I hate shoes!

I am supposed to be folding laundry, but I just helped Ashley do a successful five minute room rescue and felt so good at how good she felt that I had to share. I was also defrosting spaghetti sauce, wondered why the timer hadn;t rung and realized I had popped a breaker. I hate that microwave. Why would anyone care about that? Sorry I am so boring. ANYWAYS!

Lyle's Mom (BITCH! - although I can't say that out loud in real life) asked Lyle why her friend had gotten an invitation to the wedding and she hadn't, Luckily, I had given him an extra one the night before (stuck it in the fold of his wallet) because he thought he was going to see a friend he wanted to invite. He gave it to her. She was mad because I didn't mail her one. He said - "well, aren't you part of this whole thing? You know when it is...". Had I mailed her one, it would have been "What, I am not close enough family that you couldn't just give me one?" GRRR! BITCH! He saw them when he picked up Ashley from them - we were going to go see them tomorrow, but Lyle decided we weren't going to because
a) his father was supposed to marry us (he is a pastor) but decided not to and just told Lyle last night that he wasn't going to. Luckily, Lyle expected that and we had a Justice of the Peace on notice.b) he decided that he didn't want us to borrow their motor home. Now where will everyone sleep? They offered to let us use an air matress, but since we already have two fold out couches, we are out of floor space. I hate for anyone to have to go get hotels.

Thank God we don't have to go see them! I try so hard to be supportive of him and not tell hom his parents are assholes, but.... Jeez! Thanks for letting me rant.

I believe my desk is slanting away from me. Just a wierd thought. I Expressmailed (Like fedex) a package to Charlene yesterdat so that she could make the travel arrangemewnts for Loretta and her. Then, if the kids come back the day before she is scheduled to leave, she can reschedule the tickets. Luckily, Southwest is super flexible and will let you change anything pretty much at any time. I have tons of work to do today, but I got so frustrated atthe guy from the phone company was a total idiot, I thought I had better switch gears for a while until I settled down. I ordered my second phone line on the conputer, which was what I should have done in the first place. In a good note, Lyle found a potential investor for our company, we are having dinner with him and his wife tomorrow night. Every body pray for the best!
Love you,
a

I saved the computer! Don't be too impressed, all I did was turn it back on, and strangely, it worked. I am NOT going to try to reinstall that printer. I called Charlene this morning, and found out her sad news. I wish there was something I could do!

I can't save anything because I can't get into the computer! It crashes when I turn it on. :( Yes, Nancy wanted to home schooL Ashley, she did home school her for kindergarten, and Ashley hated it, for a while she wouldn't even color because she thought she wasn't good enough at it. Since Nancy works full time, she gave "lesson plans" to Lyle's Mom, who is NOT a disciplinarian and didn't want to do it. Rather than say no to Nancy, she did it, but was resentful, and when Ashley whined about not wanting to do a lesson, Grandma gave in. If Lyle's Mom had been on Nancy's side on that one, we would have had to go to court to have her put in school, as it was we had to get a lawyer to write her a letter. Adventist School is a school that is part of the Seventh Day Adventist Church. Adventists (lyle's parents and ex wife) believe that his woman who lived in the late 1800's was a prophet, and anything she says is more sacred than the bible. They are vegetarians and they go to church on Saturdays, instead of Sundays. They have other odd stuff too, Lyle says it was more rigid when he was a kid.

They have a reading program at the library, but we only have Ashley for three weeks in the summer, so it is hard to do a lot with her. Anyways, I hate talking about such depressing things. I hope I can fix this computer thing.

