You can't have everything, where would you put it?

[ClingingToHope]

Three of the four of them are up. D7 and D11 really, really need baths. Their hair is really dry and stringy. We have a cookout today at 2 p.m. if it doesn't rain.

I'm not sure how much the girls will like it. It's at a coworkers house and he says other kids are coming. Still, when I was growing up these weren't my favorite times.

I have another cookout tomorrow that will be better because there will be two kids there that the girls are good friends with. That cookout is with the church singles group and I'm wondering if 31 and 35 will show. They don't have kids so I'm not sure.

D11 is being extremely whiny. In fact, a simple discussion about her youth theater stuff for the school year sent her in a tizzy and she's crying in the basement.

Now the fourth one is up and she headed downstairs to talk to D11.

I should go now. Here's what I wanted to get off my chest. Detachment. I'm still not there. I learned a couple of months ago I can access STBXW's FB page when D11 doesn't log off. D11 never logs off her FB page so I'd check it occasionally.

The last time I did was four or five weeks ago and I vowed I'd never check it again. I looked on STBXW's events page and noticed that this weekend she's going to some drunken biker camping fest at the county fairgrounds.

On her free weekends it appears as if she just hangs out with her best friend who lives in a tiny town with two bars filled with biker guys. The guy spotted at my house two weeks ago was a Harley rider.

I wouldn't be caught dead in a place like that -- and I thought STBXW wanted better for herself. But her best friend is very social and will keep STBXW from just sitting home and reading books AND she knows I won't know anyone there and nothing she does will get back to me.

So I realize how she ended up in this group and ... it still hurts.

Here's my evil/lack of detachment thought of the day. It poured all last night and is supposed to rain much of the day. I don't know if the event will be canceled -- I do think it'll take a lot of the fun out of it.

I know. That's bad. At some point I have to not care or think about stuff like that or actually wish her well.

Someone posted that's the true sign of detachment -- when you actually wish them well.

It's hard. In two weeks she has her trip to Sturgis for the big biker get-together. She knows I know about it. She was defensive when it came up -- it hasn't come back up again.

I checked out a book at the library, "The Me I Want To Be," written by John Ortberg, who is from my town.

It's a call to arms to become the best person you can. D11 rolls her eyes at all of the self help books.

This one is good. I don't want this life to be about me. I want it to be about the joy I can bring to the lives of others.

And that should include STBXW. I don't want to be at the girls' graduation or wedding and not be able to stand the site of her or hear the girls say how hard I made their lives because I couldn't get along with STBXW.