It's been a long time since I came around this site!

Life has been moving along. This is the first time I've lived this far north in 20 years, and boy howdy, the short days are getting to me. Work isn't going too well either, for me or for DH, so we're constantly stressed.

SD18 is in college at the local community college. Miracle of miracles, SD18 talked BM into paying 1/3 of the tuition. (A whopping $500/quarter) BM, of course, demanded all of the school's info, and to talk to the registrar's office before sending a check. Whatever floats your boat, chickie.

SD18 has a crappy retail job, (after sitting around the house all summer) and has managed to pay her tuition for this quarter, as well as books, and has reportedly paid ahead on next quarter's tuition too. It's getting to be grades time, so we'll see if she's actually passing everything. She scraped by in high school with a D, so we'll see. DH and I will probably be leaving this area around this time next year. SD18 wants to stay. Good luck to her, is all I say. I'd like to kick her out earlier, and most of the time, DH agrees. But she's never here, so it's not too horrible.

The last time DH talked to BM was graduation day - in June. Even when BM pulled tons of drama about SD18's phone, we just shook our heads and told SD18 to deal with it.

DH and I are cancelling Christmas - we don't have any family on this coast, and we're renting a cabin with a hot tub for a week. This will be the first vacation we've had longer than a weekend that didn't involve in-laws or the kid in our entire time together. That's 9 years as of January.

So I guess what I'm saying is, *IF* your DH is supportive and doesn't have his head up his pweshus widdle darling's ass, it will eventually get better.

Cheers!