Well, I don't know. Offers of negotiation continue; however I am skeptical as to whether they would actually lead to any real changes. It isn't that I see them as patently false, it's more like there have been SO many problems, and several of them have _always_ been here, that I'm not sure if it's possible. There is some agreement that an amicable parting would be desired if it proves inevitable.

Sometimes I wonder if maybe I'm just flawed to be a wife for anybody. Or, maybe the wife role as commonly defined. When I think of a wife, I don't think of an equal, although I'm sure there are wives who are seen as equals...But to me, a wife is someone who is always smoothing things over, sweeping the conflicts and problems under the rug, keeping the peace, putting up with all sorts of things rather than dealing with them out in the open. A wife's role is to serve her husband, to wait on him and see his need before he asks, to put aside whatever she wants and think about her husband and children, until she forgets that she ever wanted anything herself aside from the happiness of her family. A wife is supposed to be *interested* in child rearing and homemaking. She can have other interests, as long as they're incidental and secondary to her main role in life, and the same with a job. If a wife has a job, it should be just for a little extra spending money, and it certainly shouldn't exceed what her husband makes. A wife is domestic, feminine, and self-abnegating.

In that context, I don't ever want to be a 'wife' again. Can't there be some other word to use, like spouse? Something that denotes equality and not sexism, where the two people are allies and best friends who've chosen to be together, permanently?

------------------------------Putting that aside for a moment------------------------------

Less than a week ago I drove out to a friend's to scan some artwork I'd done so I could upload it onto my site. When I left their place, I set the sketchbooks on the trunk while I put the baby into his carseat, meaning to pick it up when I got into the car. I forgot to do that. When I arrived home and realized they were gone, I called to see if they'd fallen in the driveway and my friend looked there, to no avail. We wondered if maybe I'd set them in the house. Yesterday, I get in touch again with them, and the art was not left in the house. So I packed my two oldest sons into the car and went drving up and down Highway 41 and the dirt road I was on, with the boys keeping their eyes peeled. We found one watercolor painting, and out of all that was lost, this one meant the most to me. It's an abstract, I had it tacked to the wall. I shouldn't have taken it. It was too big to scan anyway. The entire time I was looking, I was thinking about this work, and I felt just sick because it's irreplacable. When we found it, it'd been run over a time or two, and it's dirty. But the essence, the spirit of the feeling that inspired it is still there. Now that I have it back, when I get into exactly the right mood that created it, I'll try my best to make another very like it. Seeing as how the other work must have fallen off into the residential area, and we found no trace of it all all, I think someone picked it up. I'm going to call around at the police stations and local radio with call in advertisements and try to see if anyone's turned it in. I had been designing a business card for the goat business which had my name and address included in the preliminary sketches, so whoever found it will know where to send it or at the very least, my name (most of the work was signed). That was yesterday's adventure. Today I run in to Sandpoint to investigate college possibilities and get some concord grapes.