Teenagers are a lot of work, specifically female ones. I am so glad that my next interaction with a teenager in a parental capacity will be with a boy, not a girl and that I'm looking at at least a good 10 years before I have to deal with a female teenager again.

I love this girl. I love her like my own. She's suffered pretty awful things and I think about the time she flinched when I reached up by her head into a cabinet that I realized just how much.

According to her mom, I've been spoiling her rotten. I've bought her underwear, socks, a pair of jeans, some shirts, and a bra. She had nothing but 3 halter tops and a single t-shirt when she arrived, which was all she owned in the world, aside from a couple of jeans, and a smattering of underwear. (Okay, we also hit the Mexican bread shop and Krispy Kremes, but whatEver) Her halter tops left little to the imagination and I finally pulled her aside and said that this was a really conservative area (Little Mormonville situated just south of Baptismal Fount) and that that kind of clothing was inappropriate. Pauline said she had not bought her any of the clothes she brought, so I'm assuming that her charming daddy did. She hasn't been living with Pauline but for a few weeks, so that's the most likely.

Overall, I thought that I chose a pretty tactful way to say, "Hey, you're my 15 year old niece and you look like a tramp!"

Mike and I are cashing out stock options that have gone from being worth 15 to 40 bucks per share (in 3 months) to have extra cash. We both feel that she's had so little for so long that we are happy to find a way to give her something. We just keep telling ourselves that he can use the employee stock purchase plan to recover some of this and because the stock just split, it won't kill us nearly as much. *sigh* I'm putting her in an art class because one of the kids at the Christian youth group made aspersions about her heritage, claiming that he was just making a joke. I didn't find it funny and she was hurt by it, so I'm taking her to the library at will and she'll be taking this drawing class once a week while she's here because drawing is something she loves to do. Her mom is coming up next week to visit, so we'll all go to the local water park with the kids and hang. I might look into something else, but I'll see how happy she is and go from there.

She's been heavy on the guilt trip with her mom, but Pauline is hanging in there and not giving in because she told her "Too bad, you're going to have to stay." I've assured her that we're spoiling A rotten and while A whines about missing her friends, she's enjoying herself anyhow. She's tried pushing on the phone privileges, which I cut up short when she and I both knew she'd exceeded her limits. Mike was very clear with me about what was okay with him and what wasn't, so I've held the line fiercely. We were going to drive her home for an eye appointment and then I realized she was doing stuff that made it clear that she planned on making a run for it when we got back. I talked to her mom and we agreed that perhaps she just needed to wait on that eye appointment, but I also scratched my cornea with a drop of bacon grease, so I think it was all God's will. Everything for a reason.

The only real bummer is that a strange girl called on her boyfriend's cell and hung up on us one morning a half dozen times and finally demanded to know who I was and I identified myself and she hung up. Suffice it to say that we don't think the BF is keeping his nose clean despite the fact that he declared that "I think I love you." to her before they left. However, give this girl credit, she said that,"Hey, I've only known you 6 months, so I don't know if I love you or not." He was nonetheless unamused, apparently such that he can't keep it in his pants. Teenagers!

To follow up on the bacon grease, I saw the doctor yesterday and he said it was healed, so I'm good. No worries. I've gained weight, but I found out that there's a spa pool I could go work out in mornings. My biggest complaint with working out in water in winter is that it's cold, so now, I've got no excuses. I am going to start bolting for an hour or so mornings so I can get some working out time in there. It feels wonderful on my arthritis, and the weight loss would be lovely for my self esteem and diabetes. I got on a scale at the doctor and while it wasn't pretty, it wasn't as bad as I thought either.

Tomorrow morning, I'll be the big fat broad hauling my butt to the spa pool at the buttcrack of dawn. I figure a significant reduction of my buttcrack is a small price to pay for the lack of sleep.