Well let's see, how was Crowduck this year?
Fun. Productive, fish-wise. We didn't go hungry. I ate too much. I'm afraid to weigh myself at Jenny Craig. We caught a lot of walleye (catch and release only), northern pike, and smallmouth bass. We eat the pike and bass when we keep them. Crowduck's never-fail recipe, accompanied by my dad's waffle fries (which Sierra re-named, for some reason, "square fries", even though they're not square), onion rings, all kinds of muffins, and Steve's Ukrainian dish, and lots of beer or pop (take your pick) makes for a very fattening week. I tried to eat more salad, hold back on the batter-fried stuff, but it's hard. But if I've regained weight, it's my own fault! No one had a gun on me forcing me to eat!

Irene and Joe accompanied us. Irene's my mom's sister and Joe's my dad's brother. They hadn't seen each other since 1960 at my parents' wedding!!! The others- Tracy and Dan, me and Steve and Nathanael and Micah, and then Dave with his little ones Sierra (age 5) and Hayden (age 3). Sierra and Hayden make everything so worthwhile. Sierra is the most girly-girl there ever was. She will only wear dresses or skirts. She is a royal princess so I made her a princess necklace. Irene taught her about ballet and told her stories and puppeted Sierra's Woody and Esmeralda dolls (she's a ballerina and playwright of children's plays, also a novelist of grownup novels). She's had a difficult last few months having been recently widowed. She's got a new freedom, is no longer caring for a disabled person (before it was her husband, it was her husband's dad). Jack had had a stroke about 12 years ago and it paralyzed his left side. Her new freedom is awkward. I can't imagine it all. I haven't been there yet in my life. Well, anyway, to continue rambling, I made good connection with Hayden. I just love him. He and I made a LOT of eye contact through a little song on one of his toys I sang over and over to his delight, and through hugging, and tickles, and walks to look at wheels. He loves having his feet held. There's an intuition about connecting with an autistic 3-year-old. He's so precious. It doesn't hurt that he's cuuuuute. Connecting helps him come out of the autism more and more. My gosh it has to be done now, and tomorrow, and every day. Now is the moment. Those neurons connect and regrow and turn on more the younger one is. The whole situation causing the divorce is an insanity. We have got to connect with Hayden more and more now.
I have an interview tomorrow again at Hillman. Asked me back for a second one. Didn't know earlier it would go into a "second round". They had hoped to decide (or so I thought) earier. So apparently there's more to consider. Please pray that, if it's God's will, I get this job.