House organization/cleanup is coming along very slowly, but surely.  I am having a hard this week. I am eating my Xocai Healthy Chocolate daily. I am quite sure it is something I need for the rest of my life.  I just hope that someday I can get it for free....I just need 3 preferred customers, and mine is free. I love the new XoLove Bites (sounds like "show love') and I hope they are big sellers. We already have so many great products, I know more people would be using them, except that they are so expensive. I am having issues related to weather changes and some perimenopausal symptoms, but I think  I will be fine in a few days.

I have gotten my garden off to a good start. I have plants to share with friends. I am going to be using 2 of the community garden plots that are 4 x 12 feet each. I have started many plants.  I am very interested in permaculture and edible landscaping and I know it will take years to get to where I want to be, and it will always be a work in progress.

I have just found a great website http://jubilee101.com/
that has a ton of free info on all kinds of things that interest me.

Dilara wants a heart-shaped garden and/or a peace sign garden, in addition to a sunflower fort.

I want to build a solar cooker to help keep from heating my house up this summer. Looks like it can be used to "can" fruits and tomatoes, like a water bath canner.

I am going to be growing a lot of San Marzano tomatoes and I am hoping to make paste.  I am going to try really hard to grow and preserve as much of my own food as I can.  I am going to be hard up financially when Dilara grows up and I lose the child support money, which helps me pay for housing expenses. My house will not be paid off by that point and I don't want to lose it. I said when I bought my house that I want to die here, and I still feel that way. I never want to move again. If my house was paid off, I could live quite comfortably on Social Security income. My house takes up too much of my monthly income, but  I will never be able to buy another house that would best meet my needs. I have been here almost 11 years.  I hope my kids will be in a position to help me out financially until my mortgage is paid, if I have urgent needs. I just hope and pray that my roof won't spring a leak and that my HVAC will hold up until there is someone in my life who can help with that type of major expense.

My plumbing needs to be replaced, but epoxy glue and fiberglass cloth will probably work as emergency repairs for several more years. My iron pipes that carry waste water from my house are literally rusting through. I patched up a hole that was at least as big as a nickel several years ago and that stretch of pipe is still not leaking.

I really hope that my kids will be successful financially and will have money to spare to help me out,  I certainly want to do all I can to need as little help as possible.

I  need to fence in the end of my yard to make a run for my dogs so that I can get them off their cables. I hope they are old enough to not jump or climb a 4 foot fence.  I plan to use part of the area where one of the dogs is to plant something edible.  There was a mimosa tree over there for a while. It died and I took it down. The dogs need some shade. I think if they are fenced in, they will be able to get into a shaded corner at any time of day. 

I am really excited about some of the projects Dilara and I can do together.  We can be real Renaissance Women between all the things we will be learning and doing. It is nice to develop skills and talents. It will be fun to see what opportunities God opens up for us. 

I do not have as close of a relationship with my teenagers as I would like, at this point. I guess I had might as well accept it, since I can't change it, but I hope that Dilara and I will continue to share interests and enjoy each others' company even when she is a teenager.  We shall see. At this point in my life, I have absolutely no interest in getting married again. Who knows how I will feel in a month or a year, though.  I am trusting God to provide a suitable mate if it is truly in my best interest to have one.  As long as my sex drive is in low gear, I don't have much motivation to find a "mate." I have plenty of friends and interests, so I don't think I could ever be too bored or too lonely.

My ex-husband has someone and Dilara's dad has someone, and I am getting used to being without a partner. I have been divorced for 12 years or so, so I guess I ought to be used to it by now.  I am so extremely busy with Dilara. I would rather be spending more time with my teenagers, but Dilara likes getting their share of my time and attention, which they don't seem to want or need anymore. It is so hard to get all 4 of us together for a family activity that everyone wants to do and will make time for.

I have been working for years to be content in whatever situation I am in. If I can't change my situation, I can at least change my attitude.  I'll always be sad that things didn't work out in a way that I think would have been better for my kids,   but I have to trust that God is in control and he's working things out better than I could.  Maybe I'm having a happier and healthier life than I would have been if my husband had not divorced me.  I think about that a lot. I would not have Dilara if my ex had not remarried.  Is she my consolation? Dilara's dad and I are not enjoying a cooperative parenting relationship, but we are not having a lot of conflict at this point. I thought the home schooling issue was going to me a major point of contention, but I guess not. He seems to be happy in his life/work/relationship and he and I have frequent, but brief contact. It is a blessing to be spared the conflict and stress a lot of women deal with, and that I have dealt with in the past.

Yes, it is better to be in no relationship than in a painful relationship, but there is no reason human beings can't live in harmony together if they want to.  Until I find someone who is as dedicated to building a healthy and happy relationship, I will find a way to remain content without a life partner. I am forced to be independent. Not my choice, but my reality.

One reason I love homeschooling is because there is no need to stick to a rigid schedule...we can "go with the flow" in a way that an institutional classroom setting could never accomodate. "Classroom Management" strategies are not meant to focus on an individual's needs. Dilara finally got some Sea Monkeys when I found some half-price the other day. We bought some a few weeks ago for one of her classmate's birthday and she was very interested in them. We did "step 1" of preparing the water Saturday night and Sunday night we added the eggs. She is already wanting to draw pictures of them, even though I don't even think they have hatched yet, so she drew a picture of the little aquarium they are in. We read all the information in the kit and were looking up information about them online and we were reading about "the Instant Life crystals in which they eggs are enclosed" and she said, "That sounds like shark egg cases!" and so I looked up "shark egg cases" which led us to page that showed a lot of different shark and stingray egg cases and she pointed to one and asked me what creature grew in it, and it was an egg case for a "Spotted Ray," so I googled that and when she saw a picture of it, she said "It looks like it has eyes on it, like an Owl Butterfly!" and I googled "Owl Butterfly." We did make it back to the Sea Monkeys, but what a wonderful detour! I pointed out to her that that was something nice about homeschooling. I used to teach preschool and I know how in the interest of "Classroom Management" you can't really let kids chime in and take you down "rabbit trails" like that during class time, or else you'd never get your plans for the day accomplished. It is actually "disruptive behavior." Dilara told me about when they were in circle time and her teacher was talking about things that float and how boats float, Dilara raised her hand and said, "People float!" and, of course, the teacher said something like, "We're not talking about people floating, we're talking about boats floating." Why should I limit my child to that kind of "traditional" educational experience when I have a better option???