and I can't see how that is anywhere near long enough to give this any thought. I really don't want you to come back to Saudi until you can give me a decision that is either marriage or divorce. There is no way I want to go back to the way we were living. The affair has not been the problem for a long time. It is the lies and dishonesty that is the problem. I won't go back to that.

The girls are fine right now and I am very happy not dealing with the disnonesty. I would ask you the favor of not promising Valeria that you are going to come back at a certain time until we can discuss it and see what this all means. My guess is that over the past couple of weeks you have had little more than a vacation with your family. I doubt you have put much thought into the marriage. The whole purpose of you going to Mexico was so that we would not return to Saudi to the same thing we had left. Neither one of us wants the life we were living ever again. Please spend more time there and decide what it is you really want before coming back.

Hi 2much,

My friend is stuck in traffic and lost also. He has no sense of direction. Anyway, do you know where I went wrong with the Crockery?

The recipe I used reminds me to a true incident years ago. WW decided that she had the perfect recipe and wanted to send it off in response to one of those ads where, if they approve your recipe, they publish it in a book and you can make millions. I told her it was a scam. She told me I didn't know that. So, I made a deal with her. I will write out the worst sounding recipe that is so bad, so crazy that nobody in their right mind would use it. If they accept it, will you then acknowlege it is a scam? She said yes.

I cannot remember the entire recipe, but the following is a close approximatiion.

1,200 lbs. of beef steak
23 gallons of mayo
coke bottle
dirt
charcoal
flour
milk
ice cream
gizzards
sausage
100 lbs of Hershey's milk chocolate.

Take the Coke bottle and beat the beef for 3 years. Take what is left and put in a paper bag. add the remaining ingredients. Tape the bag shut and bury in your backyard for ten years. Remove and bake in a 12,000 degree oven for 85 years. Do NOT overcook! Serve on roller skates.

WW just giggled because she knew I had gone too far. Nobody in their right mind would publish that recipe. Well, two weeks later, WW got the wonderful letter complimenting her recipe and that, surprise, her recipe had been selected to be published in the next book. And all she had to do to get the recipe published was to rush a check for $39.95 to the below address.

Thus ended her Betty Crocker ambition.

True story.

Lyrics? Haven't seen any lyrics. Where did you send them?

Anyway, gotta go. I will go thru MB withdrawal for sure.

Pio,
Re email:

I would remove everything after and...


I think it's a DJ for you to make a judgement of what she is thinking...

I would put something in there to give her a spark of hope that if she decides to come back and remain married that you will be supportive of that...otherwise she may be thinking that it is not worth her time and effort to be away from the girls that long only for you to toss her to the curb. I only know that from personal experience <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/shocked.gif" alt="" />

You may want to include how much fun and challenging it has been being able to spend quality time with the girls but also let her know that she is missed at least by them...if you miss anything about G you might want to toss that in...and don't say something like I miss your xxx but sure don't miss the lies.

JMHO, which considering my sitch may not be worth much to you. From one stormtrooper to another...hang in there you were given a second chance to right a big LB/DJ with this one

2much,

I really think I have been way too supportive of gemela this past year. She really needs to wake up and understand the consequences of her actions. I think me continually throwing her lifelines has seriously hindered our chance at recovery. I think if you have a child that is a drug addict and you tell that child to kick the habit but, hey, if you don't kick it, you can always come back home and I will take care of you, well, that's not much of an incentive. Bottom line is that gemela has never been given any "else" in the "or ELSE".

If my actions are responsible for ending my mariage, then that is my fate. I just want to end this one way or the other. Limboland is not a great place to live.

Ok, if that is how you feel...I know how sick of limbo I am and you have gone double my time. I just think that any extra negatives just make matters worse. If you really feel as you say then just give minimal responses without emotion...you can see your emotion in your posts...she will read between the lines and know that she is still pushing your buttons. If you turn to minimum factual indiferrence...that is a message unto itself.

I can say this but I am not able to do it yet...I went a good stretch of indifference before the accident but got all messed up emotionally which crushed my walls and turned me into an emotional barometer...constant change with no consistency...as you know that has been my biggest challenge as of late.

How are the DDs today? What will you do without ToddAC?

Well first of all I don't fully understand where ToddAC went or how long he will be away. When he starts posting song lyrics, I don't read it all. Usually he will send me an email but our exchange server never seems to update on the weekends and I don't like to go into the office on weekends because the security is huge. Basically the company is suspicious of anyone who would want to work on a weekend so they just assume the worst.

