Quin

I'm the "Yes. Get divorced. Like yesterday." person on this board. Just as a heads up. Nope. No do not get divorced. Wow. That felt weird. Okay, so why am I saying nope, nada, don't do it? 1) 2 months???? While that might feel like forever... It's not. That's round robin with the flu, out of town guests, a nasty case of cramps, and a sanity day. Meaning... In your life... Here will be MANY 8 week periods of craziness. That are in no way representative of you, your wife, or life in general. Except that they happen. Heck, 24/7 bottle feeding is 6+ months. (Sleep dep, dear god, sleep dep). Marriage isn't like dating. When dating, a bad couple weeks (heck, even a bad day) can spell the end. In marriage, most couples have bad YEARS. Heck, many have a lousy decade. This does NOT mean that you should just resign yourself to misery. The opposite. It means you need to WORK. Or things won't get better. They'll stay yucky, or end. So. Give it some time. Real time. Time that can't be explained easily away. Like a huge life changing event having happened just a few weeks ago. 2) What Eowyn said. Here's a clarification on manhood, though. And DO know that even 80yo leaders of the free world have times when they act like boys, or situations where they're not being mature about them. Being a man has little to nothing to do with age (or even gender! Yep. Male adult does NOT equal being a man.) Being a man is about having a strong character. Being a boy is NOT about having a weak character... It's about having an UNTESTED character. Which is exactly where you find yourself, right now. Building character = Always uncomfortable, often difficult, rarely fun. But worth it. All my best... Q ______ If If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too: If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream---and not make dreams your master; If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim, If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same:. If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings, And never breathe a word about your loss: If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!" If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much: If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son! -Kipling

This is another case of "Quinn travels too much." Meaning... In some regions I take it to mean PersonX is a feminazi*. In some regions I don't. Just like Emily O'Hare née Jones, Wife of Edward... gets referred to by kids (generalizing, I think there's actually 17 or 18 variations) West Coast - Emily Midwest - Mrs. o'Hare South East - Miss Emily (Variation Example: Kentucky: Ems OR Emily-O'Hare-Jason-&-Micks-Mama-down-the-next-holler... Aka either your shorten the name to a single syllable and pluralize it, or you give their full name plus family ties that relate to you AND their geographic location.) How a woman refers to herself / wants adults to refer to her changes in different locations. In SOME very conservative places, even just Mrs. O'hare would borderline feminazi (Mrs, Edward O'Hare, if you please.) So I just go by local flavor. What a person wishes to be called (up to a point, O draw the line at Queen of Sheeba; ), I call them. Miss. Ms. Mrs. First Namr, Last Name, Title (if they have one... Dr., Your Grace, etc.). Whatever. Roses by any other. Q (ueen of Sheeba). * I'm taking your use of feminist to parallel with the way I use femenazi/ radical feminist... As opposed to Feminism: The radical belief that women are people... Definition.

Romance is Eros. <grin> aka whatever twitterpates you... Whether your dating or 67 3/4s years in (aka how long my grandparents were married) Whatever inspires passion OR love. What makes eyes light up, and then sinks to your core. Binding you filament by filament to another. Whether its a look, a word, a gesture, a deed. It's tying yourself and another together. In all the myriad ways we do. Symbols & Understanding. Q

I firmly believe, that while everything happens for a reason... That doesn't always mean it's a good reason, or that I'd agree with it. As far as God interceding? Why doesn't God intercede in genocide? Or plague? Or childhood leukemia? If people fighting for their lives cannot count on God interceding, I can't really complain when he lets me do exactly as I choose to do, now can I? I realize this might sound flippant... But I've been suicidal twice. Once in physical pain (death would have been a blessing, Im still not sure I've got all my marbles -much less nerve endings!-after that series of unfortunate events), and once from emotional pain. FOR ME... That's what suicide is. A miscommunication. Really, all I want is the pain to stop. But, instead, I tell myself that I want to die. Nope. I want the pain to stop. There are ways to do that, looooooooong before death "should" make it to the table. But when one is in pain, one isn't thinking clearly. The (alarmingly complex) brain is a fairly simple creature. Pain = Bad = Stop. Now. How? Voila. The not thinking clearly also means, that even if God sent a chorus of dancing bears carrying morphine, antidepressants, dead children brought back to life, a million dollars, and he only funny knock knock joke in existence... We'd probably see them as a sign to go jump in the bear pit at the zoo. If we saw them at all. Q

