Smelling the flowers

Sleepovers

OMG, I forgot to tell you that Thursday night we are sleeping over at B's and Saturday night she's sleeping over at our house. Bond's wife wanted the boys for Thanksgiving, so we'll be kid-free that night and Saturday is B's 40th birthday. We're taking her out to dinner with friends and she's planning on sleeping over. This will be a first. She's so worried about snoring and being cuddled. I'm worried about the bed getting too hot. LOL. We all worry about something. I'm curious to see if I end up sleeping at all. I'd love to feel totally comfortable and sleep deeply, but that's a rare thing for me, especially in new situations.
 
We did the sleepover Thursday night and it went fairly well. I slept, some. I woke often. B was up every 10 minutes because she drank two pitchers of water. Seriously. Two pitchers. And Bond about gassed us out. LOL

Saturday night she didn't sleepover at our place, because she's still dog sitting. He goes home today or tomorrow, I think, so we'll have other opportunities. In fact, she asked if we wanted to stay tomorrow night. She's also open to coming to our place and sleeping over. I guess she got past her fear of snoring. :) I'm not so inclined to sleep over on a weeknight, because of getting to work the next day. I may need to get past that.

Saturday's Thanksgiving for Golden's family went off smoothly. They planned well and brought everything all ready cooked and ready to go. Much easier than last year. I helped a bit with cleaning and setup beforehand and a tiny bit on Sunday, but other than that I didn't have to do much.

With a break from work due to the holiday we finally hung the barn door we've been working on for about 12 months! I swear that projects around our place are set to sloth speed.
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Today we are sorting out hardware for the door pull. Bond can be so damn cheap sometimes. Drives me nuts. I hope in the end of our weighing all the options that he will buy one that has a decent weight and size to it. SMH

Having this door will allow us to use the front room as a guest room.
 
The sad thing that happened

My daughter has a lot of bad things happen to her. Some of them she brings on herself, but so many others are outside her control and totally unjust.

Sunday as we were at breakfast with Bond's sons I opened up Facebook and saw that her cover picture had been changed to a nude. I couldn't reach her via phone, because her phone was shut off (late bill). I tried contacting her via Messenger, but she wasn't seeing my messages. I finally reported the image to Facebook and they took it down. Meanwhile I had relatives contacting me telling me to reach her asap. It was awful.

I saw her later that day and she was still shaking when I hugged her. Her ex-boyfriend had logged into her account and posted a picture he'd taken. She has since changed her password. She's so hurt and violated. She can't figure out why he'd do this seeing as they broke up a year ago and she hasn't had contact with him for many months. She's baffled why she still pops up in his thoughts and why he'd do something so cruel.
 
Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

We're taking a train to Texas! For Christmas. I've never taken a trip on a passenger train before, so I'm pretty excited. The unexcited part is that Bond wants to maximize the time in Texas, so he doesn't want to come back as early as I had hoped. I wanted to be back on Thursday, the 29th, so that his boys could go to their mother's and we could have a full day followed by most of a day without them because I wanted to have my kids come for Christmas and I thought it would be nice for them to have it just be them with me and Bond for once. I think my time with my kids is now going to be pushed back to mid-January. That seems so far away. I'll need to confirm with Taylor that he's not at Guard that weekend. Other than that, I'm totally looking forward to Christmas vacation. Oh, I feel bad about not taking B along. I doubt that will happen for a very long time as she has kids and she and her husband do their holidays together.

I put a deposit down on a kitten yesterday. A Maine Coon male kitty. I hope he turns out huge. I want a big 'un. We're way down on the list, so I'm not sure we'll get one in the spring which is our preference. Hopefully we'll have one before the end of summer. There is a chance that some of the people on the male list will jump to the female list and that could bump us higher.
 
One of my youngest son's friends posted this picture to Facebook yesterday. It's labeled "Family Photo." I love that it's labeled like that and I was not a bit surprised that he's smack dab in the center of the group, right where he likes to be, or that he's not looking in the same direction as everyone else. It's 100% Tay.

He has always loved his life. Each and every stage of his life. To his core. He did not want high school to end, because he didn't want his friends to scatter. I told him that he will always remember his high school friends, but the friends he'd make in college would be friends for life. And that's what he's built, lasting friendships.

