you know, seriously, as you get older, there's a whole lot less excitement in your life. it's like, excitement, for the most part, gets bored with and has to move on.

instead, it goes to your kids.

which is not to say i have nothing going on in my life, only it's not exciting unless it involves the kids. for example, i've just started using the core rhythms dancersize program. i'm still working on the quick start disc. it's hard, but i'm enjoying it and looking forward to getting to the real routines sometime...probably in a year. or two...or three.... :P

no, really, i have no idea when i'll get beyond the beginning disc, but i am having fun. better, once i finish it for the day, i may be tired, but my energy is still up. with other programs, i was just tired. so feeling good, feeling motivated and energized despite being tired, tells me i found the right program for me. i want to do this program, and that's going to help keep me on it. not doing their version of a diet—this is not about weight, it's about strength and stamina right now, but i can see how people drop weight so fast off it too...and gain strength and stamina.

my first week as "just" a writer and mommy has been productive. i revised a chapter i've been trying to get to for weeks while working with lilley, and i've started a new project and put almost 5000 words into building that. i didn't meet al my goals for the week, but for once i crossed most of them off and won't be repeating them for the 3rd or 4th or 5th week in a row. not your standard excitement for most people, but i'm pretty excited!

but those two things have been pretty much it for me, and they aren't anything that anyone else would really be interested in.

my kids, on the other hand, all pretty much have things going. well, almost all. taz tends to be pretty...unexciting for the most part. he has a doctor's appointment today, smack in the middle of the school day, so he's pretty much staying home all day. pointless for him to go in and me to pick him up when he might be there for maybe a few hours, and even more pointless for me to take him in when he'd only be there maybe an hour before the bus brought him home. and there's the whole not knowing where he'd be: at lunch? out in the community doing his community skills? yea, so, we're keeping him home this time and he'll go back in tomorrow. other than that, he loves his job, always asks about it when he can't make it (although he has been warned he gets two weeks off right now), and they all seem to like him a lot. it's going well.

i guess froggy isn't having a whole lot of excitement going on, at least to her mind. i've started emailing her teachers about missing work and what work will be done for the upcoming week, though, so no more of this "i don't have any homework, honest!" while she fails half her classes (literally). i don't think she's too thrilled with being checked up on, but her flaky crap has got to stop. she has soooooo totally hit teenagerhood, and it's driving me crazy because she manages all the same crap her sisters did only with a sweet smile instead of a lot of attitude. she still gets called on it, by me and by her teachers: she's serving another detention today, so i'll be picking her up at around 3 from that.

the one having more excitement in her life than i think she bargained for is jewel. i'd say "as usual", except this is not the usual business for her. life had become pretty settled since meeting up with rhed. she's been growing in ways i never thought possible for her after the tumultuous three years after we moved out here. there's still a ways to go, but rhed has been good for her, until this weekend when he was arrested for d.u.i. turns out, rhed is a bit of a drinker. now this is the first time he's been arrested for d.u.i. since he and jewel hooked up, to my knowledge, but she tells me he drinks a little every night. at any rate, she was quite upset when he literally vanished off the face of the earth saturday night. his folks went in yesterday to pay the bond, but it was too high and he's supposed to be released without bond sometime today. two nights in jail might make him think a little more about this anyway, they still have to go pick up the car too, assuming it's all in one piece. better be or getting to and from work is going to be a real trick for both of them—assuming he still has his new job after not showing up today. as it is, we took her in and picked her up yesterday and she had to tell them she can't make it in today. the whole mess stressed her out so much, she stayed the night here last night. both his parents and her are talking putting down some rules about this drinking thing. i'm just hoping her relationship survives, and that this is not going to be a continuing problem in the future. as i said, it hasn't happened before this, and they have been together for awhile, so hopefully it's not a sign of things to come.

of course, leave it to jewel to have all the drama going on, right?

oldest's most recent excitement is pretty much good stuff: she's off on a two week vacation with fitts to see his family and friends up north a bit. the biggest excitement there on our end was the arguing over when to leave since he wanted to leave at 4 in the morning when we were having the worst storm weather of the season. she opted to delay packing and they left at a more reasonable 1 p.m., and i believe they had a much safer drive than they would have otherwise—the only weather they hit was the edge of a new storm rolling in which had a little hail associated with it. baby cat apparently thought that was fun. what would not have been fun is for him to drag them out of here at 4 a.m. when the rain was coming down so hard you could barely see even if the sun were up and it was cold enough for icing. the system was all up the east coast and we had tornado and flood warnings across the state, including our county. waiting put them out in a clear patch between systems and made the whole trip a lot safer, even if it did irritate him to delay almost 12 hours. we got a few text messages as they drove (thus knowing about the hail) and she called us the next day to let us know they arrived safely. they'll spend the next 10 days up with his family, then head back, stopping for 2 or 3 days at the other grandparents' house so they can see baby cat and she can pick up some of her stuff that was left there from the christmas they spent with us after trin came home.

the only other thing going on for her is the whole divorce thing. we saw the lawyer, really REALLY like him but are $2500 short on the retainer. however, even if we end up going with someone else, he really eased her mind about what's going on and all the games trin is playing. even said that there will be absolutely no problem with her getting custody, even if trin doesn't show up in georgia to settle it. he said usually they won't settle custody until both parties are in the same court room, but there are exceptions to that, and apparently she meets those exceptions. a psych eval will be required, but he thinks he can even get supervised visitation. and if trin's too damn stubborn to come out here for the divorce, well hawaii is a community property state so it'll cost him to be a dick and refuse to settle this out here (georgia does something else entirely, but i can't remember what the lawyer called it). the only thing we're really concerned about now is child support. but, you know, if he doesn't pay, that's one more thing to use against him, along with the things like allowing utilities to be turned off, not giving her enough money to support herself and the baby, taking the b.a.q. that should have been given to her, isolating her, throwing her out of the state (we may have wanted the last part to happen sooner than it did, but that's still pretty much what it came down to—him making it impossible for her to even try to look for a job or do anything, then throwing her out of the state), and refusing to send any of her personal belongings to her (though i gather he's out of the army now and it was part of the orders to have that stuff shipped to her here; we'll see if all those irreplaceable keepsakes are okay and make it out after all). and all that doesn't even count the alcohol, drugs, and cheating.

so, we have an end in sight for this marriage nightmare, we're just short the money. kitten is asking around to see if she can raise that last $2500, but it's proving to be pretty tough. the lawyer thinks the whole mess can be taken care of within the number of hours that money covers, but it's costly because of this going across two states. all i can say on it is we'll see. i'd really like to get this particular lawyer since he used to be a prosecutor and can probably nail trin to a wall for all the crap he's pulled. but that money issue will be tough to get around.

okay, so maybe the excitement isn't completely out of my life yet. it's just coming through the kids rather than coming from my own life. :P