While I totally appreciate the support!!!... I actually have zero aikido training. All my training (premarriage) was lethal. LINE, primarilly, plus whatever was handy (aka guys I knew; cravmag from the IDF was a blast. But, again, it wasnt the less lethal versions. It was kill'em'fast.). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LINE_(combat_system) Which I've only ever used in combat once (as the saying goes... If you're down to your bayonet & bare knuckles, you're already dead. Take as many wi you as you can). Our ride FINALLY showed up, so no worries. Although I've also used it in various bar fights, generally one wants to avoid bar fights, because its hard to explain to the police why you felt you had to kill or cripple the guy. This, Vort, is actually WHY I put my kids in aikido. Akido's primary job is getting enough distance between you and your assailant so that you can run away. It's 90% breaks and "eeling" out of situations, and 10% counters&strike.. Which they needed to be able to get away from their father. MY training left me defenseless against my husband. Sure, I could kill him (blind, paralyze, etc.), but I couldn't do LESS than that. So unless I swept him and could grt him outside, and locked him out... I was stuck. All of my training was quick kills & softening techniques (fingers through eyeballs, break their knees, etc). After my divorce, I made friends with a cop that I'd spar with from time to time (because our training was polar opposite: his was gradually increased levels of control... 4 steps before you break their shoulder. While mine was break the shoulder then sweep and put a boot heel with a head hih kick through their face, remember brains are slippery, and twist your boot so you don't get it caught on the bone. I can't even knee to groin on instinct. I have crush arch of foot as the "preset" before knee to groin, and head butting them as a synchronous thing. The problem with lethal training... Is that it's pretty impossible to use in self defense against someone you love. So i froze. Every time. I was fine in the field, i was fine in a barfight. But i was completely helpless against someone i just wanted to get off of me. If I couldn't do it, and by the time I needed it, I half hated the guy... How could I expect my kids to be able to do it? The ONLY thing I could do was sweep him, and drag him by his collar out the door, and lean on it to keep him out. Don't get me wrong, at this point I honestly wish I'd killed him so my kids don't have to live with him half time, but I couldn't do it. It tears me up probably more than it should: I had no problem with killing (most likely) perfectly honorable people, good husbands, loving mothers... Because that's the job. I grew up military. Lessons from the cradle are that the "enemy" 99 times out of 100 you'd like, socially. Good people, doing their job, just like you. You kill them, they kill you... But meet on the street & they'd be BBQ'ing with ya or babysitting for you. Actually, this bit is driving my DV counselor nutsy cuckoo. He finally stuck me in with the men's group. Because half the DV Anthem (really, it's all my fault, it want that bad) is linked (in my, and most men's brains) with feeling like one SHOULD have been just fine/ able to stop it/ since we didn't its all our fault. Wheee. Lame. Back on target. Aikido, otoh, was designed for samurais without their weapons. PURELY to shuck attackers long enough to get to their weapons or their horse, or to out them down, if necessary but not as a first reaction. (Which is part of why Aikido includes sword training, once you've gotten them off ya, and have gotten your sword, here's how to fight on the ground while you edge toward your horse). Martial arts all have their specific focus. For our purposes, it's perfect Q

Aikido

There's a REASON why abuse, adultery, and addiction are all valid / divorce worthy. The bad news... It statistically takes us 5 years to get back to feeling normal. I'm a few years out, and still coming up with exciting & new understanding into how screwed up my abusive marriage made me. Upside... We had a fantastic counselor... Who was VERY nervous about seeing us, as marriage counseling is all about shared blame / takes 2 to tango, so he was concerned that counseling would end up making things worse (as it often does) by "justifying" the abuse in the abuser's eyes. As such we had to sign a contract that there would be no more instances of spousal abuse. I don't remember if it was 4 weeks or 5 weeks later that he fractured my skull. Regardless... Our counselor was dead on about counseling making this worse. I'm glad it did, honestly. (And that our counselor was so cognizant of that little side effect). I would have been happier if the abuse had STOPPED... But it was already so intolerably bad... It couldn't keep on the way it was. It either need to get better, or we were done. The skull fracture was a nice "Even for your thick skull Quinn, take the PR, that this is DONE". Drop your idiot counselor like a hot rock, and find someone to help out. Because, sadly, things are going to get worse for awhile. They do get better. Promise. But things are about to go sideways. Unfortunately, just leaving isn't usually enough. Q

