I'm proud of you, son. Sorry about the sucky people making doing your job difficult.

Psst. Tell him it's OK if he dates a caucasian devil woman...

And working on top of it.

I didn't, I took time off. The only working was around the house. The kids were super good and made it easy.

Nodding along and seconding, thirding and fourthing what everyone else has said, especially juliana and Hec and Aimée and erika and... well, especially everybody.

And also, what erika said about a girl sometimes happily giving anything to know that her dad is even having an emotion. You don't want to burden Emaryn with needing to fix you when you're sad, but it doesn't sound at all like that's what you're doing. It won't break her to know that her father feels sad sometimes, that things can be tough for grownups too. And her response speaks volumes about her kindness and empathy -- and also about your parenting, and about the atmosphere you provide for her. There are so many households where, even if one parent sprang an emotional leak and everyone noticed, no one would dare say anything about it. You're clearly a safe and comforting person to her, and she wants you to feel safe and comforted too. And that's very, very good.

Thanks all. I've got to offload and run though, I'm getting work done, but I need to put in full effort on work right now.

In Shallow Fashion news, I am bidding on these [link]

I lurves tham.

Emmett's last day is June 16th, and school starts (usually) just before Labor Day. But they also get the extra "ski week" off in February.

By "extra" do you mean that they get two weeks off in February, or just a week off? Our kids start school (usually the Wednesday) after Labor Day, get a week off in February, a week off in April, and then if they miss snow days, they have to make them up. June 23 isn't all that late, up here. I remember going to the 28th or so, when I was a kid. In '78, the governor let the schools off the hook for some of the missed days, which was good, or we'd have been going into July.

a lot of lashing out when she's stressed

I'm deeply sorry for you dudes putting up with this today. Living with that noise and manipulation and blame and guilt-tripping and flying off the handle in bullshit-insane-with-anger-over-your-failings temper fits at will totally sucks. I know. I'm glad mine experience with that was all over long ago, but even remembering it is a burden to me.

The important thing to keep in mind is that a person like that knows they are not playing fair. It's dirty pool and it is damaging for all concerned. Therefore, I say it becomes allowable to consider the things one might do to defend one's own sanity and sense of worth.

This post brought to you by Too Much Information, but what the hell. I feel inspired by the display of sheer guts around here.

In Shallow Fashion news, I am bidding on these

Oooh! Gorgeous.

In catching up news:

Boo to the people who didn't give Nora a raise, but yay! for getting the job.

OMG Raq's thumb! That was painful to *read*.

More interview~ma for Aimee. I've found that the whole process takes so much longer than it should, and always longer than they promise.

Yay for vw's loan!

Boo to for more meetings for Sparky.

Really big boo to the mean clinic lady -- if I had the cash, I would hire JZ to write all my memos from now on.

Boo to P-C's work woes.

working late is a hard thing to judge. It really does tend to cause rage. In general, when Matt works late, it doesn't bother me. It is part of the nature of his job. But, I distrust it when it happens continuously. Not that he is doing anything, but that someone is over useing the word CRISIS or IMPORTANT or URGENT. I don't care if someone calls at 3am if he is on call, but if someone calls at 7pm when he isn't on call I snarl ( there are a few exceptions, but that's because that actually seem to really know what an emergency is. and hint, none of these people have the title boss) However, DH is not allowed to snarl. Because he left the work phone on . and answered the work phone. He is not allowed to bitch when he could have controled the situation. Now, DH did have a job where I did bitch about him working late, because he was never home. and it wasn't unusual for him to come home at midnight.

I think if he really liked working those hours, I'd deal. But he doesn't. and he makes it very clear that he doesn't .

Well as long as we are putting our noses in where they don't belong, I'll put mine in too.

Gud, since you said,

It really is one sided, and I tend to post about stuff when I just need to get something off my chest so it sounds worse than it really is. Maybe I'm just overreacting right now too

I'm going to assume that you are right, that what we are hearing *is* one sided and that there is a history behind her words and your reactions.

My advice? If what you want is to resolve the problems and repair the marriage, then she is the one to talk to. I'd even suggest not bringing up your anger here on the board, where we will automatically take your side regardless.