Just writing thoughts of the time between my last post and now as they come to me, not making a huge effort to force everything int order, but each paragraph should be fairly coherent in and of itself. I know I will catch flack from Luv-luv for airing dirty laundry in public, but I figure anyone who knows us and can find this blog probably already knows most of it, plus the way her actions keep showing me how little she actually cares no matter what words she uses, I just can't give much of a fuck anymore.
Let me re-list the cast of assorted characters:
Luv-luv, my wife of 19 years
TOM, my wife's boyfriend, The Other Man
Little Dude, my youngest child, my 4th son, from my ex-girlfriend
X, my ex-girlfriend, previously referred to as Sweetie I think
Lady Bug, my daughter and 4th child
Moose, my 3rd son
Boo, my 2nd son
Bombadil, my oldest son
Sweetheart, my new girlfriend
L'il Beep Beep, my first generation Rav4 that replaced my station wagon that was totaled in a collision, really fun to drive a manual transmission again.

OK, much of the past 2.5 years has been mostly crap for me. My now ex-girlfriend broke up with me just after our son was born (he's a great little dude, his big sister absolutely loves him, even if she is just a few months older then he is), Found out that Luv-luv had made some decisions about our relationship that she did not bother telling me about for a year after she made the decisions. TOM moved in with us a few months after my Lady Bug was born (that's what I call her, she is not a princess, princesses are useless, ladies are not), but before the Little Dude was born. He and I get along rather well, most of the relationship rough spots are because of how Luv-luv communicates with either of us, but those are getting rarer every week.

My family finally caught on to me being Poly about the time Little Dude was born, very difficult situation because I had wanted to let them know about it much earlier, but Luv-luv insisted I keep it quiet because she thought my mother would be furious enough to make a huge stink which could then impact TOM's joint custody of his daughter. I knew she wouldn't and that this was the worst way to go about it, but I caved in to Luv-luv. They don't like my choices, but they accept that I am going to continue no matter what they say.

After the breakup I decided to stop looking for any more intimate relationships, plus I was sleeping on the sofa since I had not yet finished the remodeling of what was to be TOM's room (initially when the day he got into town I started staying every night at the Ex's place to try and help her out, which it turns out I was crap at for her), was not too bad, it was more comfortable for me than the old mattress on the bed in the master bedroom. Worked out well for Luv-luv's new dynamic for her relationship with me, not so well for me and the old dynamic that I thought still applied. No fun getting up to use the restroom before going to sleep and getting to hear her and TOM going at it when I was not even getting her to touch me or sit beside me.

Once we got our tax return we replaced the mattress so I could move back into the master bedroom, and TOM moved to the sofa (part time, he still used the main bed when he was on night shifts), of course I had finally her confronted about the crap way I was being treated while I was on the sofa, she saw it as a purely a problem with how the person on the sofa was getting treated and immediately rectified  the situation, in TOM's favor of course. It has taken quite a while, but I finally got her to understand that I needed little things like her sitting close enough that we can touch each other without contortions some of the time while watching TV, and more contact in general, basically stuff she was doing all along for TOM in front of me. Not that it leads to anything else, no matter how much she proclaims to love me and desire me it does not feel that way when we have sex at most once a month when she is willing to park Lady Bug in front of the TV so she and TOM can fuck like bunnies in my bedroom not even 30 minutes after TOM gets home from work. Go ahead, ask me how I know- I had to go back to the house this morning to grab something I had forgotten, in the bedroom, unlocked the door, opened it, and there they were.

Finally got TOM's room finished and we finally replaced that ragged old sofa with a new one once he moved into his room. The new sofa is a bit of a sore point with me, Luv-luv insisted I go to the store to see if the sofa would be high enough for me to get off of without huge effort, when it arrived some of the feet were missing, so instead of trying to get them replaced it was decided to just use it without the extra height, which I did not find out until afterwards. I should have just made her give me the receipts and gotten the situation resolved, but she was pretty set on preferring the sofa lower, I really need to get off my butt and cut some 4x4s to make a pedestal for it so I can actually stand up without observers offering me help to stand up. (You may not know, but I am not a small guy, 6'2" in bare feet, 300 lbs, and big problems with the muscles in my ankles and feet from that whole coma thing, a month of being bed-ridden and a total of 5 weeks of my legs being so swollen from the DVT issue that a key nerve in each foot was basically killed off).

Late this past Spring I started chatting with Sweetheart (a widow)on-line, we were first talking about things like camping, prepping, things like that. after a month or so we finally met, it was not an instant connection for me, but there was enough there for me to want to get to know her, and her kids better. All 3 of her kids are special needs of some sort or another, none of them are developmentally delayed, apparently it may all be from her husbands exposure to chemicals while in the Air Force during Desert Storm. They are all great kids, and I care about them almost as much as my kids already. Sweethearts husband died almost 2 years ago from a massive heart attack while driving, the truck was not moving very fast, and only knocked down a block fence, they put him on life support briefly, but there was nothing they could do. She and her kids freaked out some when they saw the pictures of me in the hospital with all the machines around me.

