I'm sitting outdoors on the porch tonight blogging. It's probably in the low 60's and I'm in heaven. It's so nice when we finally get out of the 80's at night.

It's been an interesting yet mundane couple of days. It's also been very peaceful and relationship affirming as well. Aaron (hubby) took his ClassB licensing exam on Thursday and passed on his 1st attempt! I'm so proud of him! He's one of the few operators at the plant who possess a B License, and he gets almost $1.00/hour pay raise from it. Supposedly it's the hardest exam to pass~ the A License will be easier but he has to wait 2 years before he can take that one. And that one will givehim the opportunity to become management if he wishes, or stay in his current position as an operator and receive another good raise. Since this stresshas ended things has beena lot smoother between us, andcoupled with my Mom beinggone on vacation and personal time for us to workon our issues has been wonderful. Many ofyou know that I'm a incest survivor, so I have avery hard time with being touched, even with my husband. Butthe last few nights we've worked ontrust-through-touch stuff. Nothing sexual in nature, just getting me torelax and allow myself toenjoy having someone touch me without feelingfreaked out and defensive about it. And it's also been helpful to him too, because I forget that he wants affection from me, even if it's not sexual. Even if it's just to rub his back or run my fingers through his hair for awhile or massage his hands and feet. It's been eye-opening and beautiful for me.

Yesterday afternoon when our son got home from school we all headed to the beach for awhile. And one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen happened to transpire while we were there. The sun was far to the west, about 2 hours from setting, and dark grayish-blue clouds were converging over the ocean much further out. As I watched the most intense rainbow I've ever seen appeared from the ocean and arced out above the waters, glowing neon against the dark clouds behind it. It was so awe inspiring! I managed to take a picture with my phone but it didn't do it ANY justice… it was one of those things you'd have to be there for.

Today we've been running around getting necessities and then doing up the Halloween decorations. Zach and I made jack-o-lanterns out of the carvable styrofoam pumpkins, which is really cool because in Florida the humidity turns real pumpkins into goo within 4 days with the heat added into the mix. These will last the whole month of october and even into the next few yearsif I pack them away gently. And they were only a dollar apiece! Can't beat that. 🙂

The only things I have to complain about really is that my son decided to run at me and jump on me (all 57 pounds of him) and managed to possibly fracture my ring finger on my right hand. He crashed his kneecap into mine, with the tip of my finger in between catching all of his weight. I ended up going and buying a finger splint that has an ice/heat pack fit to the finger that you're supposed to apply 4-5 times a day. I thought about going to the ER or a walk-in clinic, but there's nothing they're going to do except charge me over 100 dollars togive me a splint and maybesome painpills. We have leftover pain pills here, so I'm not going to bother with it.

The other sad news is that my Uncle really isn't doing much better. He came through thesurgery and was coherent and himself for a short while, but hasn't been since, and that was days ago. He's developing congestion in his chest and they're concerned about pneumonia, and they're siphoninghis lungs to remove the liquid accumulating. He's been moved out of ICU into something called PCU, which is a step downin intensity. But he still constantly has to be on Ativan (anti-anxiety med) because when he's with it he's always trying to pull out the IV's and drains and the electrodes off of him. At least the violent phase has passed.

Monday I'm going to go see him. Now that he's out of ICU I think I can handle a short visit to be with him, and maybe my presence and familiar voice will soothe him. Since Mom's away for 2 weeks it now falls to me to be my Aunt's back-up system when she gets too tired or nutty from being stuck in there too long. Maybe I'll just take a book and read while I hold his hand as he sleeps, and talk with him a little bit if he wakes up. I love him, and at one point considered asking him to walk me down the aisle when I got married because I didn't want the fighting between my dad and my step-dad over the rights to that, and would have been proud to have him give me away. For my 16th birthday party they threw it at their house because my stepdad refused to haveone at our own home…so they decorated and hung up lights and did the cake and sweet sixteen stuff for me. <3 And really, during those days my Uncle was one of the few people that could talk some sense into my stepdad about his behavior towards me and resentment from both sides that was very close to hate. Dick always managed to take the edge off of John (stepdad) for at least a little while. I always appreciated that so much. John was drinking a LOT then and was a mean drunk…and I was usually the target. Of course my fiery temper didn't help things any either. (sigh) Sometimes you wish you could go back and talk to yourself at the age you are now, knowing what you know and give advice on how to survive it all intact. But I can't, so I'm still putting the pieces back together and trying to salvage the good and let go of the bad.

Tomorrow I'm not sure what the plans are, but I hope we can find something fun and inexpensive to do for at least part of the day. Oh, and tonight I finally confessed to Zachary that I'm the one who's been putting up all the Halloween decorations while he's been sleeping. He was relieved, lol. Now he's gotten into the full spirit of it and that's what I wanted- for him to enjoy it. 🙂

Love, peace and gentleness be with you all right now.

~Key