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Day 3: No Coke. Headache has dropped to a reasonable level, so my skull doesn't feel like it's about to cave in. I was crossing the lobby of the office building I work in this morning when I spotted a friend walking past. She saw me too and came in and we chatted for what felt like a long time.

I mentioned that I hadn't had a Coke since Friday. She asked me if I wanted to be done drinking Coke forever. I wish I could say yes. I wish that's where I was emotionally. I've been there before, but not this time. Right now although I have stopped I haven't committed to it emotionally. I am not seeing this as a long term state and well, that is total crap. Sigh.

I had a lovely weekend. The kids were fun, Bond and I went to his work holiday party Saturday night, he won an Xbox One, we accomplished some household tasks, and went to B's last night for dinner.

Today I went to the Poly Nooner at lunch time. Most of the discussion revolved around the Dakota Pipeline and the election.

I showed them the IM exchange between Bond and his 70-year-old mother concerning his relationship statuses and they all got a chuckle out of it.

Bond's Mom: I saw that B referred to you as her BF on FB
And told Petunia that she loves her.
Open arrangements?

Bond: yes, she does use those terms.
yes, open.

Bond's mom: Poly?

Bond: yes
exactly​

I wish he would have told her that he's been poly since forever. He thinks she has always guessed. He and his wife did take a GF with them one time when they visited years ago. They introduced her as a friend, but his mother was suspicious at the time. He thinks she should have a pretty good idea of his relationship style considering he took two dates to the Senior Prom. I'm less convinced and would have preferred he had outright said that this was nothing new for him, otherwise, I worry that she'll be expecting his life to implode. Or that she'll be less friendly to me now. :(

B thought it was fantastic and that his family is cool.
 
Day 4 No Coke. Still hanging in there. Made it through a workday without cracking. That's usually my hardest hurdle and I survived it. :)

I need to get my work focus back. I wonder if I need medication to help me concentrate.

Last night Bond started talking about not making changes to his health insurance during open enrollment and that he thinks he'll be forced to take a high deductible plan next year. He's lucky, though, because his work will offset the $5,000 deductible by giving him $2,000 towards it. I was confused why this was on his mind and a topic, because open enrollment ended in November. He said he brought it up because while he was going over his medical insurance he also revisited his beneficiary designations and his contact info. He said he wasn't sure what the laws were regarding his marital status and designating beneficiaries, but that he was going to investigate it. He'd like to cover me in the event he dies. He said it would be enough to pay the house off. I wanted to tell him that it's for reasons like this (and others) that I would like to get married, but I didn't say anything. His wife has signed a Quit Claim Deed on his house and he is supposed to sign one for her house, but hasn't finished the paperwork. Her house is paid for and he has no problem signing off on it. He pays all her living expenses as it is, so it's no big deal.

I doubt I could afford to pay the taxes plus utilities on our house. I guess I could sell the house and buy a smaller home if it came to that. I hate to think of life without him. He needs to live a long, long time.
 
Argh, I don't think Bond or B like productions. Sob. I have a gift certificate to use up and I'd love to go to "Phantom of the Opera," but B outright says that musicals make her angry and she won't go, and Bond would be interested in going to "The Book of Mormon", but not "Phantom". I've already seen "The Book of Mormon" and quite frankly it's the not something I'd like to see again. I would rate that a 3.5 out of 5.
 
I spoke too soon. Bond just said that "Jersey Boys" sounds good, so that'll be the one. Yay!!

I guess I won't have to toss him! LOL
 
Sometimes I do incredibly stupid things, like send cash through the mail. I did that this week to my son and today I double checked with him what his address is and I sent it to his OLD address. In a college town. To a house that is rented to students. GAK! It should be delivered today, so hopefully he'll be able to get it from them. Damn.

On a not so stupid note: decided upon what kind of wall finish we want in the kitchen this morning. Ceiling: light sand texture, flat paint, two coats. Walls: smooth, eggshell paint, two coats. It's happening today. Tomorrow the sub-flooring goes down. :D
 
Wait, there's more...

Oh, on a relationship note: B's STI test results came back all good, so we're now moving to being fully fluid bonded.