To answer your question and at the risk of offending, ToddAC has been my one constant in all this mess. If he goes away for a while, yes that creates a problem for me but I know me and my values and regardless of whatever happens in my life, I go on. I try to do the best I can on any given day. I fail at that a lot but I also learn in the process. Right now I have two DDs who depend on me so I don't have much choice.

DD2 has been telling me all week that she wanted to go back to Disneyworld because there was a man there who made her a strawberry milkshake. Yesterday I got ice cream but did not make her a milkshake because she had a stomach ache. Well last night at some point the plumbing cleared. I still haven't surveyed all the damage but when she changes her clothes on her own, it must be bad. So DD2 is watching Nickelodeon, eating seedless USA grapes and drinking a strawberry milkshake. DD1 hasn't yet seen the light of day.

I tried to get DD1 to finish her card to mommy last night. She asked what to put on it. I suggested "I love you and I miss you". She replied that she didn't really miss mommy all that much. That is both good and bad but I'll take the good part. I think it is good that DD1 is learning that she can get along okay even if she is not glued to mommy's hip. I really don't have a lot to do today. I have a few things to put up, a little more work on the garage, some minor modifications to make on the golf cart. Maybe we'll go to the pool today.

Well my day has suddenly become busier than I expected and the pool may be out. Since I had some time this morning, I decided to exfoliate my feet. Exfoliation sounds complex but when you look at it on a fundamental level, all you are doing is abrading a soft surface with a harder surface. The important factors are the hardness of the abrading surface and the energy applied. I was using a pumice stone I had bought and, while it was working, it was a bit slow.

So I got out my dremel tool with a sanding disk and began to work. This had two problems: 1) it is difficult to twist my feet to all the required angles and 2) the dremel has high speed and low surface area so was both painful and inefficient. So I put a 60 grit sanding drum on the drill press and set up the ladder so I could sit at the required height to get my feet around the drum. Well I got it all going and it was beginning to work well. Maybe three Hp was too much. Anyway, I'll be back after I get out of the emergency room.

The thing I struggle with though is that it should have worked. Where was my calculation error?

I'm still getting over the revolting mental picture of you exfoliating your feet (with a pumice stone OR with a sander) but I am keeping the gag reflex at bay to tell you that your miscalculation was the material of which your feet are made.

I think I had the drill press on the wrong RPM.

Unfortunately I exfoliated more than my feet. I exfoliated an elbow, the palm of one hand, my forehead and the posterior region on one side. The good news is that I won't have to worry about exfoliating my feet for a very long time. The doctor says I need to keep the skin grafts covered for a few months.

Where did ToddAC go anyway?

Oh, forgot to mention, the DDs got into a big fight a few minutes ago. They have been sitting together in a chair since. They are just now starting to get along again. What a great idea that was. Thanks all.

Oh dear. TT told us a funny story by email (us being a little group of Idiots who email each other).

She said she walked into world war 3 going on between her girls because someone had blown into someone else's ear. TT has a 15 yo DD and 11? yo twin DDs. Count yourself lucky.

If you get to talk about exfoliating your feet does that mean we can all talk about shaving/waxing our legs.

BTW I think you must have me on ignore.

I am not ignoring anyone. I am just trying to make breakfast for the DDs and get them to eat. Unfortunately I made one huge miscalculation - I asked them what they wanted. I'll never make that mistake again. Well there goes the microwave defrost cycle over. Got to get cooking.

LOL, Pio, I'm SO glad I have wonderful adult children. They do become wonderful adults you know.

I do remember all this. My children only let us down once in public. DS was a very difficult child (VERY difficult) but he always behaved well outside the house.

We were on holiday at a hotel and their meal came before ours. I guess the hotel thought that was the best way to do it. After they'd eaten, they left our table and ran around the dining room. They even went under other people's tables. It was the ONLY time they ever behaved like that (in public) and I still don't know why they did it.

We asked the hotel staff if we could take our meals back to our room. I still remember carrying our plates and knives and forks through the dining room, into the lift (sorry, elevator) and back to our room.

Another example of wonderful adults.

It's Friday evening here. I came home to a note on the kitchen bench from DS and his g/f. It said "We've cooked for everyone tonight. It's in the fridge."

I wasn't sure what we were going to eat tonight. Friday night is traditionally "every man for himself".

I was VERY impressed. It will be a vegan meal but that's ok. He and g/f cook VERY good vegan meals. I had a peek and it looks like it's going to be vegan lasagne.