In class today, my teacher looked at my Ed-standing-in-the-American-River-goldpanning picture and loved it! He said I should print it larger, mat it and list it. He's had several students sell their photography on eBay. My friend Tim has sold about half a dozen prints in his eBay store. Interesting idea. I hadn't considered it before. I'm not sure if I will but it's an idea.

I had the strangest dream this morning. I dreamt that I got up and hopped in the shower but suddenly realized that I was wearing clothes. Somehow they weren't getting wet so I just quickly pulled them off, including my ballcap and socks, and tossed them onto the floor outside the shower. As soon as I turned around, though, I had more clothes on. Not a full outfit, just certain pieces. I'd pull off a sweater and when I turned around again, I had more clothes on--underwear and socks, another ballcap, jeans, a T-shirt, etc. I kept pulling off the clothes and tossing them on the pile which kept growing and growing. I was very frustrated that these clothes kept appearing on my body but it didn't seem all that odd to me. It was so strange. And I'd have clothes on that I wouldn't wear in real life like thong underwear and ultra-low-rider pants. I woke up before I got to get wet so it was very unsatisfying. I wonder if there's any symbolism there--wanting to get naked (vulnerable) but not being able to do it? The water being able to wash my grief away if I can just get to it? That could be true--I'm trying to screw up the courage to call Joey's therapist about treating me but I just can't bring myself to do it for some reason.

I spent a lovely hour visiting with Russell and "babysitting" Julia during Joey's piano lesson. We didn't talk about anything heavy, we just chatted about whatever came up. And Julia offered wonderful entertainment. She was so funny and so cute running around, hiding, playing, telling me the names of everything in the room, scaring me by standing up on her slide and trying to slide down on her feet, stuff like that.

I have a busy next two days--I need to spend a few hours in Joey's classroom tomorrow, painting a chair to be auctioned at the school fundraiser, and then in the afternoon, I need to cut 15 frames out of foam core for a church activity tomorrow night. And I need to find some time to go grocery shopping for the rest of the stuff I need for the shower. After the activity, I think I'll make at least some of the stuff for the party--perhaps the lime-coconut pie. I'll make the 3-layer lemon pie for Saturday morning and then clean the house up after that. The rest of the food is easy--the Chinese chicken salad is pretty much it. The rest of the food is easy--carrots and ranch dip, crackers with cream cheese and jalapeno jelly (mmmm--very tasty). And then I need to prepare the game for the shower on Saturday, then the shower is at 6pm with games to follow after the "undesirables" leave. (They're not really undesirable, they're just not part of our game playing group.) I should be doing more tonight but I'm not in the mood to do it. ::sigh:: Perhaps I'll write up my shopping list and a very detailed To Do list. That always feels like accomplishing something. (I'll even write that on my list so I can cross it off.)

Sunday, Ed and I have a date to sit down and write out a serious budget. We have to do some rearranging of our finances to get things in good order. We have some big expenses coming up and we'll have to prepare a financial statement for our adoption application so I want to get things squared away and clear up some debt we have. I sure hate the word budget, though. At the same time, I'm almost craving limits right now. I'm not sure what that's all about but I feel like I need some big limits, probably because I'm afraid that I'll use my usual method of treating depression and grieving which is shopping. I can do some serious damage to our bank account in very little time and with very little effort when I'm depressed or grieving. I'm afraid of doing that again. And I want to eliminate all our debt (except for our house). That will be a good thing.

I sure missed Diaryland today when it was down. Sheesh--how pathetic am I?

--L