Hi KAW!!!

SOOOOO glad to have you post here….I must forewarn everyone that this post may be a tad scattered as I had composed a LENGTHY response to you (oh about a half hour’s worth) but our computer jammed up when I tried to post it.

More about that later.

Now let’s see how much of your post I remember…I’m composing this in Word, just in case.

Yes, I agree that I’m probably where I should be! Alas I can’t remember where you hail from right now!

And as for the Cheerleading…only for those who deserve it, pal.

And of course you had some pointed and intriguing questions to pose…..

About the “ household resentments ”…CJ’s been doing his on-line MA for about 4 weeks now. It was supposed to be a 10 hour a week commitment. Try quadrupling that or more! Now he IS working hard and acing this thing….4 more assignments in, 100% each!

But since he started, his contributions to the household have dropped significantly …cooking, cleaning, laundry…he does mow the lawn, garbage, waters the gardens, does some grocery shopping.

The house is pretty much a mess. Not just cluttered, but kinda dirty. I guess it irks me that we had a discussion months ago in which I said that it would help my stress levels and please me SO much if the house were given a once over by the end of the week. He did this….twice, I think.

He had agreed to pick some items up yesterday when I got home from work, but instead I offered to do it, hit Walmart, two grocery stores and the liquor store. I think part of that was about control . I wanted to stock up on some things…plan for more than today. When CJ shops it’s usually the few needed items.

It was fine, had a quick but yummy dinner (Kraft dinner velveeta shells and cheese…with my own Scooby-do pasta….broccoli…side of tuna salad with fresh chives…it’s not always gourmet!)…had fun out, as posted above.

Last night CJ said (voluntarily) that he was going to vacuum today while I was teaching. Nope.

After work, I tackled my final exam for a few hours, then picked beans and herbs from the yard. Making an old family recipe “Bean Stew” for dinner. (Home made tomato beef sauce…new potatoes, carrots, fresh herbs….fresh rye bread for dipping).

At first, I felt the old rumble of resentment start…here I am at the end of my work week (well not exactly, have to finish that exam tomorrow), and he’s on his lap top ...weeelll, working on the proposal for his thesis project, met with a potential collaborator today...

It's not like he was downloading songs or something.


BUT my feeling in THAT moment was: "He hasn't put enough hours into that this week? He can’t ask if I’d like help with the dinner prep (he does this sometimes)?

But then I just decided to let it go. To tune into the moment, each moment of picking, (mosqiuitoes! ) chopping, sautéing, stirring, simmering. Music would have been nice, but I didn’t want to ruin his concentration.

So I had the stew simmering nicely, came in to post and BAM! Post erased.

You see CJ has had one hell of a time getting his remote modem to work correctly. Has had to talk to endless help-line staff…he is very patient. Earlier today, I had an e-mail fail to go as our computer defaulted to an old dial-up connection we used before the cable. I asked him about it, cut and pasted, saved THAT message…asked if it might happen here on the BB…he said yeah, he’d been having similar problems on his lap top.

But when it defaulted again while posting on the bb, the whole works locked up…CJ rebooted it and the message was gone!!!

All it took to fix was to delete the dial-up as the back-up system. About 10 keystrokes, perhaps?

NOW…my pre-Dbing approach would have been to freak out, yell, huff, puff, moan, groan, get angry right away, blame CJ, probably with biting sarcasm…”Like you couldn’t have fixed it the first time?

Instead, I was upset, but said I needed a glass of wine (first one, come on!) and a break before I tried to resurrect this post. CJ did sense anger, I did mention my frustration over losing the post, and that the same cues being present earlier today when the glitch first happened. He explained that it just didn’t occur to him then, how to fix the problem. Okay, fair enough. Tensions de-escalates….stew continues to simmer.

KAW, I had much to say in response to your challenging questions…but perhaps I’ll try to post this goliath of a message first….may not get back here ‘til later…stew’s almost done!

Shiny