Laura, I'm sorry. It sounded like such an ideal situation. I really hope the job works out.

Stubborn boy is stubborn. Loving, stubborn mom is stubborner. I remember his aunt and uncle from your party, they were clearly lovely people and good role models. I'm glad he has skills and hope he can play by the rules enough to get and keep a job.

Clock is running out on the weekend. So much left to do. I'm considering reorganizing my to do list partially by what will reduce the most stress and give me the biggest sense of accomplishment. Prioritizing is such a bitch for me, with this dialectical and anxious brain. No choice but to keep practicing, though.

I am trying to fight off some sort of weird flu thing. It combines a sore throat, cough and, um, really bad digestive issues. I feel and look about 100 years old.

That doesn't sound fun, Scrappy. I'm sorry. I hope you win!

Scrappy, yuck. Hope you feel better soon.

Laura, I really admire your patience and tenacity. I think he does appreciate you, and will (I hope) appreciate you more as he grows up and older.

What service is this? I am loving my SoupCycle subscription (which is soup, delivery weekly, via bicycle, because Portland.) A quart of vegan soup every week, and sometimes I'll add on the 'soup of the week' or the veggie soup and get 2 quarts and that's up to 8 meals if I expand it with some crusty bread or lotsa steamed kale. I've found that very few soups (at least the vegan kind I get) suffer from a handful of washed, chopped kale tossed in so that it steams as the soup heats.

Greenlite Meals. It's all vegan, and delivered via FedEx (which is why I can get it here in Central PA.) You can order 3, 5, or 7 days per week, and it gets delivered frozen, with each thing in its own plastic bag. I'm using it for a few weeks because I'm ridiculously busy right now, and my kitchen is freezing, and I've been in a lot more pain than usual, which all together means I can't really shop or cook much. The meals I've had so far have mostly been pretty good. Just one thing that I really hated (a snack that was just grated carrots and coconut, and you were supposed to eat it hot, and, just, no), and a few things that benefitted greatly from the addition of some hot sauce or other spices. (Today, I had a peanut butter banana muffin for breakfast, and aloo gobi for lunch. There's some granola for a snack, and dinner is buffalo tofu, spinach, and brown rice, I think. That's pretty typical for these meals -- breakfast is usually either tofu scramble or some kind of hot cereal, with a couple of muffins and smoothies every once in a while; lunch and dinner are generally either a soup or stew that has beans and vegetables in it, or some kind of tofu or tempeh plus a veggie and brown rice.)

Feel better~ma, Scrappy.

Laura, it's so hard finding the right balance with hard-headed kids. Keep up the good work, he'll figure it out eventually.

Laura I hope your oldest can find some direction and balance in his life.

Andi I'm really sorry you have to deal with a coworker like that.

I managed work for an hour, made actually decent sales. But all the talking and moving got to me. I heard "wow you loook rough" (from coworker), and "are you sure you feel okay to work" (from my supervisor) and "uyou don't look like you feel well" (from a customer). Also my supervisor and an assistant manager separately toold me if I needed to I should go home. So here I am. My voice is okay (until I talk for 5 minutes straight) but I just feel tired and lightheaded.

I also gave up the Apple specialist thing and people were cool with that. My supervisor was worried i wanted out of the department and I told him no. I just wanted to be a generalist not a specialist.

Feel better, Scrappy.

Askye, I'm glad they understand the desire to rearrange your duties.

Feel better, Scrappy.

askye, it sounds like your work is being very supportive. I'm glad to hear it. It is so often not the case in retail positions.

We're having thessaly and Victor over tonight to watch Hannibal and eat Thai take-out. So, I guess I should get around to showering and cleaning up the house a bit.