Yay!!! I think this is fantastic. Although, kinda lame in that he's already injured...so if he loses, he can save face that way. I've sparred against tons of guys. Win some. Lose some. Mutually assured destruction (aka tie) some. The thing about martial arts (ESP mixed martial arts) is that the paradigm of male/female is completely different. I actually prefer street fighting (eyeballs. and knees, and groins, oh my)... But it's very possible for men & women to be evenly matched (or outmatched) in martial arts. Just as a case in point... My oldest is a black belt. He regularly gets his bum handed to him by ALison, who is the same ranked belt, and 6 inches shorter/50lbs lighter. Gotta look out for the speedy wiry little guys! (Aka most girls). ((Yes. I knew how to fight before my exHusband almost killed me.)) Q

I'm not quite eidetic... But I rarely forget anything. All the way back to being 2ish. I remember the crippling embarrassment of having my mum mad at me, I remember how it felt to skin my knees rough my tights. Even back when I was drinking like a lord, every single moment of the night, is completely etched in my mind. Never did the blackout thing, or the I was drunk/didn't know what iwas doing thing. The difference, as time passes AND things change, is as PB, LMM, & Pam say. I don't forget. I change, based on my experiences & my reactions to them, and with those changes are how I feel when remembering them. Q

LOL... It hasn't snowed in Egypt in 112 years... But it did snow there in the past. We're all still here! It snows in Israel much more frequently. I was looking at some amaaaaaaing photos of snow in Egypt last night. I was going to put up a short collection of them (Cairo, Jeruselem, even the Blue Mosque in Istanbul)... But the Internet ate it when I tried to submit And then I was just far too lazy to upload each link, again! Pretty amazing stuff. One of my early faves (sphinx in snow) was actually from a replica in Japan / totally fake. But there's a baby camel in the snow that looks so warm and fizzy (albeit rather like a polar bear in the desert) Im actually going to put it on my wall. Another of a dad with an umbrella & kid doing snow angels just made me burst out laughing. I have SO had that exact conversation with my kiddo! I also love the quote of SecState who is/was in Israel at the time “I’ve heard of making your guests welcome and feeling at home, but this is as far as I’ve seen anybody go, giving me a nice New England snowstorm,” Kerry said during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Friday. Q

Two thoughts, don't know if either will be helpful: 1) I have 2 good friends (both gay), one of whom was LDS/born in the covenant/has very active parents. Clearly, he's not allowed to be technically active, but he still prays/fasts/word of wisdom/studies/does genealogy research/volunteers & other acts of service/ etc. I watch Conference at his parents' house, most of the time, with him & his boyfriend. His parents are amaaaaaaaazing. They have the warmest, most welcoming home. I've known my 2 friends since before I converted (going on 10 years since I met them). It took me about a year post conversion to really "get" how awesome his parents are, in the face of church culture. When I asked them about it... This is a paraphrase of what they told me: - They had a choice: condemn their son and watch him rebel against them and the church... Or figure that HF would sort things out later... With this result: in all other ways (outside of chastity), he still holds true to the church in every principle and action. - They love B, for the person he is, and the person their son has become with him. - They got to remain trusted advisors in their son's choice of partners, because they decided to put on "person goggles" (meaning looking at his boyfriends as people, as they would girlfriends) - Long running family joke of which of the two of them HF is going to swap out genders. (Actually, not long after my divorce, someone decided I'd become a man and marry both of them as women with the 132 bit. Roll. Eyes. Pshaw. No way, Jose!). They keep it light, even though its a very serious topic, by very faithfully believing in both HF & the goodness of their son's spirit & heart. And that HF knows the fullness of all things, and will be wise & just & fair to him. Or, as his mom says: "Either way, I may end up having to explain myself. I'm only okay with explaining loving him. If HF wants to punish me for that, I'll gladly bear it. I couldn't bear with being punished for not loving him enough." 2) In the first year of my divorce, my ex put my son through hell & misery. Yet. There were many times that he'd come running to me with this big grin, so very excited, about something that -in a normal world- is appalling and completely unacceptable. What I WANTED to do was to throw a fit about it. I didn't. Instead I focused on what was true: That I was very happy for my son that things were getting better for him. Because that WAS the core of what he was happy & excited about. Sometimes, I find, that I need to take a thing and turn it on its ear, in order to see. Q

