<p>Glad I could spark an idea for you RM!!! :)</p>
<p>Today would have been D1’s anniversary. I didn’t acknowledge it before she left for work. She is meeting her sister after work today. sigh…</p>
<p>We have a yellow jacket nest behind the brick around our garage. H and I have been trying to spray but it is not working! May have to call in some exterminators.</p>
<p>Oh northminn - hugs to your D1. Was that 2 years ago or three?</p>
<p>PS We just used the bullet spray on a few nest that were under the eaves of our back entryway that we rebuilt this weekend. To say that the yellowjackets dropped like flies is an understatement.</p>
<p>rochmom - I have no ideas for you. If H wants something, he buys it. Immediate gratification is his mantra. Lately, I’ve been buying concert tix to upcoming events.</p>
<p>woody…three years ago. </p>
<p>I am not admitting defeat yet with the yellow jackets! We can’t see the nest as it is behind the brick. They are crawling in through the mortar cracks if that makes sense. We keep shooting in spray and last night I duct taped a plastic container with a spray soaked paper towel over the opening. There were at least 100 dead yellow jackets in there this morning but it had come loose sometime and there are still more swarming. </p>
<p>NM, hugs to your D1!</p>
<p>RM, does your H have any desire to learn or brush up on a foreign language? If so,maybe he would appreciate Rosetta Stone or private/small group language instruction.</p>
<p>Good luck, NM. If they are behind the brick and there are that many of them, it may be time to call in an exterminator (if you still keep seeing them after all your efforts).</p>
<p>NM good luck with the yellow jackets. We had hornets that were under the siding. I could HEAR them inside my bedroom. Of course H didn’t believe me until one day when they were fairly noisy and I went and got him to hear them. He contacted an exterminator since they were in the wall. I am severely allergic so I didn’t want them to eat through the drywall and appear in the bedroom. 
</p>
<p>MP - now my H wouldn’t want to do anything that remotely has to do with a foreign language! For the longest time I couldn’t get him to go to Canada because he might not be able to be understood. I mean REALLY? I finally convinced him that as long as we didn’t go to Montreal he would be fine (and well even then English isn’t scarce at all). 
He took French in HS but can’t speak or understand any. Now me I would LOVE something like that!</p>
<p>RM, has he given you any gifts in that category, i.e., gifts he thought you would love but didn’t but he really loved it? My H has given me those kind of gifts fairly often. Maybe you could reflect on something he was very excited to give to you and buy him something similar.</p>
<p>MP - no he’s fairly good about getting me things he knows I would like. I will say that in the past he has been excited to give me jewelry but he doesn’t wear any – doesn’t even have a wedding ring but that is because of working in IT and doing woodworking. He has trouble just wearing a watch – jewelry just bothers him. :)</p>
<p>RM - does he have a fitbit? They are definitely the thing to wear around here I’ve noticed. Lots of bikers, runners, hikers. </p>
<p>Sorry about your D1, NMN - I am sure she is feeling a little defeated, but I also hope she spends tonight not looking back at what went wrong but focuses on a future where she can see she likely dodged a bullet! By the way, what ever happened to the guy? Does she even speak to him or hear of him from mutual friends?</p>
<p>The rain here is really getting to me. I need a sunshine filled day in the worst way!</p>
<p>D1 started school yesterday. Staff meetings and stuff. She is so excited she is much like the second graders she’ll be teaching!! I am glad she has some older, wiser mentors to teach along side with.</p>
<p>S has not received rejections nor interviews…. yet. Based on what I read on this SDN forum, this is actually not horrible news. But I do hope he at least gets one soon from our instate. Still in the running at Mayo apparently too… but really, I just want one interview on his schedule! He might use work to come up next week since it’s all about healthcare. There’s a couple talks on innovation in delivery and then too, a good networking opportunity for his company. I didn’t hear back from him today so maybe it didn’t fly… :)</p>
<p>H and I had our first “fight” of the summer, which honestly I am surprised it’s gone as well as it has. And not really a fight as much as a “I really can’t talk to you at all right now.” He has definitely changed the way I spend my time and I always feel like I am on my best behavior vs an authentic self. He’s sort of critical and I never have had that experience here. Plus, because he is here, I don’t even hang out with the girls like I used to. Not sure how I feel about that right now, but thinking it’s residual irked-ness. We were supposed to go to the play tonight but I was so annoyed, I bagged the whole thing. Plus, we are still not on the same page about buying a house and I simply don’t get it because he has no plan in lieu of it either! Plus, why does everything get “decided” by him? It’s like a get an opinion - but never sure it counts for much.</p>
<p>Yep… I need a hugely sunny day!</p>
<p>I hope you get your sunny day. I was watching the news this morning and it was strange hearing of so much flooding; we’re experiencing a drought here.</p>
<p>Moda - he doesn’t have a fitbit - not sure that he would like it. He can barely wear a watch. Typically he does through 4 watches a year due to crashing on the bike. Yup it’s not that he isn’t a good biker – it’s that he does fast and if someone or something (think wildlife here) pops out in front of him he has to set the bike down. So far he has only received some road rash and gone through watches and pants.</p>
<p>I totally understand about the opinion thing. I’m almost at the point of “it obviously doesn’t matter what I want. Since it’s all about you you can decide.” My H won’t like that at all but I really want to start doing some changes to our house and he is just dragging his feet. He agrees that it needs to be done but I can’t get him to DO any of it and he refuses to pay someone. I’m almost at the point of hiring a painter and having it just done when he’s at a race. I did schedule someone to come in to measure to replace our vertical blinds on our 3 sliding doors. I’m thinking honeycomb – I’m just sick of the verticals.</p>
<p>Moda, do you think that down deep, your H is on some level envious of your summers in the nook?</p>
<p>Moda, we, or I guess that would be me, is still adjusting to having H around more. He works 1/2 time but much shorter days. He is happier and I would not take tht away from him. I, however, am totally out of my routine and am not enjoying the days nearly as much. I did talk to him that when he has 4-5 days off in a row and we have now real plans that it is not working for me. I help set his schedule so am going to change things up. Also, if we do not have a definite plan I go ahead and make my GF or class plan. H tends to hover and watch othes (drives D nuts) but I am getting good at ignoring him. He needs more to do and maybe I need more to do but seperately. Yesterday I had him take a few of the drawer fronts off as they need work and before we hire someone decided I would give a try. Of course H has his own ideas on how to proceed (having never refinished anything in his life while I have) and I had to find a different but needed project for him. It is all bittersweet but think if we moved to a condo he would not even have the yard to work in.
