BYOC Bring Your Own Crazy!!!

Bring
Your
Own
Crazy

A little ditty where we answer a few questions on Friday to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break.  Copy and paste to your own blog if you so desire!  Enjoy!

1.  Sun or rain?  Roses or tulips?  Romantic movie or comedy?

Hmmmm - well... I'm a hot weather kind of girl who drives a convertible so I want to say sun, but man, I love love love a serious rain storm.  I love the sound of hard, driving rain, the smell of a storm brewing, the feel of the air kicking up or the rain lashing down.  I sleep with a sound machine at night so I can listen to rain even when it's not raining.  So, convertible be damned - I'm going with rain.


Definitely tulips - roses are for sissies (sorry to all those rose lovers out there)




What about a romantic comedy???

2.  I've been sick lately and haven't eaten in two days - except for ice cream...which leads me to ask - what's your favorite ice cream flavor?

Well... there are really just so many....  Hershey's brand.... hmmm I can't remember what it's called but it's basically cookies and cream with a peanut butter ribbon in it.  Then there was this one from Bunny Hill called... oh hell, I can't remember that one either - but it was basically a take 5 bar in peanut butter ice cream.  Peanut butter ice cream with chocolate covered pretzels and a chocolate ribbon - it was sweet and salty and chocolate and peanut butter - perfect for the week before your period - but I haven't seen it in a couple of summers.  But - I love ice cream and there are very few ways you can go wrong with it!!

3.  Are you a door locker - in your house and car?

When I used to have sex I was pretty damn anal about locking the door at the appropriate times - I'd often make Brad go back and double check it... maybe more than once (we had enough .... ahem... shall we say kids seeing more than we wanted them to incidents that I became obsessed.)  Other than that I don't lock the doors much inside the house.  I do my best to remember to close the garage door and lock the sliding glass door at night but can't say I'm 100% successful.  If my car is in the driveway and not the garage I usually lock it as every once in a while we've had a kids take advantage of unlocked cars to swipe whatever happens to be in easy reach.  Brad leaves his car in the driveway unlocked with the windows down almost every day.

4.  In the spirit of my being sick and wanting to die - tell me your "go to remedies" for when you are sick?

If I'm sick enough to not go about my regular day, I sleep and I take NyQuil to keep me that way until it goes away.  I generally don't want anyone around.

5.  Repeat question:  Summarize your week in blog land and in real life.

Blog life has been good and fun - I'm reading, but not doing much posting - I'll get back to it one of these days.

Real life is wonderful - I'm in Wyoming at my friend Camille's house.  We're having a lovely time doing just about nothing.  Yesterday throughout the day I ate an entire bag of Hershey's miniatures - I'm thinking that wasn't the best choice - but eh.

I'm completely ignoring my marital problems at the moment though I'm not sure what I'd even say anyway - but... eh.  One thing at a time and right now I'm hanging out with Camille and her wonderful family!

BYOC!!! Bring Your Own Crazy!!

You know what that means, right?

It’s BYOC day! Bring Your Own Crazy! We answer a few questions to get to know each other better and to give our blog brains a break! Copy and paste to your own blog and enjoy!!

1. Alright – forgive me – we’re gonna get a little personal here. I was flipping through my organizer and saw in big bright letters “ANNUAL PHYSICAL DUE” coming up soon. Then I remembered that last year my lady bits doc said that since I haven’t had a bad pap in so many years – that I don’t have to come back for another 3 years if I don’t want to. What the what? Did you guys know that?

No speculum in the vaginulum?

Anywhoozle – it sounds all good but really – do any of you follow this medical rule? Do you go every three years if you’ve never had a bad pap?

I've never had any issure with any pap smears (or however that's spelled) and my doctor continues to recommend having them once a year.  I can't say I've ever heard anyone say anything other than the once a year recommendation - but they (whoever they are) do seem to change recommendations about things all the time so... who knows.


2. If you read, what are you reading right now? Or how about what is your fave music right now?
I read constantly - I like the JD Robb series.  I like murder mysteries.  I like light and fluffy things.  I like BDSM books. I like Laurel K. Hamilton (Okay that's not so true anymore - I used to like her writing, though at least in her Anita Blake series she seems to have stopped writing stories and now writes out her personal sexual fantasies and links them together with what could very, very loosely be called a sort of a plot.  I haven't actually stopped reading them, but I'm a few behind as I'm just usually not that interested in her own little fantasies.  I like suspence/romance, but don't really like just straight romance.  I love things in series where you see the characters learn and grow.

