I have regularly written entries on my ideas for dealing with a bitter ex wife in order to help others in the same situation, but it is fundamentally wrong that anyone should be persecuted by a bitter ex wife. The realities of dealing with a hostile ex wife are often overwhelming. An example of what people in this situation go through:
* Receiving regular verbal and written abuse from the ex, which no court of law will do anything about.
* Paying your abuser child support, which she can freely spend on herself while doing everything she can to make your life miserable. No one should have to pay their abuser.
* The ex telling the child that the noncustodial parent's rules are stupid, silly, or that they don't have to follow them
* No matter how vicious and troublesome the ex wife has been, there is always an attorney who will represent the "poor ex wife" for free.
* Child support is not actually about the child's best interests--it is basically a punishment for the noncustodial parent. If it were about the child, the ex wife would be required to prove that it was being spent on the child.
* The father's living expenses cannot be factored into child support calculations. We strongly considered moving to finally get away from the ex, but our income would not go up nearly as much as our living expenses, and our child support obligation would go UP.
* An ex wife making fraudulent claims of abuse, often getting the ex husband arrested.
* The ex wife bad mouthing the ex or his new spouse to the child and in front of the child.
* An ex wife making scenes at a drop off or exchange, then blaming the child's reaction to the scene on the non abusive parent.
* Denying visitations to a father who cannot afford an attorney to enforce the custody agreement.
* An ex wife incurring frivolous and unnecessary medical expenses that the father is expected to pay.
* Stalking, harassment, insurance fraud, spying, even identity theft.
* Ex wives are
rewarded for their nastiness. When we finally stopped visitations because of the ex's insane behavior and what it was doing to both the child and us, our child support obligation went UP.
Our legal system has actually created a system for abusive and hostile persons to have the legal right to rack up legal & medical bills for their victims, in addition to child support and insurance costs. Our system legally ties the abused to their abusers and actively enables the abusers.
If you or someone you know is going through this or has been through it, please forward them this link. We are collecting stories & anecdotal evidence that will start finding its way to judges, legislators, and attorneys who take any "pro bono" cases.
Somewhere in our constitution is a clause guaranteeing "Equal protection under the law." It's time men with abusive ex wives received it.
We're going to paint really, really slowly.
You can collect all 4.
is going to finish the entire room. 
Just seeing Amazon.com printed on cardboard makes my heart beat faster.
I might make up totally arbitrary rules, but once I make them, I am obsessed about sticking to them!
I wear a swim cap to keep my hair out of my eyes and because I think dressing like an eraser just makes me sexy.
The last time Theo took to hanging out in the laundry room, he had turned a mouse loose in there and was hoping to recapture it. Not a good sign. We're saving the full-scale rodent-hunting for tomorrow. Don't we own cats to keep mice out of the house????
An amazingly fun trip to Seattle, and yes, we really are that happy. (YAY!) Wait until you see the second anniversary pictures--coming in September!
A mix for butter chicken curry--with no preservatives. A coworker found it at Cost Plus. Since then, she, Andy, and I have literally stalked the two Cost Plus stores in the valley, hoping for days when they restock. Cost Plus, in a free-thinking sort of way, does not actually restock their shelves by what they sell out of quickest at each store, depending instead upon some arbitrary ordering method--perhaps a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a chart. At any rate, Cost Plus has been failing us completely as a supplier, so like everyone my age, I resorted to Google.
We have wooden frames holding UP the wire cages. It isn't exactly pretty, but it fixes the problem. Who knew the spending ban would be such a stimulus for creativity?
And soon we'll have a yellow bell pepper
which I think looks suspiciously like a green bell pepper, but we're willing to pretend. I should have kept the tag--maybe it said "yellowish pepper."
as they are masquerading as turnips. Weirdly, they still taste great and don't have that woody texture big radishes so often get. Still, we're aiming for normal vegetables, not mutant freaks.
No actual peas or anything, but the plants look fabulous.
Did anyone know that it actually becomes a large bush when properly motivated?
Nope, I don't see anything there either. I have reseeded it 3 times. I always thought the difficult part of squash was getting rid of it, not growing it. That must just be zucchini.
I took these pictures from our upstairs bathroom window
(proving to the world how filthy our windows are) just to prove that there was a time that everyone's lawns looked nice. Look for the brown water-starved lawn pictures in August.
Oh sure, it's pretty even as it is, but it would be awfully hard to wear. So in some cases, mohair CAN be a necessity.
It's our engagement picture, and before the wedding, we had it matted & framed and AT THE WEDDING, guests wrote notes & thoughts for us during the reception. It cost quite a bit between the picture and the framing, but I see it every single day & it always makes me happy. THAT is money well worth spending. It is the focal point of our living room:
I don't expect everything we buy from now on to give me the same level of satisfaction (the day I feel like that about a kitchen appliance, Andy is free to have me committed), but the things we choose to purchase should matter. 
