It's Monday, so I thought a little venting and processing might do my week ahead some good!  Though far from perfect, I would say the past few days have still been on the upswing around this house.  Yay!  While I've been working on disengaging, MR. ED continues to step up, slowly but surely.  We've been able to spend better time together focusing on the house, the dog, relaxing, and time spent on our own work and hobbies.  We even started building our own DIY headboard together.  It's our anniversary month, so we decided that we are going to start a tradition of tackling a DIY project together every year in August...something just for the two of us to celebrate our anniversary.  I can tell we are both really trying to focus on the positive stuff...the things that brought us together in the first place before the SKIDs became a point of contention.  The more I disengage, the more I feel like myself again, and the more MR. ED seems to enjoy being around me and I around him.  I do believe we're getting somewhere!

SS10 also asked to have a birthday sleep-over with a couple of friends at our house this coming weekend.  That definitely brought a smile to MR. ED's face and I will be happily standing by in the distance with a good book and my puppy as HE entertains the boys with pizza and video games.  I'm learning that some disengagement can be entirely positive, too.  Just because I can manage a sleepover doesn't mean I should!

SD17 is still on her path to self-destruction, but it seems like she is finally starting to get resistance from all directions:  

• MR. ED is standing firm on the "No Driving/Sell the Car" policy. 
• GM (who sold MR. ED and SD17 the car) stopped by, looked at the car (minor bumps/scratches/dents here and there), listened to the story, shook her head and said, "Well, she doesn't need to be driving right now."  OMG...did the heavens just fall in?  GM has been a HUGE enabler, but finally...she sees the light!  This...is...HUGE!  
• The purple bike?  SD17 left it out back of the restaurant while her sis picked her up and it got stolen. Now she has no car, no little purple bike.  She will now be walking 1.3 miles to work, one way at least...this week in 90-degree weather. *ROFL*  Natural consequences...love it.
• SD17's boss came out one night while MR.ED was picking her up from work.  Apparently, he asked SD17 why she isn't driving anymore and got some of the story.  The boss told MR. ED that he told SD17 she's a good worker but should stop lying and disrespecting her dad. She lied and said she was at work that night she ran down to some dude's house and wrecked the car, so the boss told MR. ED he is more than welcome to come by or call the restaurant and check to see if she is there anytime. He told her he didn't understand why she is hanging around that guy (he also works there...awkward!) and should be dating young men more upstanding like her dad.  I'm sure that falls on deaf ears, but...wow...that was unexpected.  I say kudos to him for taking it upon himself to reach out to the parent of his minor employee and present a united front.  I'm sure he sees and hears A LOT while they're at work, and I assume his conscience, and maybe fear of liability, got the best of him.
• SD17 has been telling MR. ED that she is done with smoking pot.  Lies...all lies.  We found out she's now vaping pot and it's way more potent than the regular stuff.  So, last night MR. ED and I had a fairly cordial talk about it, both reiterated that we absolutely do not condone any illegal drugs in this house or on her person when she is in the car/with any of us anywhere, and I asked him what HE plans to do about it.  We talked about a number of avenues, and he simply said, "I'll handle it." I said, "Ok," with a smile.

Although I obviously cannot completely disengage from the illegal-stuff-in-the-house issue, I chose to leave it alone for the night.  I'm finding that it helps to sometimes delay my engagement in lieu of focusing on the positive around me at that moment. Also, the less I engage, the less opportunity I give SD17 to use me to deflect from her own bad behavior and poor choices.  So I gave MR. ED a kiss goodnight.  I gave him a kiss goodbye this morning.  I will ask him about it this evening, but only after we sit down to enjoy a nice quiet dinner together.  <3

I did make a comment to SD17 on her way out the door to school this morning.  She was walking around in her nasty dirty shoes all over the floor I spent hours cleaning yesterday.  I said, "Please don't wear those through here again.  I just spent hours on these floors yesterday and unless you are going to volunteer to clean the floors from now on, I expect you to follow the rules like everyone else."  She said, "Ok," and left.  I sensed some wind may have been let out of her sassy, entitled sails after her interaction with MR. ED last night.  Fingers crossed.

MANTRA OF THE DAY:  Do not allow toxic people to overshadow all that is good, healthy, and positive in your life.