A teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their vacation. One child wrote the following:

"We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida and now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people.

"They live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wrecked center, but they must have got it fixed, because it is all right now.

"They play games and do exercises there, but they don't do them very well. There is a swimming pool, too, but they all jump up and down in it with their hats on. I guess they don't know how to swim.

"At their gate, there is a dollhouse with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out. Then they go cruising in their golf carts.

"My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And they eat the same thing every night: Early Birds. Some of the people can't get past the man in the dollhouse to go out. So the ones who do get out bring food back to the wrecked center and call it potluck.

"My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and says I should work hard so I can be retarded some day, too. When I earn my retardment I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out so they can visit their grandchildren."

Well Sweetie has gone to bed early so now I can write it out without worrying about him reading over my soldier or me babysitting. You see right now his mother and step-father are in the process of getting a divorce. It became messy on Friday during my girls day with Mac. Sweetie's step-father is fighting back. Now before you start feeling bad about him I should tell you more about him. Sweetie's step-father who we shall call P was abusive during their entire marriage. He was never physically abusive but was extremely emotionally abusive. Because of this my Sweetie is disabled. This man who is in his early 80s and has been claiming to be dying for the past 25 wants as much as he can get. This man has NEVER done much of anything. Mom paid the bills, she has done everything. Sometimes he would pay insurance but that would be it. He'd bring home a gallon of milk and say that he did the groceries. He was earning more money than she was yet SHE was footing the bills! What did he spend his money on? Himself, his friends, himself. Yes I repeated myself on purpose. He'd use HER money to pay the bills and such, but HIS money was used for him alone. He would use it to go on vacation (by himself or with his friends, never with Mom). Now when Mom's mother died and left her some money Mom paid off the mortgage for the house. P eventually put the house in Mom's name only. Saying she paid for the majority of it, it should be in her name only. The land was HERS to begin with it came from her mother. Now P wants enough to get a place in Florida (currently he's living with his girlfriend in the next town over). This is NOT fair. The money from the sale of the house is supposed to buy us a new place in Massachusetts. NOT FOR HIM!!!! He has NO rights to it. I could go on and on but I don't to.

Anyway, I mentioned before that when Sweetie gets really depressed he cuts himself. Well today he ALMOST cut himself again. I've hidden the razors already, the only one he gets is the one he's currently using! But he took that one and almost sliced his wrist. We called his counselor and made an appointment for Thursday (our regular day) and I almost had to call the crisis line again. I gave him one of his pills and gave him one of the cats and he calmed down. We let him pick supper tonight and I've been snacking more than I should and ate more than I should at supper but after the stress of today I just don't care! I'm hating myself pretty bad at the moment because for a split second I almost.... no I can't even say it here it was too bad. Needless to say I was in a very bad place earlier. I've calmed down some and Sweetie is sleeping, he'll be touch and go for a few days but it'll be ok.

Sometimes I just don't know how much more of this I can handle. Don't get me wrong, we have some good times, many really good times, but we've got some bad times too and our bad times are REALLY bad. After all of this, I still love him, I love him more than anything. But what does this say about me? He keeps telling me I deserve someone better. What happens if I up and decide one day that I do? I can't bear to think about that. I feel if that happened I would lose everything. I couldn't even cry earlier. I always cry when he gets like this. Often times that's what turns the tables on him and gets him to be ok as he says that he hates to see me hurt. What does this mean that I didn't cry tonight? Am I becoming numb to this antics? Worse, am I getting used to them? Worst, am I starting to accept them? I don't know what to do but I sure as hell can't leave him alone.

For those of you new to my blog I'm sorry you had to find this. This is just part of my life.

This first one I'm going to tell happened in approximately 1997 or so. Could have been the year before, could have been the year after, it's not important when.

Anyway, I was over at H's house and her boyfriend G was there. G told us that he could see ghosts and he knew things. Now he COULD have been pulling our leg. But what happened throughout this evening and other stories I was told made me believe him. H said her house was haunted. Her uncle built the house and used to live there. He was now dead at this time. Throughout this evening she was telling us stories of things that happened in this house. My favorite was the time (actually this happened more than once), the entire family was sitting in the living room watching tv. The stairs to go upstairs were in the living room as well. H's dog was upstairs. They heard something sliding around upstairs so they shut their tv off. Next thing they saw was the dog sliding down the stairs (on a rug mind you) with his collar pulled out as if someone was dragging him down the stairs!!!! The dog was so frightened he had put the skids on the whole way. When he got down into the living room he took off with a whine and tail between his legs and hid. This happened to that poor dog more than once, but not the night I was there. I was mildly disappointed. I enjoy ghostly phenomena.

Anyway, that night while we were sharing ghost stories I felt something cold run through me. It didn't go up and down it went from back to front. I was sitting in a chair that was sitting kitty corner in the room. The only thing behind the chair was a light and I could feel it's warmth except when that ghost walked through me. I believe it was H's uncle. The night did not end there. It seemed H's uncle wanted to hang out with us for a bit. After awhile G was standing at the bottom of the stairs (in the direction that I felt the ghost walk through me actually). He looked up and told us that H's uncle was upstairs looking down at us. So of course we all rushed to the stairs to see (did I forget to mention there were about 5 of us there? oops lol). G pointed him out to us and the others (except H, she wasn't looking) said they could see him. I went aside to H and told her I couldn't see him. I was so disappointed. That's when H pointed him out to me. He wasn't actually standing where G said, G was just testing us. I saw him!!!!! I really saw where he was then.

I hope you enjoyed this one.

So I have a late night meal in the microwave (as I haven't had enough calories for the day... again...) and as I was heading out to go get it I was walking backwards towards my Sweetie. You see, Sweetie REALLY likes my butt. And I like it when I walk by and squeezes it, or caresses it and sometimes I fool around and make him kiss my butt cheeks. I know... I know... weird... but it's all in good fun. Well anyway, I was walking backwards towards him and I lifted my nightgown to show him my panties and I get closer he says "OMG I can smell it from here" Remember now that I've got some food in the microwave. Which is from Helen's Kitchen and it's Indian Curry. He WAS talking about the food and I knew that but it was just so damn funny.

I guess you just had to be there.