Music - Oh.... well.... hmmmm.  I like a hell of a lot of stuff:  I'm sort of in love with Nickleback at the moment, I love love love David Nail, Darious Rucker, Adele, Son's of Sylvia, Maroon 5, Marcia Ball, Bon Jovi, Brad Paisley, Eva Cassidy, I've just discovered and love Florence + The Machine, Green Day, Indigo Girls, Jason Aldean, Jason Mraz, Jimmy Buffett, Keith Urban, Kelly Clarkson, Steel Magnolia, Sugarland, Yaz, Zac Brown Band - did you see how for the most part I was just cruising through my ipod and listing the ones I thought deserved special note - it's not even close to all that's on there - but it's a good cross section of what I'm regularaly listening to.



3. Name some of your favorite smells.

Fresh cut grass, freshly washed children's hair (when they still use Johnson's baby shampoo), the beach.  Nature in general.

4. Showers or baths? Shampoo only or shampoo & conditioner? Shave daily or just when you start feeling and looking like an ape?

Definitely showers - I love love love a long hot hot hot shower in a dark dark dark room.  Shampoo and conditioner and every other day - only conditioner on the advice of my hair person.  It took me a long time to get comfortable not washing my hair every day - but I swear my hair actually looks better on the days I don't wash it - very odd for this formerlly greasy haired girl.  In the summer I shave at least every other day and often every day - it depends on what I'm wearing and where I'm going as to whether or not I'll skip it.  In the winter... eh... I still shave my pits about as often and my legs more like a couple of times a weekish.


5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in real life and in blogland.

Blogland is good - it's fun to see what everyone is up to in the summer.  The challenge is in full swing.  I'm hoping to get back down to my starting weeks' weight one of these days - but I'm very happy to be doing it.  I feel much more in control and on the ball - just cuz i'm paying attention.

Real life - well.. let's talk about today before 7:30am, shall we.  So... Brad's away (which of course is the only reason this kind of thing happens) and I'm getting the kids up and going so I can get them off to camp and still make it to work on time(ish).  Their camp is in the opposite direction from our house as is my office so we have to leave at about 7:30am in order for me to get to work on time.  (Obviously Brad takes them when he's in town).  So.. I'm a tasky kind of girl and there's a schedule in my head about what has to happen when so I can get them out the door without anyone getting upset. 

I'm up and showered on time - early even. Check.  I've got the end of yesterday's stage of the Tour on (I'm completely obsessed with it) and I have enough time to watch the very end of the stage which is perfect.  Check!  Jack's working on his pool bag. Check.  Ted's sort of moving.  Check-ish.  Lunch is started. Check.  Ted is sitting up - sort of.  Check-ish-ish.  I'm downstairs making breakfast right on schedule and Teddy calls and tells me he needs my help.  Well of course he does - he's Teddy and not always able to perform simple tasks - like say - find underwear or a shirt.  Whatever, I head upstairs to see what's going on - I got up early so I've got even more extra time than I normally build in. 

Ted: Mom, Raphael (the little catfish in his fish tank) is stuck and is going to die. 

I look and Raphael has adhered himself to the top of the little sunken ship in the middle of the fishtank and I'm not worried at all.

Me: Ted, he's fine.  In fact when you were at camp, Daddy thought he was dead cuz he was sitting in exactly the same spot for seemingly days.  Dad was all worried he was going to have to tell you he killed Raphael.  He even went so far as to take the ship out of the tank because he was so convinced he was dead and not until he was several steps away and he saw the poor fish try to breathe did he realize he was still alive and quickly got him back in the water.  So, he's fine, I promise.  Finish getting ready.

Ted: Mom, he's really stuck.  I swaer he is. 

(at this point we have a whole back and forth something like this - he's not stuck he just likes it there, no he really is stuck and won't be able to eat and will die, no he's fine I swear it, Mom I promise you he is stuck you have to help him, no he's fine.)

Finally we get to... Ted: If he dies, it's not my fault. 

Me: He's not going to die, but if he does, you're right - it'll totally be on me.