This Saturday we're attending a holiday party that friends of Bond throw every year as a triad. B is so excited. I attended with Bond last year and it's a nice time. He knows the couple from back in the day of the old poly discussion group. He's not sure if they are still practicing poly, but they are definitely supporters of that model. They've been very tickled over Bond and me, and in more recent months over the triad. So this has all the awesome feels and I think we'll have a great time. Only ripple in the plan is that the weather forecast calls for a major snowstorm. Hopefully our new tires will get us there and back safely.
 
The holiday party was nice! We did get a snow storm that evening, but it wasn't so terrible that we couldn't cross town to get there. They did have a number of guests start out and then turn back, but many of them were traveling further than us. Most of the snow happened overnight and throughout the day Sunday.

The host and hostess met when they were working as chefs in kitchens, so you can only imagine how delicious the food was. We made a number of trips back to the hors d'oeuvre buffet throughout the evening to sample goodies. They always hire a bartender to work the party, and the specialty drink this year was Old Fashioneds. Delicious.

As soon as we walked in the door we spotted signs they had posted instructing cigarette smokers to use the garage and smokers of other substances to use the basement. We spent some time subterranean. :D Because...B. That made her a happy camper. We also had a little sex in their half-bath partway through the night which was a lot of fun. We were ever so quiet. LOL. And we snuck a piggy drain basket into their sink when no one was looking. Long standing prank that Goldie (a somewhat girlfriend of Bond's) started years ago and others have continued since her passing three years ago. And then we came home and had more sex. Yay, sex!

We woke Sunday morning to the sound of Golden's son puking. Ugh. Flu. I'm so glad we finished the sliding barn door on the front room, because it became a sick bay. We Lysoled and used antibacterial hand sanitizer big time, so fingers crossed that none of the rest of us come down with it. Poor kid.

This is a pretty exciting week for us/me. Today the subfloor is going down and I believe the windows may also be installed. Tomorrow the flooring goes down, and Wednesday they start installing the cabinets. CANNOT WAIT! But I have to. Sigh. My sister, brother-in-law, and my parents are coming to the Dells and Bond and I are joining them. We're staying Wednesday night through Friday morning. I need to be back to work at noon on Friday, so we'll head back around 11 AM. Which means, I won't be there for any of the cabinet install and that's the most exciting part, IMO. By the time I get to see it it'll be Friday evening. Cabinet guy thought they'd be ready for templating the countertops by Monday. Besides the disappointment of not seeing it happen, I'm also concerned about not being available to visually check progress and identify issues. We love our cabinet guy, but this is going to take a lot of faith in him.

Other awesome stuff for the week: the boys are having their Christmas week with their mother and because we are going out of town Wed-Fri this means that S1 will be gone starting Wednesday. We never get that kind of kid break, and whenever we do get a break it's always been something we orchestrated. Of course, instead of staying Wednesday to Wednesday S1 wants to come home on Sunday. Sigh. Oh, well. He's not a lot of work.

I need to get off of here, but I should tell you about my kids happenings when I come back.
 
I think I've completed, or almost completed my Christmas shopping. I ordered from Amazon and paid for wrapping. I am having presents for Bond and the two younger boys sent directly to Bond's mother's house in Texas.

I ordered funny t-shirts for S1 and Golden's son. I still need to get something for Beanie. I'm thinking some kind of craft kit.

I ordered a blown glass vase for Twitch that will be both a birthday and Xmas gift and hopefully no one will swipe it off their stoop. I asked him to give me an access code if they have one, but he was giving me a hard time about it, so now he'll have to take his chances. Shasti's last place had a doorman, but the new place doesn't have one. <shrug/>

Bond and I are going to make Zombie/Voodoo dolls for B. Something like these I found on Pinterest. She's going to love them! We should be able to make a couple this weekend.
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Twitch is sending Taylor $500 for X-mas to help with his back rent. I sent him $400, too. He's at the mercy of the military for his GI bill and it's late, late, late. I'm planning on sending another $400 this next payday which should bring him current, but then it'll be the 1st of the month again. That kid tries so hard to do it on his own, but sometimes he just needs to ask for help. One more year and he'll be done with college. :)

Speaking of sending the kid money, he got his birthday card. Whew! Silly thing to do and I'm glad it worked out. Will not do that again!

Bea is going to be in town this weekend and she and Bond will probably do something. I am fine with that. I'll probably be sewing anyhow. Little tiny, tiny twinge, but too tiny to register on the Richter scale. Yay!!!

