Trying too hard is a consistent theme in my non-traditional life. By the time I found my first engineering mentor, I could over-tighten a nut more destructively than the most macho of the boys I was competing with. Lightening my touch was a constant lecture from my mentor. "More is seldom better," Mister Furman continually lectured all of his trainees. "Easy does it. Use enough torque, but never too much." With me, he included a touch of disappointment that a girl needed to be told such a thing.

This morning finds me on my matriachal perch on the back porch of the Urban Homestead, feeling bouts of the all too familiar anxieties as the housewoofin' waters close over my head, making my field work feel like the run-away housewife spa trip the hubs and sons treat it as. They don't much care what I did between the cucumbers on my eyes and the hair treatments. I want to head back to the farm project, but fear I am forcing solutions once more. Hubs is tolerant of my work, but his tolerance has a way of covering disdain. His disdain has a way of sabotaging progress in favor of the silver platter restrictions he was raised with. "Because I said so! I the boss. Back to the Someday Shelf, Wench. I'm a busy man and don't have time for your wifely nonsense today." Okay, okay, putting Sarcasm Beast back on the leash. Sarcasm is one of my flags that I am forcing solutions again. Girl, howdy, I get mean when my sarcasm beast starts howling.

Don't know if I am heading back to the farm or just chilling here in the Urban Homestead. No shortage of stuff to do here, so chilling in the Urban Homestead is far from cruel and unusual punishment. My feather babies are glad to see me back. The other members of the homestead pretty much ignore them.

Sorting. . . Am I forcing solutions up there at the farm? By my personal ethics, I have no rights there. Just a job to do. Yes, I have legal rights as a wife, but my personal ethics demand that when my busy executive husband starts swinging his money club, I take nothing but the personal pride he found me with and leave him alone in his counting house. It is all yours, Sir. Godspeed. Yup, he's swinging the money club like he is the only one in the family who can do math. He sure looks like the FIL when he swings the money club. Sir, yes Sir.