I start to leave and my big, strong, taller than me boy bursts into tears.  OMG - okay baby, I'll push him out of the way,  you'll see.  I reach in the tank and push Raphael out of the way so he'll swim somewhere else and damned if that fucking fish isn't compleltely stuck.  I pulled and pushed and did everything I could think of to get him out of there, but he'd somehow managed to wedge himself in between the fake barnacles and the deck of the ship.  My first thought - Fuck, there goes the schedule.  My second thought - it's probably in bad taste to take pictures for a future blog post while my son is crying.  My third thought is - I really don't like having my arms to my elbows in the fish tank - ick.

Okay... hmmm how to unstuck a fish.  I will cut off the barnacles.  I go downstairs and get a pairing knife cuz it's small and start sawing.  I'm barely making a dent.  This is going to take FUCKING hours, but you know my motto - the turtle wins the race - so I just stick with it.  Of course I'm deathly afraid I'm going to slice through the end of it and filet poor Rafael and there will be blood in the water both literally and figuratively, but I don't mention this to the boys - both of whom are watching now.  Finally I give that up and go in search of a sharper knife.  I go through a few options discarding them as I went - too big, too unwieldy, not sharp enough, until finally I had an aha moment.  I have jewery making tools upstairs and there is a wire cutting thingy in the shape of a small pair of pliers - this should work.  I dry the arms (for the 27th time) find the tool and head back to work.  It's like surgery - I have to get it in there just so - so as not to pinch (read: cut into ribbons) the fish, but still cut off the offending barnacle.  I get it in place and squeeze it home and viola!  It snapps off and Raphael can move!!! No blood!!  I tell Teddy he's free and the poor boy bursts into more tears.  Poor guy!!! 

Okay - let's see what we can do to salvage the schedule - Run downstairs, get the boys to get their bags packed, finish lunches, finish packing my lunch, make my chai, and all the while.... my beloved dog is barking at us - please don't leave me, please don't leave me, please don't leave me, please don't leave me, please don't leave me.  All we hear, though, is barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark breathe barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark breathe barkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbarkbark breathe rinse lather repeate.  Finally I can't take any more of it and I snap.

WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP (as I'm storming after the dog with my fist raised) IF YOU DON'T FUCKING STOP BARKING, I'M GOING TO FUCKING KILL YOU DEAD, DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND ME YOU LITTLE FUCKER??

I'm sort of consious of the rest of the world enough to notice my cute little 10 year old looking up at his nearly 13 year old brother with glee in his eyes as if to say - Man, I love it when mom cracks.  He was full out laughing by the time I'd finished yelling at the dog.  The dog wisely hid under the table for at least 30 seconds before he started barking again.

Have a lovely day!

Can anyone but me identify with this??

moving with intention

I was reading somewhere about the calories you burn throughout the day and how concentrated exercise is absolutely important but it's such a teeny, tiny part of the calories you burn in a day.  The real calorie burning comes from life.... lots of it is from the powering of your body; heart, lungs, kidneys - you know the important stuff... but then the next biggest part is just how you move throughout the day.  Making dinner, picking up after the kids, doing laundry, going grocery shopping... yadda, yadda, yadda.

And whatever I was reading or maybe I was watching something said one of the best things you can do to add more calories burned throughout your normal daily living.  Like bring in your groceries one bag at a time, put your laundry away in very small piles... that kind of thing.  Just find more very intentional ways to move more throughout the day.

So I've been working on this.  At work - instead of waiting until I have several things to take throughout the office, I take each thing wherever it needs to go as soon as it's ready - even if I know something else will be going to the same place in just another minute or so.  At home, I'm doing whatever I can to find places to move more - in the kitchen, doing laundry, chasing after the kids - whatever I can. 

And of course I'm trying to put exercise in wherever I can too - walking around the rugby pitch when Jack has practice, getting in some treadmill time before work - whatever I can.

I just thought I'd through this out there to all of you lovelies.  In fact, I think I'm going to see what my pedometer says I'm doing now - not that I measured it before - but there's no doubt I'm moving way more these days!

Have a lovely week!!

I need an intervention...

Hello, my name is Read.  I'm addicted to carbs.


I don't know why this happened.  I swear it was never true before I got banded - or at least not like this.  I think it's about what I can eat easily... think mashed potatoes.

It doesn't seem to matter that the potatoes might suck - meh.  I'll still eat them.  Maybe throw in a little stove top stuffing too... Seriously! The only time I used to ever eat either of those things was when I was hung over.  That's always been my go to thing for hangovers - give me carbs or give me death.  But other than that... uh, not so much... until I got this thing in me... well maybe at thanksgiving - but... eh.