I broke my computer! I tried to install the new printer on it, and I seem to have angered it. Windows will not even start up, it just says I have a fatal OE exception. I restarted it like twenty times. If you reinstall windows, do you lose everything on your hard drive? I couldn't find the Compaq "rescue" disk, or the WIn 98 one, so I didn't try it. If I have to reinstall, I am going to install XP. I have a copy of it from Lyle's laptop (which I am currently on. I don't know if it is better or not, but I like using it. And I love the previews it gives you on pictures.) All in all, I unpacked two boxes of books, and cut out four bodices (all different) one of which may or may not become my wedding dress bodice, and broke the computer I was supposed to be setting up for my new business. Great day, all in all. (note the sarcasm.) Lyle came home two hours early, and he went out and got me a burger. I love that man. He is watching yet another rerun of lethal weapon. Wasn't MIB 2 awesome, retta? We had to see it in the theatre, we were so excited aboutn it. We also went to see Bruce Almighty Friday night, it was pretty good. I liked it a lot. It made me cry once, though. Lyle said it was because it was so real. I won't ruin it for you. Anyways, I'm off to bed, it is almost ten.
Night!!!

Well. Lyle gets along with his mother on the surface, but very superficially, he feels like since he got divorced from Nancy, they would rather keep Nancy than him. Mostlt it is because Beverly (Lyle's Mom) gets to see Ashley, and she always wanted a girl (Lyle says) so she would rathr give up her boy than "lose" her girl. Part of it I always thought was that the religion thing made it bad for him to have been divorced, but at Lyle's Dad's birthday he had kids there from two other marriages! One woman wouldn't come because she said that Ernie had nothing to do with her when she was growing up so why should she bother now. I was talking to Dawn, Lyle's niece who is ten days older then him, and she was saying that only the sons got to know him because they could work in the shop. I'd like to know more about why they never visited because it might help me to understand Lyle's mom better. Dawn and I are going to keep in touch via email. It might also explain why when Lyle insisted that Ashley go to real school, his mother sat there and cried that we were trying to take Ashley away from Nancy. I told her in no uncertain terms that I had no plans to have children, didn't want them, and only loved Ashley because she was part of Lyle, but didn't want her. Then she cried about me not wanting kids. So I told her I couldn't physically have kids, and reminded her about the twins we lost. She was all confused then, she couldn't accuse me of loving Ashley too little or too much. That accomplished little other than her telling Nancy she didn't want to be involved in things that were between Nancy and Lyle. That was a while ago. She is still mean to me, but I refuse to stoop to her level and I am always nice. When we leave I write down all the mean things she says so that I don't have to be mad about them anymore. Lyle's Dad is sweet, though, mostly.

When Ashley is at her Grandma's she calls him every day that we know she is there. (During the school week she is there every night because her Mom works nights as a nurse.) She never calls from Nancy's. If her school weren't two hours away from us, we could have her, but that is why Nancy moved to the outer edge of the county. She has to stay inside the county where Lyle works, but unfortuneately it is a big county. The only way she would put Ashley in school is if she went to an Adventist school, so she goes to a five room school house that does up to grade 8. So far it is hard to tell how she is doing, her marks are okay, but she still tells me she can't read, and hates to do it (at bedtime she has to read the first three pages, then I'll finish the book), and at the grocery store if she wanrs a treat, she can usually have it if she reads the box to me. (She cheats though, and guesses from the pictures! - she picked up cool cocoa spoons and thought it was cocoa puffs - it was cute). Her printing is atrocious. We bought practice books for her, but no one has been practicing with her but us. I'm not going to talk about that anymore - too depressing.

A pincushion is a great idea! I've never even learned to knit, so she won't learn that from me. I am so proud of Chuck! I hope it goes well for her. Remind her she is not behind, she just has to jump in where she is. I tried to call earlier but there was no answer. I needed to remember that this morning. I want to go out and scrapbook, just to get out of the house. But the house needs some projects done - the weekly cleaning is done, but I have a dress to make and books to unpack and tile to fix in the bathroom - lots of little honey dos. I am going to "clean" (meaning do projects) and sew in fifteen minute timer times, and let the sewing be the break for the projects. I have to move my other computer out into the new desk I made, out of Ashley's room. I keep thinking of new things I want to do. Yuck! Wish me luck - I'll update you on my progress.