Happy Valentine's Day to ME.......

I have wanted a new bedroom suit for, well, pretty much forever.......

I have been using pieces from random suits or hand-built pieces for the last 12 years - before that, we used George's childhood suit (very mannish & PERFECT for Hunter, where it is now.....)....... So since 1993, when I got married the first time, I have not had what I want.....

Soooooooooooo........

I totally blew the budget I had set for myself, but I bought this:

I love, love, love, love, love it.......

I also ordered a new mattress - an adjustable set with heat & massage in it. I am hoping that then I will be able to sleep in the bed instead of on the couch or sitting straight up in a hardback chair like I do so often bc of back pain.

And finally, I decided to change my bedding... I have had a black & white bedroom as long as I can remember - well, maybe not *that* long, but at least for 3-4 years.....
I bought this:

I am so excited to get it all put together.......

Kaileigh is also getting a new bed to go with all her white furniture - she is also getting my wardrobe & desk..... :) She has new bedding from last spring, so she will continue to use it & we will add some pretty curtains to the canopy bed

Poor Hunter only got new bedding.....since he has a 50+ year old bedroom suit that his grandparents had when they first got married .....

David gave me a new purse and bought me tulips (my favorite flower), but we really don't "do" Valentine's Day - especially this year when I am still kind of bitter & angry with him..... We did spend the evening talking and walking after we grabbed a quick bite to eat.

PS - BBQ joints are completely dead on Valentine's Day if you ever need a place to grab a quick bite on the busiest restaurant day of the year.....

Just Checking In

Things are going ok - I guess that is the best and the worst that I can say at this point.

We have finally gotten rid of the super-stalker I think. We have not heard from her in over a week - via phone or email - although I did get 3 calls from a restricted number between 2 & 3 am last weekend. She has also still not updated her blog where I responded to her posts.....I know that they are having some issues at their church - part of me hopes it is in relation to this situation and part of me hopes it is not..... Really, I am pretty vindictive, I guess & maybe I am turning into a super-stalker myself..... just making sure she stays far, far, far away from us.

David has been very helpful around the house as he has been here almost every day. I hate to get used to his help & then him disappear, of course.

There is a lot more I could say, but it is all the same. I am not ready to trust him at all, but I am allowing him to try to prove himself to me.

Baby steps....... baby steps.......

Proceed With Caution

I have been too open about my struggles with David. I have been too honest about our issues.

Really.

I have not told very many people that I am even considering it. The ones I have told have not been very enthusiastic. There was one "Oh NO you don't - NOT AGAIN" and a few other choice words from another person.....

But you know, that is the way it is sometimes.

So who do I listen to..... whose opinion really matters?

I don't know what God's will is in this situation. I have prayed and prayed for the last 11 years about this man.... specific to marriage. (I have prayed for him for 25 years, if truth be told). I seem to get conflicting answers. This time, I am getting stony silence from God, it seems.

I am choosing to CAUTIOUSLY .......and I cannot stress that word enough...... move forward with allowing David to heal the hurts he has heaped on me (say that 5 times fast).....

He has been very patient and very understanding so far. So far also being a key phrase since it has been a very, very short time......

He has taken it upon himself to read the book my homegroup is currently reading. We are also working through a marriage study that we started several years ago, but never finished - well, I finished reading it - he gave up after the 2nd chapter way back when..... He says he is still undecided about the whole "agnostic thing" which drives me nuts, but he has had so many years of playing at church, I would rather him be honest now than to pretend to be something he is not.

He does not realize that I know it, but he is also reading through The Love Dare and working on the dares. Not sure whether to be flattered that he wants to or insulted that he needs to ..... but I am glad he is making the effort.



We are still getting phone calls from his *super* stalker...... so David offered to change his phone number and he has....... He also bought us both new phones and is paying the bill for all 3 (mine, his & Hunter's).

I am so tempted to contact her bishop, since she & her husband were more concerned with losing their jobs if their church should find out than with the actual issues..... She is a MINISTER for crying out loud - should the sin not be her concern??????? Or her husband's for that matter?????? He is also a minister.

It reminds me that people put on whatever facade they want you to see..... and reminds me once again to proceed with caution......

Anger - Probably Misplaced, but Anger Nonetheless....

OK - so I am going to be very, very candid here - more honest & more candid than I have ever been.....