You can't change the past. Hoping for a better past = resentment, bitterness, anger, suffering. It's a Buddhist saying; giving up all hope for a better past. That I learned as a child in Asia. Doesn't mean giving up hope for a better present/future! (Despite my avowed war on hope in general this isn't part of it, promise!) To take things to Disney (Lion King!): Events from the past can hurt (like a baboon wacking you in the head with a stick) Forgiveness, in this sense, isn't saying that it doesn't. Nor that it's okay to do those things. Giving up hope for a better past is NOT going to "If the baboon hadnt hit me ..." (My husband hadnt cheated, my mom had loved me more, I was born wealthy like so & so, my boss chose me instead of him, if Id made the team, we didnt lose the house, if she had said yes to my marraige proposal, if he hadnt, they had, we didnt, etc.). Q

Bold is mine.... Sadly, not in the state I divorced in Total pendulum swing in the other direction. Father's rights groups have been so active, that - even in long term marriages (10-20+ years) alimony is almost never awarded, and if it is, only a very limited amount & time. More than 2 years is virtually unheard of, and even rarer that its over 10% of imputed income. More typically 5% or less. - Even in cases of proven child abuse, and domestic assault & battery, fathers are awarded 50% custody. I spent over 20k "proving" my ex's abuse. Waste of money. All he had to do was attend a weekend anger management seminar. Broken bones, 2 serious attempts on our child's life... And while the JUDGE said he wished I'd run since his hands were tied (my ex completed the seminar, so he got 50% custody), the courts general attitude was that I should be "grateful" his father wanted to be involved. :vomit: Q

The best way I know how: "Giving up all hope for a better past." Q

I have to admit... This scares me a bit. In the whole Murphey's Law sense. I came up with many many words, and immediately went to every way those words could go horribly wrong in my life. ::blushes:: Because that's what I do. I do things like ask HF to help me be brave (bad idea) and am immediately faced with 10,000 scary things. One after the other after the other. I seem to walk around with metaphoric hands clasped over a metaphoric mouth. Because when Im thinking about something, I inevitably end up chatting with G about it. So a word magically appeared in my brain. We'll see how it goes. Sufficient. I'm writing it on my arm in sharpie as we speak. Type? Read? Whatever. This is an amaaaaazing idea. And it totally freaks me out! Q

Don'tcha just hate that? I missed out on the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin books for "only" 10 years (because I loathed the covers when I was 13). Read the entire 50+ book lot of them while I was nursing. Upside: they kept me awake at oh-dark-30. Downside... Murder books probably aren't the best idea when hormonal & sleep deprived. I've also just "discovered" Elmore Leonard. Head smack. When I consider all the tripe & garbage I've read over the years, while completely ignoring recommendations from people I thought were idiots...oy. Hundreds and hundreds of books. The worst is when I DON'T like them now, but could see myself loving them back when. None of the above listed qualify, fortunately. Q

If all it is is a money issue (and assuming you're stateside, if not, I have no clue) You won't qualify for mondo-financial aid until the divorce is final. Once it IS... - A significantly larger tuition & living as your EFC will be much lower - Student subsidized housing/ healthcare/ counseling (course, there's LDS family services for counseling), and everything else you don't currently qualify for as a married w/ income spent. BEFORE things are final... Start writing for grants NOW. For next year. I'd generally get about 1:25 to 1:50 that I wrote for. I wrote hundreds. And recieved 10's of thousands in grants & scholarships. I suspect you're already doing this to an extent... But being able to do it without worrying about your husband's income imputed... So you don't have to worry about exceeding your aid limit is kind of "wow". Look into student/proffesional house sharing though your school website, and even LDS listings through Craigslist. Often, one can stay in a fairly posh house for 25% of what you'd pay renting a dingy apartment with lackluster management. Roommates, in my experience, are NOTHING after being in an acrimonious marriage. Things that might have bothered me in my 20s were complete non-issues. Also... After separating, I wasn't rooming with 20-something's. at least not young ones. Med & law & phD students, single professionals, etc. ... Consult with an attorney to fid out the probably/maybe/probably not scenarios. Getting the numbers in black & white is a HUGE help (in what you can expect to get, and to pay). This service is usually free. Anyhow... Just some thoughts from divorce-land Q

Can I have more than 1?!?! Heck. Poetry is all about breaking the rules, anyway. Wynken, Blynken, & Nod The Gingham Dog & the Calico Cat The Sugarplum Tree - Eugene Fields We & They If - Rudyard Kipling The Battle - Shel Silverstein Nobody - Anonymous Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Fire & Ice - Robert Frost Q

Huzzah! It's driven me nuts for awhile (like 15 years before converting), that one can live in a commune in Hawaii or a loft in New York, or wherever, existing in any kind of polyamory ... and its Perfectly Legal. Bohemian, Swingers, Polly, threesomes, foursomes, moresomes... Whatever you label yourselves is FINE. Legal. Above board. In domestic partnership agreements or casual hookups. Unless you're in Utah. Q

90% of what you teach! I used to have my students do that.

