I'm glad everyone has good memories of those aluminum glasses. I am surprised that no one else had heard or or seen the sweat bands. Our neighbor across the street, Ann, used to invite me over quite a bit in the summer, or was it she just dealt with me very nicely when I'd drop by? LOL. She had tons of antiques and taught me how to use and recognize fine china, under the guise of a little afternoon tea. She's the first one that gave me iced coffee, although I'm sure all the milk and sugar she put in it helped make me like coffee ice cream when I don't really even drink coffee at all. They didn't have kids and therefore had a bit more money to spend on interesting modern things. She had the sweat bands that went on the aluminum tumblers that lots of other people had bare nekkid. I sat for many an hour on her back porch helping clean whatever bushels of produce were currently being canned. They also had a player piano and getting invited to go over to play that was one of my favorite summer memories. They're both sorely missed. I wanted to send something for fall or winter and since that little painting showed all those empty fall fields I thought it would be good. I started to get some big winter soup/coffee mugs but the decoration on them was a bit Christmasy. Green with trees or red with snowflakes. Smiles. I had an email about the picture so here's a closeup of it. I originally painted it to use as a Thanksgiving card and have, but thought it'd be good for this. I also figured all the tan fields might be a bit like Australia in Winter. It's one of my favorite old local farms. I'll make it a thumbnail so it can just be clicked if you want a closer look. Again, I'm so happy you like everything Colleen, even the 'drop cloth'. heh...

Then there was the blister pack where trying to open it caused the pill to crumble to powder no matter how careful I tried to be. How's that for effective dosage? I once spent almost an hour on the Internet tracing a prescription skin cream and lotion manufacturer to complain about their !@#$ packaging. The cream version was very thick and didn't flow. It came in a stiff-sided plastic bottle which couldn't be squeezed enough to force it out. The lotion version came with a pump that was boxed with the handle depressed, without directions, and which would not pop out no matter what I tried. When unscrewed, the tube carried with it far more of the cream than needed for one dose. Nor could the tube be easily removed. Their response was to refund one copay, but the refills are still just as bad. Fortunately, while I had the pump out spilling the lotion I somehow managed to get it to pop up (still don't know how I did it) and I've been transferring that pump to each successive bottle. It's certainly not sterile, aargh.

Hi all, I'm new. I just want to say that many of the issues you mention really aren't YOUR issues. Things like her fraudulant lawsuits for example. I have an ex who's always frauding someone...but it's not my problem. The system will catch up and when it does, they'll have to pay somehow. You need to focus on dealing with the children when they're in your care, and disregard what they do in her care, unless they're in danger. You seem to have stopped the spanking but maybe you should make their Dad handle all the discipline. You could even try a "wait until your father gets home" stance when they are in your care and your husband is away. Once you stop engaging with them, they will stop engaging with you. You've only been married two years, so you have a long road ahead. Your nit-picky issues are just that, little nit-picky issues. I'd blow them off and laugh it off as a jealous bio-mom...those do exists sometimes. You know YOU and those around you know YOU...don't waste your time focusing on what she says or does. Keep documenting everything and always anticipate the worst, but hope for the best. If the relationship with the girls is broken, I'd really try mending it. If you're interested in some ways, let me know, maybe we can get creative. If you plan to stay married, you really need to get along with his kids, they don't go away after they turn 18, only the CS.

Lydia, thank you for letting us know. I'm glad you enjoyed your reread of GWTW. It's a helluva a story, in my opinion, in so many respects. My apologies for not responding to your post just previous to the last one. I didn't finish Bridget Jones's Diary. I couldn't stand her whinging -- what was it, ten years ago? -- so I doubt I would tolerate her any better now. I have no idea if future readers will think she's "so 1990s/2000s", or whatever dismissive phrase they invent. But I think you're right in noting the similarities between Bridget and her ilk and the snarkiness of the characters in Georgy Girl. Whatever is trendy in a contemporary novel is bound to be old hat to successive generations of readers -- even when they like vintage styles. Something you, or someone, said above (or elsethread) struck me: (paraphrasing, since I can't locate it to quote directly) readers like historical novels written in their own times better than preceding generations' contemporary novels because the sensibilities have been redone to suit what the writers and readers want those times and the characters to have been.The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that's right. Let me guess about Summer of '42: Are the readers nowadays hostile about the young boy losing his virginity to the older woman? I can see how that would be a 'modern' take. It sure didn't seem to be awful to Raucher's character in 1942...Hermie, I think was his name. And I don't think it was considered obscene back in the early 1970s when the book came out, but we have become sensitized to the 'issue' of cougars since. (Even the term cougar is ugh-worthy!)