Not knowing where we were going to live and not holding the reigns would be VERY upsetting to me.</p>
<p>H gave me the best B-day card. He know I hate cards as see them as a waste of $ but this was perfect. There is a woman at the dinner table with her 2 kids, dog, and H. Only she has a plate of food. “OH, I’m Sorry! I seem to have neglected to make dinner for anyone but myself! HAHAHAHA”.</p>
<p>I am waiting to see what H thinks he wants to do with his life…stay at home dad who after next week will have no kids at home. I don’t think he has any inclination to become a great cook, or gardener, or scrapbooker, or decorator, or community volunteer, or poet, or any of the myriad other things that stay at home moms do when the nest is empty. I haven’t said a word to him about it, but others have. The only thing I have mentioned to him is that he should audition for local musicals, even if he “works” for free, because his voice is still great, his diction is perfect, and he can be very funny onstage.</p>
<p>I have been pondering my future, too. I always have a big project that keeps me busy and this year is different in that I have nothing planned! I am a bit stumped at what I want to do. No weddings or construction on the horizon. No big trips to plan. No college tuition to pay for. I am truly free to do what I want to do. Now I just have to figure it out! H still has a few years before retirement but when he takes time off he follows me around and wants to know what I plan on doing. Always over my shoulder. I told him that wouldn’t work so he needs to find something he is passionate about and quit waiting for me to make plans for him. We shall see.</p>
<p>Interesting conversation. H and I both have hobbies that occupy us that the other doesn’t do. I knit and would love to get into spinning. I want to join the knitting and spinning guild which a friend is in but currently with work don’t have time. I also sew and love to read and when I can love to decorate the house. H does woodworking, hiking and I’m sure will spend a fair amount of time exercising once he retires. I see my retirement days as some time at the gym (not with him as I go to a women’s only place), some cleaning and then hobby time. I’m assuming that H will do the same. I’m sure that what will annoy me the most will be when he wants to know what’s for lunch because I have a tendency when I’m home alone to eat a late breakfast and not really eat lunch.</p>
<p>Hmmm…DH and I are embarked on a software development project using Agile methods. So far, so good.</p>
<p>I’m going to go look at those fitbit’s – that might be a nifty present for his birthday. </p>
<p>I cant imagine what retirement would be like with my husband. We both need a fair amount of alone time and do not like the same things. He can be sort of passively controlling. I can see myself getting annoyed easily.
NM hugs to your daughter. Do you ever hear from her ex?
I am starting school soon pretty nervous. I guess that is what I am doing with the empty nest. I am also more interested in flowers, love to decorate. </p>
<p>You will be a star student dt because you will see so many levels and angles to everything.
I told H that I don’t do breakfast or lunch. At least until he starts doing dinners.
I find his lack of direction difficult. I thinks he will figure it out but for now I feed him ideas and things to do.
Just now he asked if we are going hiking or canoeing tomarrow. Hmmm, thought I would go shopping…</p>
<p>I have lived with a retired H for 15+ years now. We figured it out eventually. Still he has NOT figured out I need quiet time with my coffee - not after 35 years of marriage. What can you do? </p>
<h1>TS headed back to school (he lives in a condo about a mile from campus) with his Dad’s car. He has done without one for the first 2 years there, but we thought he might get out more if he had some wheels and be more willing to go shopping when necessary and get over to the school to work (he has confided that he needs to be at school to get any work done) with the rainy weather there. FIngers crossed.</h1>
<p>I don’t think he loves what he is doing, but I think he feels good at it and that it is something he <em>can</em> do - meanwhile not minding doing it. He is such a math wizard I had hoped he would lean that way, but either for his own lack of imagination or the lack of guidance and support back when he was at his other college, he could not picture a <em>job</em> in the type of math he likes to do. So he opted for programming which he says he can see himself doing (and he is very good at it as well as the compiler building and the game designing although he says his strength is programming). </p>
<p>I suppose many of us change our focus over time. I did in some ways but not in others. I am trying to be a good cheerleader and by all reports, if you can make it through their program (which is the big if) you will find a job. Our focus for him was never finding a job, but it turns out, the ability to find one (that he can tolerate and do well) is extremely important to him. We really wanted him to explore many different things, find his passion, and we didn’t really care how long it took. He has other plans (though it IS taking a good while LOL) </p>
<p>He has found a choral group and is back to singing. He and a couple other students even started their own a cappella group. It makes me very happy that he has found vocal performance again.</p>
<p>Are your kiddos all happy with their chosen paths so far? Anyone thinking of going back to school or continuing in something entirely different?</p>
<p>Better get to bed. Up at 5 tomorrow and mornings are not my forte.</p>
<p>Thank you all for requesting the link to my book. I did the cover art as well, and I am pretty proud of it.</p>