I swear I get home from work every day after eating really well and having been perfectly satisfied and then I'll eat something like... boxed mashed potatoes - I don't even like them.  What the hell is wrong with me.  I can't tell you how many boxes of this shit I've thrown in the trash.

I need an intervention - can you help??  I'm perfectly open to being slapped around, or to suggestions, or to having a "hit" man (though not one charged with death) being sent my way....

BYOC!!! Bring Your Own Crazy!!

It’s time for BYOC – Bring Your Own Crazy…a couple of questions we answer to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break! Copy and paste to your own blog and enjoy!

1. If you were asked to symbolize yourself as an animal – which animal would you be?

Good God... hmmmm.  Part of me wants to say an ostrich so I could just burry my head, but that's more do I want to be - and not really what I probably am... So.. I'm a turtle.  eh.. Not so glamorous, but I think I'm determined and resiliant and plod along in the direction I want to go.  I'm completely capable of hiding out and ignoring the world around me for a while, but when I come back out of my little self contained house, I'll start heading in the direction I want to go again - whether or not it's the direction someone else wants me to go.2. Did you ever play an organized sport – with coaches, rules and scoring? Tell us about it.

I swam, I'm not sure if that counts for what you're looking for or not, but I swam from age 7 or so until early high school.  I played softball as a young adult, but I never played a highschool sport.  I wish now I did, but I way too shy to every try such a thing back then.

3. When did you start shaving your legs?

I swear to God I don't have the slightest clue.  I can remember being in college and thinking it was a pain in the ass and I only did it when I had to - like if there was a man or shorts involved - so sometime before then, but that's as close as I can get.


4. When you’re in a crabby – pissy – want to stab everyone you see kind of mood – what do you do to get out of it or do you revel in it?

I tend to retreat when I'm in a shitty mood because it's far, far too easy for me to take it out on the world and I completely recognize that.  I am generally pretty even tempered however and so it doesn't happen too often.  And what I do to get out of it??? hmmmm I'm not sure.  I think I try to distract myself; by reading a book or talking to a friend.  Occassionally I'll decide my mood is more about me needing to work something out in my brain and I'll talk it out with Camille if that's the case and usually that helps, or at least moves me along the path.

5. Repeat question: Summarize your week in blogland and in real life.

Blog Life -  is lovely.  OMG - you guys are so flat out wonderful.  Talk about making a girl feel good about herself.  Thank you so much for all the lovely comments about my hair cut.  Today it looks a little like someone set a red curly mop on top of my bald head, but I'm not worried about it.  It'll probably take me the rest of the weekend to figure out what to do with it and in the meantime, I'm loving the length!  I'm enjoying the BOOBs challenge and am eagerly watching Barbara's recover and Stephanie's continued recovery from their respective surgeries.  I for one am so glad they have both been so gracious about sharing their journies with us - one day I imagine I'll be following in their footsteps in one way or another - so thanks to both of you!!

Real life - I'm sticking with eh.  Teddy's at camp so there's much less fighting.  Brad gave Jackson an amazing week of fun and daddy time.  They hit the zoo, went bowling twice, to the pool.  Jack also got to play on the big trampoline, watch a private fireworks show, and hang out with his best friend Jake as well.  He was so tired today he turned down the acquarium.  But... The icing on the cake was the whipped cream fight.  So.. Jack and Jake have been wanting to have a whipped cream battle for months and months.  They have been planning it out forever - they wanted to take the pressurized cans of whipped cream and shoot them at each other.  They've been patiently waiting until it was warm enough and finally yesterday was the day.  So Brad got the necessary supplies and let them have at it.  Apparently the only way the pressure in the can works (unless your victim is lying on the ground) is in that first initial spurt of stuff.  Beyond that they discovered that it woked best if you squirted a bunch in your hand and threw it at your opponent.  (I for one think this is good information to have for the future.)  Then Jake went home and Jack was nice and freshly showered when I got home in time to take him to rugby practice.

We get to rugby practice and after a while there was a lightening delay at practice so we're hanging out by the cars waiting and I'm chatting with this other dad and I kept getting whifs of this awful smell.  But we're in a parking lot and of coures who knows what kinds of things are out there, from dead animals to condoms to old food - so I didn't think too much about it.  The storms came through full force and we headed home in a serious downpour.  And during the ride home I continued to get the occassional whif.  You know what,  I just put a box of stuff in my trunk that had been in the garage for a couple of months.