When David & I were first married, I found a chat on our computer that was very sexual in nature - with a woman he said he met online in a *Christian chatroom*..... So, I asked him to stop communicating with her. He said he did. I saw the email he sent her to cut it off.

But about 3 years later, (when Kaileigh was an infant) I found out that he was erasing the history on our shared computer every time he used it - I installed a keylogger on the computer and presented him with the evidence of more very sexual chats with this same woman. But in those chats, she had referenced contacting him just a few weeks before, so.... I was fairly certain that they had not been in contact the entire time.

This woman lived in another state. She was a minister of a church along with her husband.

I never saw any more evidence of conversations with her, but pretty soon afterwards, David bought us each laptops..... and I found out about a year later, he had installed a shredder program on his to shred all of his history.

By that point, though, I was fully immersed in the kids and David's mental illness was coming to the surface, so him having a cyber-sex relationship with some tramp was the last concern I had. I really could not have cared less at that point. I just wanted him to be healthy and my kids to be safe and protected from their birth families.

We divorced in 2008. We have tried to reconcile an untold number of times in the last 2 years. I just absolutely do not believe in divorce. I just don't. Yes, I know it exists and I know that I have been divorced before, but I just do not believe that it is in God's plan......

We were going through a ministry (which is an awesome ministry, by the way) in the summer/fall and things were actually going pretty well. He took responsibility for his junk, I took responsibility for my junk. We were working together for once :)
Then....

He lost his job....

He went into a deep depression and I went into panic mode. Typical behavior for us in a crisis. I wanted to fix it. He wanted to pretend it had not happened. I gave him job leads and edited his resume. He yelled and screamed and withdrew. So he had to stop being around me & the kids. I would not let him anymore.

Then I found out he had stolen a bottle of a controlled substance (Lortab) from me and *I* lost it. I flipped out. I told him what a low-life I really thought he was. I said every single thing that I had wanted to say since he had abandoned his family. I used some very colorful language - a *lot* of the "f" word if you want to know the truth.....

I refused to talk to him. I refused to see him. I was done. I called his mother & she said he had told her all about it and how I had overreacted. So I knew I had no backup from her. I contacted my attorney who told me I could not use it in family court unless I pressed criminal charges. She urged me to press criminal charges. I probably should have.

Less than 3 weeks later, he told me that he had been in contact with this old "friend" and that it was getting pretty serious - he wanted to know if I would let him take Kaileigh with him when he moved out of state to be with her.

I flipped out. AGAIN. I did not scream or cuss or cry this time - I just went into panic mode. I called my attorney - she laughed and reminded me that I had nothing to worry about. There was no way a judge would allow her to move out of state with her dad. Whew.....

Then he changed his mind..... he wanted to reconcile......

I was not enthused about that at all. I was still angry and raw about all that I had recently learned.

He started trying to spend more time around, but was still super-protective of his cell phone. So that made me want to get my hands on that phone..... even more than I already did.....

He promised that he was done with her - no contact - and he told me he would give me all his passwords (email, verizon to check phone usage, skype, etc) if I would just give him a chance. Sooooooo, I thought about it...... and I told him I would think about it.

Then a couple of days later, I had an opportunity to get my hands on that cell phone...... When I picked it up, I really hesitated bc I knew that what was on it had the potential to hurt me more than him. And it did.

This time, the messages were not sexual at all - they were flirty, they were sweet, they were all romance & love..... He wrote "I love you more than the stars & the moon" which is something he had always said to me. So I was done.

I went to where he was, handed him his phone and told him to go and not ever come back. I was calm. He begged me not to kick him out, but I did. I was resolute about it.

He called and begged. He came to the door and just talked to me through the door since I would not open it for him. I finally let him in to keep the neighbors from calling the cops.

He gave me all of his passwords. He sent her a text and an e-mail telling her he was done before he knew whether or not I would even consider it. He blocked her from IM, Skype & Facebook. He actually deleted every female friend he had on FB & in his contacts in his phone.

I told him I wanted no part of it. And I did not.

But I used those passwords - LOL

And I realized something.....

She was continuing to contact him. And he was not responding. And he told me about every single contact and asked me to help him make it stop.

So I did. I contacted her & told her to stop as well.

She continued. Even going so far as to create new identities on FB, Yahoo, Skype & to call from numbers that we had not blocked.....

Every time she contacted him, he would tell me, but ignore her and would ask me to make it stop.....

