Making a list. Checking it twice.

My brain wants to go out in the dining room and start painting trim. LittleBit is working at the mall again, and I don't know when she is going to be able to break free to paint for me. And I want that room pretty for Christmas.

But I've been up for hours, paying bills among other things, and I'm ready for the first nap of the day. I came home from Secondborn's and slept for nearly eight hours! So, breakfast around 3am was a sliver of pumpkin pie, a brownie, and a handful of roasted pistachios. Washed down with cranberry pomegranate juice, because I'm trying to stave off another kidney infection. I got a blessing from my two sons-in-law yesterday, and the backache is gone. I am listening very carefully to my body, to see if I need to go pee in a cup while I'm out and about later today.

This week's major stressor was the distinct possibility of meeting the children's father's (new) fiancee at the tribal feast. So I have been talking to myself about that. It's not that I don't want him to be happy. And definitely not that I want him back. Or that I care about her opinion of me, because even if she does join the church, we are not likely to be neighbors in the eternities. But someone whose opinion I respect has met her, and the woman is bat-poop crazy. And planning to marry the family crazy-maker.

We have quite enough crazy in this family without importing more of it. Plus, I would hate for her mental health issues to be magnified. It took me years to climb out of that rabbit hole. I can't warn her, because I'd just be seen as the vengeful ex-wife instead of someone looking out for her welfare.

So that's all been bouncing around inside my head. She wasn't there yesterday. Maybe we'll meet at Christmas? I want to be kind to her, because I remember the people who were kind to me when I was rocking the crazy, all those years ago.

And lest you think I am perfect and just waiting for that golden chariot to swoop down and carry me off, some of this is hurt pride, because he shut me out for the last few years of our marriage. It's like when the kids found inappropriate stuff on his computer years ago (after the divorce), and my reaction was "oh, you only want to have fun with images that have no values or opinions?"

So glad that I'm sealed to a man who was *present* to his last breath.