Of course with my luck there will be a dead bird or something in that damn box - whatever, I'll deal with it when I get home.  I drive almost everywhere with my top down so the smell could have been there for a while and I might not have even noticed, this was the first time in a long time that I had to have the car closed up tight and there's definitely something there.  We get home and I check out the trunk.  huh.  It seems to be fine.  I was sort of thinking that maybe some yogurt or even a gallon of milk had gotten left in the trunk from a recent grocery trip - the smell was sort of sour milk-ish - totally delightful.  But no, trunk is good.  I open the car back up and it's definitely inside - but I drive a convertible - there's nothing anywhere, or it'll be blown out of the car so the car is always clean of any and all debris.  I open the windows so it can air out and head in to make dinner.

Move onto this morning.... I'm about to leave for work and I go to kiss Jackson goodbye and I'm knocked flat on my ass by the smell eminating from that boy's head.  I take a closer look and his hair appears nearly black in places and it's all matted down.  Lessons I've taken from this incident are; 1) 10 year old boys can not be trusted to do an adequate job of cleaning whipped cream out of their hair and 2) dried and warmed whipped cream smells NASTY!!!

I got a hair cut...

What do you think??  I actually showed my woman pictures of Joey, but since I don't have her amazing neck I told her I wasn't ready for it to be that short.  I think I love it, but it'll take me a few days of playing with it to really see what I have.

Here is where I am...

I can only do what I can do.  Isn’t that the truth?  I read a post the other day from Dinnerland and it totally got me thinking.  You know what?  I gained a few pounds.  I can hide from that, sure.  I can refuse to ever get on the scale again.  I can make excuses; I can bitch and moan about why and how.  But… who cares.  It just doesn’t matter how I got here… okay, I don’t actually believe that completely.  Certainly it matters how we got here.  How we got anywhere.  But if I spend all my time and energy on trying to figure out what got me here, when (and if) I finally figure it out, I’ll still be here.  I need to spend the lion’s share of my time and energy on moving from here. 

I can only do what I can do – I can only get up today and decide to make good food choices, decide to exercise, decide to blog, decide to read things I know will inspire me to continue to make good choices.  I’m here.  Here is where I am, I can only move from here.  The things I do today can bring me one step closer to where I want to be. 

Do I think it’s important to try to figure out how I got here?  Sure.  I think understanding that, or trying to, can help me try to avoid the same pitfalls next week or next month.  But, I can’t *only* try to figure it out, blame it away, cry and moan about it – I have to do something about it too.  I have to move from here, because here is where I am. 

This is true with marriage too, don’t you think?  You can be mad and defensive and full of anger and blame about what has changed and what you did wrong or how you got here, but… who cares.  Okay, there is probably very valuable information in there – knowing how we got here, where here is – this is all good, I’ve no doubt – but if there’s no connection today, then there’s no connection today.  And I need to move from here, because here is where I am.  The bridges won’t get built again because I know what broke them down.  I may be able to support them better for the knowing, but just knowing won’t build them.  I have to stand here, right where I am today and decide to build them.  I can work, and work hard, to figure out how to build them stronger – but I have to decide to build them first.  I have to decide to move from here, because here is where I am.

BYOC!!! Bring Your Own Crazy!!

It's time for BYOC - Bring Your Own Crazy!  A few questions we answer in an effort to get to know each other better and to give our blogging brains a break. Copy and paste to your own blog if you wish.  Enjoy!!

1.  Let's stick with the pictures/exercise and shoe topic and post a picture of (or describe) your work out shoes.

Unfortunately I'm at work at the moment and the shoes in question are at home so no pictures for me.  Currently, I'm wearing Nikes and the swoosh is pink - they're very cute.  Nike's wide shoes seem to fit me perfectly now.  I've gone back and forth between New Balance and Nike, and right now - it's Nike, but that could totally change.

2.  Again with the summer/hot theme of the week....what does your current swimsuit look like?

I have a couple - a brown one with a pattern on it, a solid navy blue one, a dark green one.  They all follow a similar theme.  They have deeply plunging necklines that show my girls off to advantage and I always wear swim shorts or a skirt, depending on the suit so as not to frighten the masses with my scary thighs.

