update

work is hard core - not much time

we're ramping up into a busy period and some of my servers have been under attack since last week. I have such brutal headaches - i'm hunched over screen and just completely tense about it.

so, between kids, work, servers, and Smitten I have had just about zero time to come visit everyone.

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told mrs_c that the counseling agency I have booked for the kids (the one she agreed to) has a policy that the parents couldn't be involved in a custody dispute and couldn't be heading into one

she was pretty upset about that. she's supposed to phone to confirm their attendance at counseling and her approval of such and said she would

i'm waiting

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my lawyer isn't goddamned phoning me back this week

that pisses me off

she should at least have her assistant call me

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i haven't been able to get to exercise as much as i wanted this last week. i don't like that. i want to be healthy, i want to reach my personal goal (5-10 more lbs will do it for me), and i want to be slim for Smitten.

i am trying to buff up so that i have better definition all over. i am pretty darn close on weight, but now tone is king. i am giving myself a year to achieve substantial success on the muscle tone i am looking for. i think the results of this last year of effort have been pretty good, so another year is a good timeline (yes, i am trying to psych myself up for it).

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went to an art show that my friend was the curator for - he is also an artist. one of the local art guilds. I will refer to this friend in postings as Artist (I'm so original... hey, stuffed animals in our house had creative names like "brown bear" and "pink pony").

Artist is the show co-ordinator for 3 different local guilds and he invited Smitten and I to the show so that he could have an excuse to meet her sooner than later. I provide free web hosting and computer/internet/web site instruction for various art guilds and community organizations, so I am a "patron" of this guild and other artistic groups of various types in our community.

Smitten loved going to the show. She loved that I had put it together as an outing and that I had/have friends who are artists and who do artsy things. She said she was "starved" for this kind of activity in her life (her ex-husband was more of a, uh, ball cap wearing sports dude - which she doesn't want to denigrate, she wants him to be happy, she just wants something else).

Artist, Artist's wife, Smitten, and I went for drinks after the show. It was a lot of fun. This is a couple that Mrs_C and I had socialised with. Really the only people outside of her family (and mine to a limited extent) that we had any interaction with (Mrs_C only wanted to socialise with her family).

It was a lovely time.

My friend called me on Monday and said "Oh my god, is she ever a doll! Artist's wife (who was, um, unsure going in) thinks Smitten is pretty fabulous too. That was nice validation.

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We also went to a coin/currency and stamp show on the weekend. Another friend of mine is the public education and recruitment chair for the local coin society. He was one of the organizers for the show. Smitten thought this was pretty cool too.

I bought her a few low cost and but interesting coins - 17th century China, colonial Caribbean, 18th century Greece, and some others.

I'm not a collector guy. I'm a history guy. I like to have the pieces because they evoke history. I could give a shit about the value. So the Chinese coin above cost a buck, and the Greek coin was 50 cents. But they're a couple of hundred years old and look REALLY cool. That's what I like.

I had already gotten Smitten and her kids some Roman coins from my buddy. It is so cool to hold a 1650 year old copper coin in your hand and wonder where it was used and by whom. They are not "collector" quality, but they are legible.

And my friend gave them to me for free (he has bags of these). They'd only be about $3-$5 to buy, but it is still the very notion of having a coin that old in your hand.

Smitten was pretty blown away.

I was going to present them to her kids when i was going to meet them on Monday, but kid's activities got in the way of that plan. Soon enough.

I was completely open about the fact that I want to have her kids associate me with something pretty cool (in my mind at least...) - real Roman coins. I believe i termed it "A cheesy attempt at a bribe." She was delighted and moved that I would be that interested/concerned/engaged regarding meeting her kids that I would want to impress them enough to be creative in my "bribery" attempt.