Wow...amazingly, several things have kind of fallen into place today and I feel the stress melting away. A friend of mine from the area who I did several things with has been out of town and she just got back last night and phoned me while I was adding the previous entry. She is ready to 'get together' again and I am eager for the 'grown-up' interaction. We were working on putting together a german language program here and she still is intersted...She also is a sahm to 3 kids and understands how bad it can be. When we first met, she used to tell me about how she read these novels to her kids at lunch time during the summer, etc and I felt really insecure. Her whole house is like a huge craft closet...and mine is just a dustbowl [laughing] .

This morning I told her it had been a rough summer because of the isolation and the fact that the kids are all at such different ages with such different needs. It was a great conversation. She was visiting her mom and told me that even with mom there to help that she was just'on the ledge' 1/2 the time.

It's been a tough summer for many of us, I guess. Judging from some of my PMs and my personal phone calls I know I'm not alone. Thanks to all of you who responded and let me know that you've been there too...and managed to emerge! [grouphug]

All of our summers around here are usually so positive and fun that this has been a real bummer. DH has decided that we're all 'going on vacation' and he's been calling with his schedule for August so that we can get away for a few days!

kris