When I was working, I would walk for 30 min and I had a 30 min rt commute, so I got 60 min of listening to audio books in every day, so I burned through a lot of audio tapes. I started lisa gardner and they were good, but they got to be so much more of the same, that I'd read the blurb and have no idea if I'd read that one or not. I read some of the prey series...eyes of prey was just too chilling...but given past life events, I can no longer do the super graphic serial killer type things any more...they are just too upsetting. The Grafton alphabets are much more my speed. Now I get books on tape out of the library when we do a driving trip...the two of us have laughed our trips along listening to the Evanovich mysteries...makes driving much more pleasant.

I'm not holding much hope that things will work out now. The latest thing has been going on for over a year and when my sister ended up by chance running into my mom she asked to come for dinner and did and then things just escalated out of control. I guess because she talked to my mom, my dad flipped out and they ended up filing charges on my mom saying she has abused my sister physically. I don't believe it one bit as my sister was always the good kid and did what she was told, vs. I was the one always in trouble and arguing with my mom and she never lifted a finger on me though I would have deserved it and drove her nuts. I got an e-mail from my sister written the way my dad writes a letter (when I get mad at him and tell him to act like a grown up he sends a letter that he tries to explain why his way is the right way and I just end up not talking to him after that as his reasons just make me even madder). In this e-mail she is telling me our mom physically abused her since I moved to the US (very convenient for my dad) and listed all her injuries and hospital visits. The part that is the strangest to me is that those are all things that she did while playing soccer, basketball, skiing, and/or happened at school. All very public injuries. which makes it even more unbelievable. What really kills me is that my dad think I'm going to fall for this. Guess he thinks I didn't know about any of it. This was reported to the police back in June and they have not done anything about it and indicating to my mom that they don't believe it either. Unfortunatley for my sister she had a brain anerysm (sp?) at 12 years old and her memory in some areas are not the best, as well as her emotions are more on a teenage level now that she is in her mid twenties. She is also very easily made to believe certain things (gullible in a way and she has always been that way even before the brain injury, just a bit worse now) What really bothers me is that my dad is taking advantage of this and thinks in his mind that he is doing her a favor as his letters to me indicates when I told him he wasn't the right person to talk to her about mom because of his obvious dislike of my mom. I'm very worried for my sisters mental well being and wish there was something I could do. I've tried e-mailing her, but don't get a response other than my dad calling me. She did have a boyfriend, but my dad managed to get her to get him to leave (according to him) as her BF would at times talk to my mom. The words your ex told you is basically what my dad told my mom right after the divorce too. I think because she is a strong woman and did ask for the divorce too, she crossed him and he can't let that happen. You seem like a strong woman too and since your son is grown up now he will eventually like me see what his dad really is and probably know in his heart that you've tried what you could to allow him a relationship with his dad. BTW thanks for listening. It is helping to just write some of these things out. I'm still reeling from my dad calling my cellphone (which he never does) on my birthday and trying to wish me happy birthday while I tried to say I didn't want to talk to him right now. I ended up just hanging up as I didn't want to destroy the day by having an argument that would go nowhere with him and only end up with one of his silly letters again. Oh BTW over the years my mom has recieved countless of hate letters from him. I saw a few by chance once and I think at that point I went into denial for a little while until I had the courage to call him on it. He admitted to it, but of course in his manipulative ways had a perfectly good explanation for it too. Well since I now have gotten a few of his weird letters myself I no longer believe his explanations. Also putting all the history of things he has done over the years etc together has gotten me to this point. Took me a long time to realize this (again you don't want to believe your parents are capable of these things) and some of my friends that have met him don't really want to believe me as they just think he's the nicest guy. I just don't understand why people with children have to put their children through this. I applaud you for raising your children like you did even though it must have hurt you and I'm guessing you must have been worried about your childrens emotional well being too, at least I would have. Oh and for those reading this and thinking I'm being paranoid that my dad is doing this. There is a whole lot more to the story and a lot of history to back it up. It would take a book to describe it all. I just tried to cover the latest as short as I could.

Oh that's a beautiful specimen. Reading about it, I'm sure I'd be glad to have a couple of those. I love the fact that it is fragrant. It has so many qualities and in looking at yours Natal it appears very hardy. How large was yours when you purchased it? I'm assuming you purchased it locally. What about you Wodka, same questions. Nice to know it grows from a cutting also. One of the things I want to do is plant fragrant vines and plants by the doors as I love that when I'm entering and exiting. Right now I have to walk around my neighborhood smelling all the neighbor's fragrant flowers. LOL Thanks for the information and photo's.

It doesn't matter if it's your first, second or fifth marriage, you have to look out for yourself because nobody else is. A second wife should not depend on a guy anymore than a first wife should. I agree that it's fair to be compensated when you put your career on hold to have children and take care of the family, but it's not fair to think you will walk away from the marriage with a better financial position than the person that is the higher wage earner. It's not fair but life's not fair. If it were, men would be giving birth, not us. Your advice KKNY to not get involved with a man with children and not expect him to provide financial and other support is good advice. I wouldn't date a guy that didn't see or support his children. I also wouldn't date a guy that talked bad about his ex. But, the flip side to that argument is that when you get divorced, you have to accept that when he gets remarried, he legally obligates himself to his spouse and possibly more children. His obligation to his first family don't go away and they shouldn't suffer because he remarries, but if he is able to support the new family by increasing his income, then it doesn't impact his first family. The problem is that when the ex wife sees his income go up (or the added income of his new spouse), then she wants her share to go up too. If his income goes up and he doesn't have more mouths to feed, then maybe it would be fair to give more to the first family. MAYBE. It also depends on the ex wife's financial situation. I agree with Ashley that an ex wife can't sit on her duff demanding increases because he's working his butt off to make more. She's not married to him, she needs to do for herself... how pathetic is that? My husband's ex has gotten spousal support for 12 years on a marriage that lasted only one year. (Well, she hasn't finalized the divorce, probably because the court may stop her spousal support) She will continue to get it until he takes her back to court to stop it. My guess is that he is afraid they will increase his child support and reduce the spousal support (which is tax deductible for him) and so he lets it go.