3.  Do you lay out, fake bake, sunless spray tan or use tanning lotion?

I can't lay out.  When I was younger I would try, I swear.  I'd get out there.  Get myself all set up.  The chair or the sand just how I wanted it.  The towel just so.  The book... the drink...  the music... everything just right.  And then... I'd lay there.  About 3 minutes later someone would have to hold me down from killing myself.  I still have bald spots from the hair I pulled out.  I did manage not to kill all the people who look like they are actually enjoying laying about doing nothing in the sun.  I'm sure these are the same people who think weeding is relaxing.  Both things completely escape me.  I mean seriously.  Why would you lie down in the hot sun and sweat when you could lie on a cool couch and not?  (at least weeding accomplishes something, but those people are still nuts!)  I do enjoy being tan though, and watching my kids play sports all weekend long goes a long way towards that.  I will occassionally purposely choose a tank top to wear to a sporting event to allievate any farmer's tan I've got going, but that's as close as I come.

4.  Describe your week in blogland and in real life.

In blogland - I'm getting caught up, but I'm not there yet.  I was really, really behind.  I'm looking forward to the BOOBs challenge and was so thrilled to see that Justine's husband surprised her with a trip to Chicago!!!  How great is that!

In real life - eh.  We had our 1^st counseling appointment.  (Wait, can I just say this is so not like me.  I’m not one to tell people what’s going on in my private life.  I’m a very private person about all things personal and here I am telling all you crazy bitches people my personal business.  I swear I’m gonna deny all this when I get to Chicago!  I do find though that it does help me; it’s both cathartic and often helps me get my thoughts straight – so seriously thank you from the bottom of my heart for being so supportive of my ranting and raving – not to mention for not running screaming in the other direction!!)  But... I guess we'll see.  I'm very glad we went and are going.  It turns out Brad is pissed as shit.  Like seriously mad.  I'm apparently a very mean and unfair person.  He's mad that I don't give him credit for all the wonderful things he does, mad that I refer to the repeated situations where he said he would do "X" and then didn't do "X" as examples where he lied to me (the nerve of me), mad that he feels he has to be defensive all the time, mad that I was mad at him and ripped him a new ass hole last year.  And no doubt the straw that broke the camel's back in our marriage was something stupid he did right after I had lap band surgery a year ago tomorrow - it was a perfect storm.  The thing he did was stupid - not mean or malicous. 

There's no doubt that it, in and of itself didn't deserve the intensity of my reaction.  But as I told him then and many times since then - it was the last straw. Lots of straw had been piled on that poor camel's back.  I'd been trying to get him to listen to me for years, trying to make him see there was a problem and he kept saying, I'll do this or that and then he wouldn't (which is not lying) which used to be just not who he was - his word was his bond.  It just happened to hit all the buttons I have and not only prevented him from being able to take care of me after surgery but required me to take care of him and to have pack up my son and take him up to camp and sign him in for his two weeks away which is a two or so hour process after more than an hour drive on a 104 degree day.  I had to stop for diaharea a few times up and there and back (as many of you can remember from the days immediately following surgery).  And I couldn't take any drugs, other than that disgusting liquid tylenol because, hello, I was driving not to mention I had my son with me.  I was in pain, nauseated, and miserable.  So it was one of the worst days of my life ever and it happened about 48 hours after I hit the recovery room from surgery and there's no doubt - it snapped my usualy control and I was pissed as hell and let him have it with both barrels.  So sue me.

I'm a little stunned that after this really shitty year we've had, where I've been all but begging him to do something - talk to me, go to counseling, do any damn thing.  That he's had all this amazing anger in there not making the slightest peep.  We've had the most passionless (and I'm not talking about sex though it certianly fits there too) marriage for a while now - and I'm sitting there next to him in that room and all this passion is just spewing forth from him and I was left dead shocked - not at the anger so much - but at the passion.  Like where the hell has that been.  You can't be happy in this passionless place we live while there's all this passion living inside you, can you??  He said lots of things that in my mind are just nuts, but that's ok too.  He latched on to a few things here and there that he's really fixated on and built up in his brain as I guess justification for all this anger.  I brought a copy of the post I wrote about our marriage on 5/18 because I thought it did a really good job of talking about where I was and how I got here and she had me read it aloud at the beginning - then 80% of the rest of the time was Brad being mad. 

When all is said and done, I liked the woman and thought she did a good job of highlighting the important stuff and I think it's a really good thing that he could begin to get that out of him - or at least begin to process that.  Mabye that will help.  We'll see.  I remain open.