2-26-2024

 Amazingly it has been almost a month since I have posted anything 😳  I am starting this on Saturday morning as my laundry dries so I can add to it a bit as the weekend races by

February started off okay, and it leaves with me being a bit down and bitter.

The divorce of Once Wife is complete.  The judge asked only three questions, one to me "So you are keeping the marital home?" (Yep I got it.) Two to Once Wife "You are fine with Maura keeping the house?" OW "She paid for it so yes." The only question left was about Once Wife's name.  Total time at the bench maybe three minutes.  Ironically the divorce was finalized the day before Valentine's day.

I took the week of the divorce off and Buttercup was with me about half of it.  She asked if I had any "scary movies" she was shocked that I really don't--childhood traumatic experiances from a mother who liked horror movies so no, I don't watch them--I think she was trying to circumvent things but she's 8 so expected.  We burned brush, fixed my son's truck, slept in, made good food, apparently had a blast as she did not want to leave grandma's house 😊

This was the first Valentine's day where no one romantic is in my life since I was seventeen, and it has been a bit of a mental roller coaster.  (Me and Buttercup did go out for dinner though 😁)

I really am trying to not mention or think about the former girlfriend at all, but in the autistic/adhd deep dive of what went wrong I have learned a lot, and suffice to say her issues are her's, and there is no changing that untill she is willing to put in that effort--typically it does not happen in the case of what appears to be her issue.  I now know exactly what my kids meant with "mom, you have a type" as I now see how much and where OW and FG overlap, and why it was so easy to fall for FG and the lies--lied right up to me blocking her, and I imagine she still is.  Last note on her; I have looked at none of her feeds in six weeks now and plan to never look again.

Returning to work from vacation I discovered my boss had undid two years of subtle changes getting the crew in order, and made the work order system essentially inopperable.  It is now tagged, flagged, and organized in such a way you cannot find jobs that are not assigned to a tech as they are all showing as being assigned.  He created a bunch of fake tech accounts like "urgent" "plumbing" etc and puts these "tags" on as soon as he sees an open ticket.  Needless to say things are way more complicated than need be.

I've decided to invest in classes and I am probably going to get my home inspector certification so I can work for myself.  One or two inspections a week and I will earn what I do now while being my own boss.  It will leave me more time to work on my shop, blog, writing, and religous studies while not being a drastic departure from my work experiance.

I have one more stint at being my own lawyer coming up and that is my legal name change.  Hopefully by the time you are reading this I will have found and filled out the forms...hopefully.

I realized Saturday evening that I have begun to get used to eating alone at a restraunt; believe it or not that is a huge step for me.

Saturday was new tool day! My current torch is oxy-acetylene only & uses a 10 cuft tank that local on a Saturday is $53 to swap!

New torch will run on oxy-propane currently $20 for 170 cuft & available all over for grills. Fuel consumption should be similar but even at double I come out ahead.

I have three oxygen bottles so I should be able to keep ahead on those and consumption isn't too bad.

On studying I bought a new book on Hannible Barca.  He was a brilliant military stratagist, and I feel learning more on him and his conquests will help my writing stay more authentic.

I am working two short stories, editing a novel, and setting another short up to be written. Busy, busy.

My social media presence is growing steadily now, and X broke 1,400 followers this month!  Unlike some people I know mine are organic followers and not bought.

• X = 1,413 followers
• Instagram = 144 and adds 2 or 3 a week now
• Threads = 85 the growth there is slow
• YouTube = 81 subscribers but since posting shorts has begun to pick up along with views!
• TikTok = 37 considering I have not posted much and nothing with me in it, that's pretty good.

The rest are in my footer on my site.

Hopefully I can have y'all a shop update soon.

For now that about sums things up.

Maura out