I currently live in Georgia and I'm on a business trip to California this week. Right now I'm sitting outside on the patio eating breakfast. The hotel isn't gorgeous, it's strictly functional, and I'm in a part of California that is not touristy at all. But the climate is so familiar and I just realized how much I miss it, because it's what I grew up in. I feel actively homesick! I need to get back to the mountains and low humidity and wide open spaces, and away from the magnolia jungle I've lived in for the past 12 years. Not that I hate Georgia; I don't, at all. But my heart is here, and I need to get back to the mountains. Thanks for reading my homesick blathering, everybody. :-)

Posting this under my name, not hiding anonymously. Please look in to the stories of how these children are left in cars. It is heartbreaking. The details you will find out...they are haunting. Usually it is when a different caregiver than normal has their routine changed. We all go in autopilot sometimes. The child falls asleep, is rear facing...it could truly happen to anyone. Makes me sick that these people, whose lives are ruined and have to be put on suicide watch, are being painted as vicious murders. Maybe there are one or two purposeful cases, but the rest are accidents.

How i it that some men can never put any wife above their children? Even their first wife? Are they hard wired for that or is it a choice they make? I believe that spousesm should always be first in our hearts because that makes the family more stable.

I'm wounded in my heart. I told him if he can't or won't respect my religious position it's not my problem. But it still hurts that he is adamant mine is not a true religion.

I'm currently pregnant with our first. If something is genetically wrong with the baby, we will probably terminate. It will break our hearts, but we're trying to do what's best for us and for the potential baby.

Even if a fetus is a "person" and you believe that with all your heart, that doesn't mean you should be against abortion. If you're against abortion it means that you believe that a court should be able to order someone to get connected physically to a stranger for nine months and go through a painful and dangerous procedure to get disconnected at the end. Even if the stranger might die without it, and maybe you think that the best and kindest thing to do would be to go through with it, the law cannot force one person to give up their physical integrity for another.

Last night a friend's band was playing. I asked DH if he wanted to go, and he said he didn't, but he would if I wanted him too. I thought that was weird - why would I try to drag him to something he doesn't want to go to? I went by myself, and met up with 8 of our friends - 4 couples. The music is great, a bunch of us dance like crazy, we are having a great time - and then I look back at the table we had been at. I realize all the girls are up dancing, and one of the guys. The other three guys make up the sad husband table. They all look bored, if not downright depressed. One is kinda checking his phone halfheartedly, one is propping up his chin (in the way of bored students everywhere), and one has his arms crossed and is staring at the floor. I guess I'm the only one who doesn't drag her husband to things he isn't interested in. What the heck? I told DH all about dancing when I got home, and he told me all about the game he played, and then we went to bed and cuddled. Why is this not the norm among our friends?

I have a very dear friend from childhood / high school. She has just set-up a donation site to help cover expenses for a surgery her dh had as the result of a motorcycle accident (his fault). I know I SHOULD help out, but I just feel like her situation is kind of her fault. She was super smart in high school, and a regular kid. She decided that instead of going to college (totally doable for her financially and academically) that she was going to move to Vegas and be a stripper while she was still young. She did it for 20 years. Now she is too old to do that anymore and has knee problems. She has no insurance (never did). Has no education. The only jobs she can find are tending bar (half-naked). Her dh is "self-employed" (sometimes), so he has no insurance either. The biggest problem I have is that she still totally embraces the whole stripper lifestyle. She is actually not a big partier, but still wears ridiculous make-up and bleaches her big hair white. Every picture she takes is of her grabbing someone's crotch or breast. She talks about how everything would be fine if she could just work (strip) again. How would that make it better? You were broke the whole time you did that and still never had insurance or anything. It just breaks my heart because I know that she is so much better than that.

"Calvary" with Brendan Gleeson is by far the best film I have seen in a long time. Incredible, heart-breaking, funny and sad all at the same time, his performance is just perfect.

Oh, admit it. I broke your heart. Those oils really are essential to you! I'm kidding, of course. (I only response posted because that post is pretty far back now.)