I realized this was new. He would never have told me anything before. He would never have asked for help before.

Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo...................

What does this have to do with anger, you may ask.....

Well, this past weekend, I was looking for contact information for her husband (who, by the way she is still married to, living with and ministering with - as in they are pastors of a church together) and I ran across her blog......

Her blog detailing how in love with God she is. How awesome it is to serve God. How fabulous her marriage is.

PUKE.....

I mean, really?????

You have spent the last 2 months - well, 15 years (on & off) and 2 months having a cyber sex relationship with the same man - through 2 of his marriages - and you will not let him go, but you are blogging about how adultery is sin and how you are so above that....... and never would you consider it.......

It sure sounded like you did more than consider it.......

And she will NOT stop contacting David.....

But the funniest thing is that I contacted her husband...... who said "If anyone finds out, we will lose our church." Really, really - THAT is your concern???????

So a few hours later, he sent me a carefully worded email to let me know that she had come clean about everything and that David was a predator, Christa is perfectly innocent in all of this - she was vulnerable and things got out of hand & since she knew David was unstable, she did not want to hurt his feelings.......

Umm, OK. First of all - David is too lazy to be predatory. Secondly, I READ the messages......... AND all of the contacts she has made since he has asked, told and ordered her to leave him alone.......

But at least he said he would block David's phone numbers from all phones she has access to. And he installed key loggers on all computers she has access to. So maybe, just maybe we can get some peace to decide if we even want to work on this.....

New Year - New Beginnings

I never make New Year's Resolutions. Not really. I always have a list of things to work on, but none are usually tied to the New Year.

My current list is kind of short..... not because I have completed anything on my previous lists, but because I realized a lot of that stuff was not really important.....

Currently, I am working on forgiveness - forgiving other people for being human, for making mistakes, for hurting me.
I am working on being a better mommy - helping my kids become human, letting them make their own mistakes, not saying "I told you so" nearly so often, guiding them instead of telling them what to do.

I realized as I was working through my list that a lot of this revolved around my expectations of others & the way I want everyone to be perfect all the time - including myself. If I cannot be perfect, why bother? That has always been my attitude.

If I cannot be a perfect size 2, why bother watching what I eat? I'll never have the "perfect" body - so I might as well be fat.
If I cannot do something perfectly, why bother trying?

If someone else is not perfect, I write them off..... I gripe, I nag, I push, I really don't mean to do this - I don't realize I do it.....

So in 2011, I give myself permission to make mistakes, I give others permission to make mistakes.

It's a Bouncing Baby GIRL this time..............

7 years ago today, I don't know what I was doing. But somewhere across town here in a hospital, a baby was being born.

These pictures are from the 2nd & 3rd days we ever met her, and then one from just 2 short months later on her first trip to the beach.



Today, that "baby" woke me at 3 am to ask me if she was 7 years old yet. And then she asked me where her presents were.

She is my daughter in ways that I never imagined when we talked about adoption. She is such a little mini-me in so many ways.

She is the most precious gift God has ever given me. She has taught me so much about life, about death and about living for the moment. We have always known she may not live to be an adult and often we have been told she may not live another day or another hour. God performs miracles every day and now when we see those same specialists, they shake their heads and admit that she actually might *gasp* live.......... It is awesome.

10 Years Ago Today

On December 21, 2000, I woke up knowing that my marriage was over and that we were finally going to actually file for divorce.

I woke George and told him.

He was not happy about it and tried to talk me out of it, but I was 28 years old and stubborn. I had had enough.

We decided to wait until after the holidays to tell anyone. He later said that that was because he was sure it was just the stress of the holidays, just another argument - we had been doing this song and dance for a long time - and that I would change my mind.

I didn't.


I don't talk much about my marriage to George. Probably because I am ashamed of the way I treated him. I was not abusive or angry or anything like that - just I had no respect for him and he knew that.

I do now. It has to be hard to raise your only child from the outside. Part of that has been his decision - he chose to disconnect from Hunter many years ago. He is trying harder now to be more involved and to be a good father.


I sometimes regret the decision to divorce George honestly. But mostly because I wish I could have given Hunter a different childhood.

Then I remember that I would not be Kaileigh's mommy if I had not divorced George. He would not agree to have any more children at all - much less adopt a child.

And that is what reminds me that it was the right decision.