1) Doctors ALWAYS say to come in if things get worse. 2) Things have gotten worse (he's becoming violent, is suffering from fainting &/or seizures) 3) Take him to the hospital. Next time... Don't wait. Every time something happens... Take him in immediately. Doctors can't know things are getting worse, if you aren't coming in. They can't do anything (meds, o2, observation, etc.) if you wait for a consultation a month from now. Something that may be mild enough to wait, can turn very quickly into an emergent situation where you need immediate medical care. Of he collapses again, phone 911. If he refuses to go with you during another attack (but hasn't collapsed) call 911. If this is affecting his brain (and it is) it is affecting. His judgement. Which means you no longer listen to him saying he's fine. YOUR judgement is unimpaired... Call 911... And speak with the EMTs & ER docs to let them know (neuro patients almost always gloss over OR ARE UNAWARE of the issues at hand). Q

Not just newer generations... I couldn't have phone/email for a few months, and my kids school acted like it was the apocalypse! Seriously. Send. Me. (Real) Mail. Or (gasp) talk to me in person when Im picking up & dropping off. Heck. Pin a note to my kid's shirt! While I love living in SciFi as much as the next person (says Internet forum posting chick), I KNOW that just 10 years ago you weren't texting and emailing all the info to parents. It won't kill you to still reach me without the Internet. I promise. Q

1) It's not fair. Period. There is no way, whatsoever, that things are fair. And they won't be. Possibly ever. But it does get better. (And worse. And better, again.) Believe me... I am so sick and freaking tired of the "high road" and it's nosebleeds, that I can't even express it. LOL. Although I've made various attempts. At one point my bestie & I came up with 52 different things to call TheEx (a strong medical & legal background, for various putrid and vile descriptions, helped enormously). I also have a private blog that was essentially me just venting,.., and one post is 'I hate him ' about 500 times. 2) PART of what is unfair is the ongoing theft of joy. Which is the "get over it" part. Not because of something lacking in you. But because every minute of joy that he is STEALING from you, for every minute of pain you're in. Now... I had it easy in this department. Because my ex is a toad. He's STILL stalking me, even years later (he broke in last week, as a matter of fact), and the jerk keeps cloning my phones. So it's easy for me, because I KNOW he gets off on my suffering. Every bit of pain he can see me in just fuels him causing me more pain. Usually through our kids. (As I mentioned, he's a warty muck dweller.) That was the HARDEST to learn to fake, it took me two years not to show how his hurting the kids hurts me. And Im talking some pretty serious abuse issues. It's a lot harder for my friends who divorced for other reasons, As their gut response is that their ex "should" _________ (Care for them, treat them like humans, care if they're in pain, etc,) When the truth is... That they don't. That in divorce, not only is the "obligation" to care removed... But some are actively TRYING to hurt their ex in every way possible And some are just narcissistically oblivious. 3) Every "amicable" divorce is going to drive you insane, for awhile. Not so much being unhappy that others DO still care for their ex even after the obligation to is gone... But because "amicable" divorces have become the standard of behavior OTHERS insist on. Roll. Eyes. Even when the divorce is NOT amicable. ((Now, you may luck out in a year or two a d actually have an amicable divorce, a lot of adultery/infidelity dissolutions become amicable in time. If that does happen, do please try to remember how awful it feels when people are holding you to a standard that is NOT your specific case. As those of us with abusive marriages/ divorces never get the general acceptance. Instead we're told all the time how we "should" be blah blah blah. Like "coparenting" -I did not support his "parenting" choice to strangle our son as punishment when we were married, getting divorced does not change my stance on that particular mode of discipline. or "loving the kids more than we hate the ex and blah blah blah". Have you lost your ever lovin mind??? Dont you DARE question how much i love my children, just because i will not attend a birthday party with their abuser. Question that I haven't killed the bloke, sure. But not that i will not break bread with him and smile & sing and support his continued and ongoing abuses with my presence. In NO other field of criminal law, is a victim supposed to hang out socially with their attacker. Except in divorce land.)) 4) It's human nature to want to fix things. And, in divorce, they can't. At least, in illness/disaster/death/etc... There's usually something obvious to DO. But not in divorce. Divorce is a minefield of 1000x different variables of pain, stages of grieving, and situations. Stick 10 divorced people in a room together, and you won't even get any homogeneity. We're all in different places, and we all started out in different places.* * Im fairly open about my horrific marriage and divorce online... But in real life, maybe 3 people know any of the details in my ward... And that's because 2 women & 1 man were ALSO in abusive marriages with ongoing stalking issues. Our ward has about 200 some odd active families in it. 3 people. Out of a few hundred. I worried, at first, about posting the details of my marriage online, but -come to find- its pretty common. Not as common as infidelity, but common. Here's the thing, though, in real life,.. People don't share. "We grew apart" is code for "I don't want to talk about it". People who haven't been there think "grew apart" is the flat truth. And, just like amicable divorces, they take that as the standard. So either people know how much pain you're in, and don't want to ruin your day by dragging you down into it, or they don't get it. 5) It's human nature to know that you slipped because you're clumsy, but I slipped because I stepped on ice. Aka defense mechanisms. Aka blame the victim. Aka because HE'S all happy and moved on, that if your unhappy, it's obviously your fault. Crazy logic, right? But it protects people / let's the, think that in the same situation THEY will be fine. Or that the bad thing will never happen to them. (Whether its infidelity, abuse, child's death, homelessness, mental illness... Pick ANYTHING that people are afraid of... And you'll find people avoiding those that have what they don't want. Like its contagious. It's not contagious. It's scary. This is part of the "not fair" & untrue, bit, that's no fun. ______ Since Im a beaming ray of sunshine here... I just DO want to underscore that it does get better. Time does NOT heal all wounds, but we get stronger. Promise. Q