Anyway, Sweetheart lives about 45 minutes away, and I drive L'il Beep Beep over there twice a week to spend time with her and her kids. The commute allows me to listen to audio books, right now it is Great Expectations.

Great news for the New Year

Well Luv-Luv had an ultrasound recently, our 4th child will be a girl, which 2 of her 3 brothers to be are excited about (the youngest does not know what to make of the news, still a little too young to really comprehend it). And Sweetie's mom found out that I am still with Luv-Luv through a Facebook post about the baby, we knew she would find out eventually, and we had not been lying to her, just not correcting her mistaken assumptions. We will see how that one shakes out.

Bit of a war going on between Luv-Luv and Sweetie, Sweetie is big on headbands for baby girls, Luv-Luv feels they are a direct precursor  to Anne Geddes style photos.

In about 18 months we may get to see how TOM's daughter fits in with my horde, her mother (TOM's first wife) knows about the whole situation with him and Luv-Luv, and she is perfectly fine with it and her daughter staying wherever he is at.

5 new fruit trees going in this weekend, Apricot, Plum and 3 Pomegranates, we are still planning to add a couple of Cherry trees in a few years, and I want to try Papaya, so in 5-6 years we will have fresh fruit year round (once Papaya starts fruiting it produces year round until it dies, so we will at least have that at any time of year). At that point we will definitely need some sort of food dehydrator, probably solar.

Anyone want to drop me a note and suggest other fruit I might want to look into? I am thinking about trying to grow some form of Southern Highbush Blueberries, and if I ever get the aquaponics bay going, Strawberries are high on the list.

Life can be amazing

OK, I have been horrible about posting to this blog, here is a draft I started at the end of August:
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So, My Sweetie and I have been talking serious things, my dear Luv-Luv has been very supportive of how this second relationship is going, just as I have been very supportive of how hers is shaping up with TOM (The Other Man, as I jokingly call him). TOM is a pretty good guy, I would have no problem with him moving near by and luv-Luv spending a bunch of time with him on a regular basis, and I definitely do not have a problem with the thought of the two of them having sex, after all her trip to finally meet him went swimmingly, and she was practically glowing from the consummation of their physical relationship.

Now I am starting to look into the legal aspect of bringing Sweetie into my family with as close to Luv-Luv's legal rights as my wife and biological parent of my current children as possibly. I am looking into what local lawyers would be worth consulting over a probably complicated legal issue, it may even end up involving incorporating as a trust or something similar.

I also need to talk to some bank people to see if there is anything that can be done to improve the terms of Sweetie's mortgage, she is in that horrible position of being upside down in her loan, and up to date on the payments. Her debt ratio does not allow her to qualify for a traditional re-finance, and since she is not behind on the loan, she does not qualify for HARP. If only I had enough money I would buy up the house behind us and tell her to either rent her place out, or just walk away/short sell it and move into a family compound.
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 Further updates:
TOM will be out visiting on his spring break, and the current plan is for him to move in with us next Fall after he has graduated. Apparently his ex-wife is fully aware of the situation and has no problems with his daughter coming out to spend the summers with him since he won't be able to see her during most the year due to distance. I am looking forward to having him as part of the family, as I wrote above in August he is a pretty good guy. I am planning to spend the nights he is out here on spring break at Sweetie's place, and bringing the children with me at least some of the nights to give the two of them some privacy.

I really need to find a good poly friendly lawyer around here, I did a little looking in September, but did not get any real leads, I'll check with a friend of ours who is in law school to see what names she can find.

The Fig tree in our front yard is still producing, but the last of the figs should be ripe in the next week or so, the oranges on our tree (both of them) should be ready in the next few weeks, first crop since we planted it in January 2011, it only had one orange on it last year and that got knocked off in a storm. The other trees and vines are doing great also, as are the chickens, although I found out I have to do some work on the run as a hawk has been sighted in our neighborhood.

Sweetie has been helping me get the garage into shape, which will then let me get some other storage areas cleared out and get started making one into a new bedroom for when TOM moves out here, if he stays that will be his room, if not my oldest child will get it. I got Sweetie's storage room mudded, so that is ready to paint, after that I need to make her some planters for her patio and get a couple of blueberry plants going for her.

The children can't wait for me to finish with the garage, I promised them I would set up a BB gun range as soon as the garage was clean and organized.

OK, let's see if I can get on at least a weekly update schedule.

Soul mates

How many soul mates are out there for any one person? So far I think I have found 4 for myself, there are my Luv-Luv and my Sweetie who are like parts of my being, extensions of my body at times (or me of theirs, that part can be confusing most of the time). There is my Dear Friend, who is like a missing part of my personality (my missing inner extrovert), and then there is my Twin, she is who I would have been if I had been born a woman, down to being poly and exclusively attracted to women.