Hmm, we could paint this weekend. I'd love to have the entire interior painted by mid-February so that when we have our reveal party the place looks smashing. Currently the walls are an off white that I'm certain is original from when it was built. They are tired and dingy. A new coat of paint is going to look so good!

I've avoided telling you about my last kid story and I think I'm just not up to it yet. Another day.
 
Zombie/Voodoo Dolls

Our weekend project:

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Just realized that the male doll still needs his hair and the buttons up his front. That will need to be remedied tonight, because I want to give them to B the next night.

I hope she loves them.
 
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Zombie Apocalypse

Added the missing hair (hard to see in this picture) and buttons. Can.Not.Wait.To.Give.
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Sexy Zombie Pose
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Zombie Friends
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Finally! Last night Bond told Golden that it was time to discuss the next six month lease and that it would be the last one. Golden was all cool with it. He did say he'd like it to be 12 months instead of 6, but Bond said that would mean moving in the middle of winter and that he [Golden] really wouldn't like to have to do that. That moving in warmer weather is a much better idea than moving in the dead of winter. Golden agreed and that was that.

I am so excited. I was busy doing something or other when I heard Bond start the convo. I can't recall exactly what I was up to, but I know I was standing in our bathroom when I heard Golden say he'd like it to be a 12 month lease instead and I caught my breath hoping that Bond wouldn't cave in and agree. Thankfully he didn't. Initially I was wishing he'd have shortened the 6 months to three, but at least he'll be out by midsummer at the latest.

Now I can start planning and dreaming of what life will be like without all the extra people in the house.

The peace and quiet of not having Golden's kids there is going to be delicious. Love those kids, but they are incredibly interactive (they talk to you nonstop and express every thought outloud) and love the volume turned all the way up on the TV. His son spends all his waking hours playing video games and sometimes I just need to have the TV off.

OMG, our front room will have so much space once Golden's antique, round dining room table is out of there. Woot!

S1 can move back into the bedroom downstairs and his computer can move from the dungeon (Brazilian Jiu Jitsu practice room/laundry room) into his room again.

Golden's bedroom can be a guest room again. We'll be able to invite Bond's mother, and sister and her family, and my parents and other family to visit us, because we'll have a guest room.

We'll actually have honest to goodness kid-free times when all three boys are at their mother's. If we get S1 to change his night at his mother's to our date night with B, we could have loud sex! LOL

Feeling giddy.
 
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Lovely date night last night with Bond and B. We went to one of our favorite restaurants for mussels. So delicious. Our waiter was also delicious and I think he was quite intrigued by the three of us. I often think when we're out that we are raising people's awareness of poly relationships. And hair color. LOL

We gave B her zombie dolls and she LOVED LOVED LOVED them! Woot!

We leave in the morning for Texas. I'm going to miss her ass so much. Sigh.

Bond is only working until noon today. He meant to get a haircut yesterday, but forgot, so that's #1 on his to-do list. His wife is delivering the younger boys mid afternoon and S1 will leave with her. We need to finish downloading movies to their iPads for the trip, pack, and complete the gift giving. He's giving the family the XBox One that he won at the holiday party, so he'll need to set that up I'm sure. He's going to put it in the front room and move the XBox 360 to the basement TV. I may leave work early today. I'm not really certain of how much leave I have left as our new payroll system is wonky. I think I have 3 or 4 hours left, so I should be safe taking an hour or two.
 
The Train

We're on the Texas Eagle on our way to San Antonio, TX. We boarded 23 hours ago and we have another 11 hours to go. It's been fun traveling this way, although sleeping was challenging last night, because the seats don't recline enough for me to reach the footrest on the seat in front of me and have my lower back touching the seat which meant no back support unless I pulled my legs up and made like a ball. Short girl problems.

The boys are loving the trip. We've been playing games. Right now Bond is playing Go Fish with them.

I played for a while, but then excused myself and created an event for our Valentine's party. From there I got lost in Pinterest looking at recipes for Combi-steam ovens. I'd like to make something fabulous for the party using it. I also need to look for convection recipes. So excited!
 
I started a post as we were traveling back from San Antonio, but I lost it and didn't have the patience to start it again right then.

