Friday, October 12, 2007

Autumn, at long last

Right now we are all quite well at home. David proposed this weekend, and we had a wonderful dinner at Chateau Morisette, which has become Our Romantic Restaurant. The boys are wonderful, of course, and still freaky smart. Graeme is proving to be a crafty one, keeping his smarts to himself unless forced to reveal them. He enjoys working around the house more than ANYthing, and gets tickled when we have to do repairs (DOH). Last night he helped David put up a piece of drywall and is all sorts of excited that this afternoon they'll get to put on a second coat of joint compound. When there isn't anything specifically to work on, he has been digging a hole in the space just off the back deck; when I was on the tractor a few weeks ago pulling the chopped-down trees back toward the fire ring David and I made, the wheel caught Graeme's Hole To China and nearly tipped the darn tractor over. So we are coming up with other projects for his energy.

Ethan is getting a handle on his emotional-social issues. Last year's suspension carousel seems to have been interrupted, for which I am eternally grateful. These days we get positive reports from the school, even though there have been a few less-than-excellent comments of late. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

The recent resurrection of mid-week visitation by TheEx has resulteless-than-favorable reports, which is disheartening but not wholly unexpected. I've talked with Ethan's teacher and we're thinking of ways to stay on track. Graeme continues to have nightmares for the first few days after coming back from weekend visitation. Mostly I wish TheEx would just dry up and move to Alaska an dleave us alone.

I interviewed with VTLS on Wednesday. It's a position in their Quality department for the VITAL software, which is really pretty cool. The interview went well, and I should know the results in a week. Wish me luck. [Go figure that I finally get a call for an interview just as I throw up my hands and decide to give up on the whole job search thing. It's a funny world we live in.]

I started studio time again. It's really more art therapy at this point than me actually making anything worth firing, but what the heck. I was looking forward to it ever so much, and then my first session i spent the entire evening hearing about my first ex, ThePoser, all evening long from some woman who recognized me from over fifteen years ago. So much for a relaxing evening by myself. More than ever I would like to get a kiln and set up a studio at home. I'm getting even more reclusive than ever these days.

We have a few who kep trying to bed down in the front field and feel Quite At Home what with no horses to get in their way. There is also one that is so dumb he lost all but one of his antlers -- we call him Spike and he stood at the end of the driveway last week while i drove the boys in. He just stood there, looking at us, close enough that Graeme could have reached out the window and touched him. Dumb deer. When open firearms season starts, I think David is going to take him down as a mercy killing. What do you want to bet that he is one of the ones that ate all the roses?

In the garden, David and I picked what will likely be the last of the crops, an armload of jalepeno peppers. We're planning on making some salsa with them, and then there's the planning of next years beds, of course.

I'm loving the autumnal temperatures. I'm optimistic about the job. I'm feeling quite settled and cozy at home. I'm feeling better physically than I have in a long time. In short, I'm happy and content.