What exactly does it mean when someone is a soul mate? Why am I thinking so philosophically right now when I should be taking advantage of this pain killer to get more sleep after wrenching my ankle last night?

My Sweetie

So anyway I went through what has to be most guys worst nightmare last night, my wife and my girlfriend met.

Not a nightmare for me, they hit it off as well as we had all hoped, it looks like they are going to be pretty good friends, not just tolerate each other. So now I have my wife (who I call my Luv-Luv) and my girlfriend (who I call my Sweetie), they both want me to stay the night with my Sweetie this weekend and maybe also do something as a big family group also. My Sweetie is starting to think seriously about having a child with me, the only concern there is coming out of the Poly closet to my parents and my in-laws. We will probably have to come out to Sweeties family fairly soon, her mom is starting to make noises about meeting me and none of us want to actually lie about our relationship. I will probably come out to my little sister fairly soon, I think she might be fairly accepting, and I am pretty sure Luv-Luv's little sister will not have any problems either. That reminds me that I need to tell our Dearest Friend about Sweetie so they can meet when DF is in state in July.

Fortunately there are some friends where coming out is not an issue, like the poly lesbian couple, the open triad and some friends who also happen to be in the kink community.

Arghhhh.. all the logistics of coming out make my head hurt, but I am not going to force myself to stay in the closet. On to a more pleasant subject, Luv-Luv was just given a mid-range KitchenAide stand  mixer, we are already prioritizing the purchase of additional attachments. I can't wait to see if I notice an impact on her already good cooking, I sure like the results of the pressure canner we got 2 months ago.

Keep Buggering On - One of Winston Churchill's famous phrases, that's what I'm doing. I'm feeling a lot more controlled (and IN control) than I was when I made the last post, so the prospect of KBO is not as daunting as it was then.

So to try and get my account back on track....

Shortly before I left the hospital I had received a pair of foot braces to prevent toe drop, neat looking carbon fiber looking things, problem was I had not looked at them too closely, until one of them broke at physical therapy in late June. Turns out one was the heavy duty version, the other was the normal weight, guess which one broke? So I had to trek to the company that I got it from and have them replace the broken one with the heavy version so I had a matched pair. While I was there they also repaired the strap on the heavy one where the pop rivet had broken, wish they had been that thorough when they had selected them in the first place. By The end of September I had stopped needing them, still not much strength in the muscles that provide dorsiflection (upward movement) in my ankles or big toes, and I can only feel pain in my left big toe, the right big toe can feel some other sensations like cold and heat, just not touch. Good riddance to those braces, but they may reappear at some point, modded out for SteamPunk garb. In November I went to Hawaii with my dad, my reward for surviving, my dad's for getting through both me and my mom nearly dying within 5 months.

OK, since the last post on 5/21 big changes have occurred. on 5/31 I started chatting with Sweetie (as I am calling her now), met her in person on 6/8, then again on the following Monday, and Wednesday, and Thursday. The only reason I have not seen her yesterday or today is because she is out of town until tomorrow. Just over 2 weeks and it feels more like we have been dating for months, I have fallen for my Sweetie, and I think it really is love.

The Recovery

Now I can only speak for Critical Care Neuropathy, but the random shooting pains are really no fun. Neurotonin is a great medication, it is keeping the pains bearable, unfortunately it does not appear to reverse the damage. It does reduce the feeling that someone is forcing a stake through my foot from happening every 4-8 minutes to happening 6-10 times a day. I was able to start driving again a couple of weeks before they mentioned I should try it, They were amazed when they found out I had climbed the ladder to replace a blown fuse in the AC, when I had asked them about climbing a ladder a few days earlier they told me to try, but that they thought I would only be able to go up 3-4 rungs at most.

I had wanted to keep this chronological, but it hurts too much not to vent somewhere, why does it seem that everyone around me is finding the relationships they are looking for, but not even any prospects out there for me? Since actively starting to look last October, I am 0 for I don't know how many hundreds of women I have tried to contact. Listening to my wife talk to her boyfriend in the Great Lakes area on the phone hurts so very bad, not because I am jealous of him, but because I am jealous of what they have. When will I find anything that lasts beyond the first kind of date? And is there some sort of rule for online dating where if I have not propositioned them by the 4th message the stop having conversations with me? I gave up on any real hopes of finding a new partner about a month ago, all I am really expecting to find at this point is a few new gods damned friends, and even that is not fucking happening. I am that most pathetic of creatures aren't I, the polyamorous person who is only ever going to have a single physical relationship at a time. I am getting sick of hearing "Don't give up, it's just a numbers game", "You can't give up, you'll find someone eventually", "Don't be discouraged, there's someone out there for you". Yes there is someone out there for me, problem from the poly perspective is it looks like it is someONE, and I have already found her.

Well it is way too damn late, the teething toddler looks to finally be out for the night, and it is hard to see what I am typing. Well maybe I will be up to typing more in the afternoon, after I have forced all this heartache back in the box it belongs in, I hate being so weak that I can't keep my emotions under control.