The trip was really nice. I love Bond's family. I wish my family was as easy to be around. We went to a Boxing Day event hosted by a retired Air Force priest. Bond's family first met him in Germany thirty years ago and now he lives on the other side of San Antonio from them. He has a telephone museum that is very extensive and he gave us a tour and full history of the telephone. It was rather fascinating and quite remarkable for a citizen to have an actual full museum. We went to the Tower of the Americas one day. That was so-so. The most fun was watching the 4-D movies.

The biggest challenge about the trip was that we packed all wrong. We packed fall clothing, but we should have packed for summer because the temperatures were in the high 70's to low 80's. We had to run the AC to be comfortable. Total crazy pants! LOL

In my sphere, the biggest gain from the trip was my relationship with Bond's sons deepened and is pretty fucking awesome right now. S2 is 13 and wow, he's a challenging kid. He has ADD and without medication he strongly seeks stimulation which usually manifests as him needling and correcting his younger brother relentlessly. With medication is usually bearable, but still present. Because of this S3 doesn't want to be around him and in return S2 feels the same. It can be really sucky. Bond is too complacent and allows it to a certain degree before he'll step in, but I have very little tolerance for it and I tend to be the one to put a stop to it and that has at times created an uncomfortable feeling between S2 and me. This trip, though, was fantastic and we talked a lot and goofed around together a lot. He was also there for a conversation between his Gran and me about Bond's parenting style. When I said that Bond has asked me to be his backup and sometimes play the heavy, S2 was like, "Hey, you don't have to do that!" I laughed back at him and said that his father wants me to, so I do it even if at times I don't want to be the one to take that role. I think he has a new understanding and it'll go a long ways to building a strong relationship between him and me.

S3 has always been easy to get along with. He's a cuddly kid that sometimes plays the baby card, but that's happening less and less - probably because I'm like, "NO.You're too old to act like that." (age 10) When we boarded the train in Chicago he asked to sit with me which was perfect, because that put Bond with S2 and me with S3 across the aisle. Divide and conquer! :D He's such a love and I know you'd love him within minutes, too.

After spending so many hours in close proximity children forget where they leave off and you begin. He and I were sitting on the couch at Bond's mother's; I was on my phone and he was on his iPad. Suddenly he threw a leg over mine without a thought. It was cute and I felt like he was to the stage where you think of someone as family and that about made my heart burst.

So much more to share, but I have to go for now.
 
B stayed over Tuesday night. I think Bond is the only one who got a wink of sleep and he didn't get much. Three people in a king size bed is too hot! If we do this again I think we should each have our separate blankets. I'm sure it'll get better because we'll be more familiar with sleeping together. Because of unfamiliarity Bond was overly concerned to not cuddle B too much, so instead he practically slept on top of me. Not really, but at one point I took his hand and had him touch the side of the mattress so he had some awareness of how close to the edge I was.

Our original plan was that we were going to sleep over at her place NYE with her in her bed. She changed that up and in my opinion Tuesday night was her way of making up.

We had a kid party for NYE and a couple of friends brought their offspring and slept over, too. B's other partner, the HeadDoc, decided the night before to also stay over and B then changed from sleeping with us to sleeping with him which really, really hit both Bond and me hard, because we had had it planned. At the time the plans were made I asked her specifically where she'd sleep if he did stay over and she said he could sleep on the couch or wherever, but it didn't matter because she was sleeping with us. So for several weeks we thought that was the plan and we were pretty excited. We hadn't seen her for 1.5 weeks and it would be our first time back together after our vacation. Instead Bond and I took her son's room and she and the HeadDoc slept in her room.

It was a strange emotional state to be in and to be able to look at one of your partners and know/see that they were feeling just as crummy for the same reason. I actually think it made me feel worse to know that he was hurting. Once I considered that she's in NRE over the HeadDoc it lessened the pang.

Tomorrow morning we're going to the granite shop to see our slabs. They are about to start templating and we want to see them before that happens. We'll get digital overlay images of the templating to approve once they get everything underway. I'm pretty excited. The granite goes into the kitchen next Wednesday. That is going to be a big thrill.

We are going to Colorado with B January 19th-23rd and I'm worried that we're going to be gone during critical final steps in the remodel - like the backsplash going up and the appliances going in. As much as I'm worried about being gone, I'm more excited about going on a mini-vacay with B.
 
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