Yep! There's a lot of difference in them. The "holy grail" of gun safes/ gun vaults are - Easily accessible to the owner - Almost impossible for anyone BUT the owner - Fireproof / Heatproof - Waterproof / Flood proof - Able to be gotten in your front door/ into the room you want to keep it. Having all 5 requirements = a durn expensive safe. Most people relax on a couple of those reqs, to save in price. I personally don't care about easy access for me... Because if Im planning on going shooting, I can plan in a few minutes to do the combo & schlep about. And if I'm NOT planning on shooting, that means a personal protection piece which doesn't live in the vault, anyway (on me, on my nightstand, or bolted to my bed frame). The 2 areas I personally require are - Theft Prevention (after being so considerate to would be thieves as to gather several thousand dollars in high value/easy sell merchandise in one area, I like to then annoy them, by their not being able to just pick the thing up and walk out, nor being able to drill through thin metal in a jiffy. I have friends who hillbilly-up (aka brilliant cheap fix) by purchasing a cheap wall safe with a stout door, and then sink the thing in concrete. I usually end up selling everything I own once a decade or so (and move more frequently) so I prefer to have the prettier "bought it this heavy and pain in the neck to drill" so I can resell it. - Fire protection. I've never been in a house fire, although I've been in MANY floods. So flood/waterproof might be more pragmatic... But I just can't get over the idea of a) not only being in a fire, but a firefight as all my ammo combusted, b) that I can durn well food saver vacuum pack in plastic anything I actually cared about not getting wet, c) that I usually have a lot of both warning AND cleanup windows on floods, but house fires one has moments. So, really, is is just me being paranoid. But I don't want to be either getting shot, or worrying about it, when trying to get loved ones out of a burning building. Insult to injury. Here are some great sites to read up on: Best Gun Safes at Every Price Point - Guns & Ammo Gun Safe Reviews | Best Buying Guides of 2013 Q

Check with a family law attorney in your state. However, in my state this is what 3 separate lawyers have told me (my divorce attorney, and 2 friends in other fields of law) If you set it to "private" AND save each post as a draft, then there has to be a warrant issued for it. Which they're not allowed to do as a fishing expedition. When you publish it, it becomes part of the public domain/ no expectation of privacy, but if its set private & unpublished... It has the same legal protection as a journal or diary. Technically, I've been told either setting private, or storing as draft should meet the legal requirements for expectation of privacy. But doing both shows a judge that you were seriously intending on keeping it private, and not just lazy. Q