It was a rough week...

A rough week, but over.

Dog, for the third Friday in a row was able to get out of the house and out the back yard, but she was found by a person who lives two houses down and didn't get very far away!

Today, I am going to change the way we lock the sliding door or figure out a way to gate it that son cannot mishandle so she manages to get out.

Son, the evening of my birthday, turns up with a large tattoo, which he did not have permission to get. He justified it by seeing it as a memorial to his dead birthmother and sister. When I told him that when you do something wrong to honor the memory of your loved ones, it doesn't honor them, he heard "You are telling me I don't love my birth mom and sister." Oy veh. I saw red cause I had told him flat out not to do it, it's illegal in this state for a 17 year old to get a tattoo without parental permission, and it's something I had told him point blank he couldn't do until he was 18.

But son has this way of justifying everything he does any more, especially around holidays and special occasions. This is a common thing for kids who are dealing with grief, and ptsd. This one actually may be a sign of him trying to deal with the deaths, since when he gets it finished, it's supposed to have his birth mom's and sister's names in roses with the date.

But oh! Dealing with holidays and special occasions is becoming something I dread.

The day was not a fun day. I had to take medicine for my stomach pain that made me sleep the afternoon away. I didn't get to go to the mall, I didn't get my manicure and pedicure done, and I am coping with such weariness.

At least work at the library is going well. I am learning more about how to choose keywords when cataloging. Yesterday, I got to type up a bibliography of works by a man who worked for a Forest Service research station back in the 30s and 4os for someone doing research on him... it's interesting to see what people were concerned about in land management then (especially in his case, how to improve grazing lands), and how old some journals are, like Ecology. It began publishing long, long before it was a household word.

It's such a peaceful, different world, working in the library. I need outlets like that - scholarly, calm and where I feel successful. I quit work when I got married because the boys needed a sahm, and they really did, but now, this is sort of my way back into the working world. It's volunteer, but it will be current work experience. And it's good for my psyche.