Just forgot to add that I'm going to be working the next two days on Billboard Sky and PTSD. Started this morning by adding a small paragraph to each. Links to both in my profile.

Today is our 11th year wedding anniversary... we were gonna go see a movie, but both movies we want to see aren't playing in the late morning/early afternoon. We don't have a heck of a lot of time because we have to go to Winter's classroom for 2 o'clock to see his "portfolio", which is his best work of the year. He's pretty excited about this... :)

We'll most likely go driving around looking at furniture today... we need new kitchen chairs, the kids have pretty much demolished the ones we got 3 years ago, which is probably normal for a length of life for chairs in most families. At some point we'll end up getting icecream cones and maybe going for a walk on the boardwalk at the beach. It's pretty hot out already... thinking we should actually go to the beach again when the kids are out of school later on. Even if just for an hour. Then grill up some chicken and make a nice salad. Maybe get some wine coolers.

I was looking at Kenny this morning as he slept... I'm still in shock it's been 11 years. We've been through so much together, and as I softly scratched his back for a bit before I got outta bed, I was thinking of what a good, good man he is. And such a sexy, hairy guy, hahaha! :) On a sexual level, no guy has ever made me go kaboom as often and as strongly as Kenny does. I think that's one of the reasons, seriously, that our marriage is as solid as it is. He pleases me, I please him. It's that simple... sex is so basic, I'm sometimes freaked out that it becomes an issue in other marriages... women are wired different, there's no doubt about that, but sex actually makes things go better mentally (I know I'm more alert when I'm sexually content) which can help a marriage get through some of the bumps smoother... if a combination effort of parenting advice, media and other forms of influence could suggest to women it's ok to enjoy sex on a personal level, not as a duty, but as a fantastic physical experience for oneself, maybe there'd be one less influence on the divorce rate (lack of sex has killed many marriages).

For all our disagreements, something was gained each time that built the foundation of our marriage on beams of steel. Some silly arguments we have had made our marriage therapist from years ago laugh. Like the time I wanted a divorce because Kenny wouldn't let me wear his underwear under my skirt for a bachelorette party (my plan was to jump up on a table and strip down to the men's breifs and bra...)

Or the time we actually were being sabbotaged by a disgruntled employee, who planted her ID in his car and had her father call me up to tell me lies. That took us over 3 years to sort out. It's what landed us in the therapist office after 2 years of trying unsuccessfully to sort it out on our own. It just kept creeping back into the marriage, like thick stemmed ivy breaking the foundation walls of a building. It would have kept making things weaker if we hadn't confronted it, discussed it honestly and brutally bluntly, and turn it into something that strengthened our marriage rather than ruin it.

It's not so much about communicating... we did that all the time. The problem was ineffective communication... knowing everything going on, solving nothing. Two sides to every story, sometimes even 8 sides to every story! Now we've actually become pretty effecient at solving things first, talking about them second, and moving on from it.

During typing this out, we've been playing a game of Scrabble on ISC... Kenny just beat me 380 to 350 (weird for both our scores to end in zero like that, not normal)... we're doing a rematch now and then we'll probably head out with some good tunes playing in the CD player and 11 years under our belts. :O)

The past few days have been a blur of 'oh no' and 'jesus fucking christ' and a lot of cleaning. I'm sometimes thankful for OCD, the organizing, dusting and arranging until your head feels clear or your body drops... it's a good, natural way to deal with things, I think. The house looks great and the two most major events this week seem to be stabilizing.

He's a year and a half here on this earth, and things changed forever this week when a pot of boiling water fell upon him, 3rd degree burns... so deep his lungs got burned. He's been put into a medically induced coma. His mom is the most doting mom I know, the most careful, the most protective... accidents really can happen in the blink of an eye. He'll be in Boston for at least a month and a half, probably much more. Each day that goes by he is that much closer to making it, but each day that goes by also reveals the extensive damage done. Going door to door on Sunday to take up a collection for gas money so she can travel to Boston from Cape Cod as often as needed without worrying too much about the rising gas prices.

I talked with Noodle yesterday about all this, she couldn't stop crying when she heard what had happened to the little guy, and it seems to have become that 'something bigger than yourself' moment in her life. A time of clarity... that the world can revolve around you and you alone, if you want to only focus on you... but when you look around yourself and see the things going on in other people's lives and the ways you can make a positive difference, instead of having a negative effect on your own out of boredom or complacency... I want to be hopeful that she will somehow grab hold of her life in a more 'put it to use' kind of way. She's so creative and bright, she could really have an amazing impact on this world.

My favorite phrases from the boys this week:

Winter: "that is so cool"
KC: "awesome"

Working most of this weekend, which will be good... floating between stores, organizing... just what I need more of so I can think, think, think.