The Week Ahead

I'm not going to use the word busy, M, to describe my week ahead. But I will say that I will have many things going on at once and I have every hope of staying on top of them. J.T. and Abby return to school after a week off for Fall holidays. Which means school lunches, homework, drop-offs, pick-ups, arguments about which hair bow to wear commence tomorrow. Tuesday is an out of town conference for me and extra arrangements on getting children where they need to be when they need to be there. The in-laws will be pitching in on that front. It's so nice that they live next door... makes it so much more convenient for all of us. Thursday and Friday I finally have my long-delayed audit (ACK! EEK!) which I hope to pass with flying colors. I have never been audited before and am crossing my fingers that I am not making any inadvertent stupid mistakes.

Yesterday we received the sad news of the passing of our blogger friend S, from TeamSAK. I have to tell you that the week ahead doesn't seem challenging anymore in light of this loss. Rob and I went to bed last night with heavy hearts. I know you join me in sending condolences and prayers to her family and friends. It is astounding to me how close I feel to all of my blogging friends, even though I have never seen you face to face. You make me laugh, cry, think, give, strive to climb outside my box and take on things I might otherwise not have done. The things you share, the lives you are leading have become very important to me. Thank you all. Thank you dear S, for your posts, and your comments on my blog and on Rob's. We will miss you.

Best Friends

My dear friend Angel turns 32 on August 20th. We have been friends almost our entire lives, ever since we were in nursery together crawling around on the purple carpet and playing with the oversized cardboard bricks. We have shares joys and laughter and endured our sadnesses together. Together we spent hours playing and pretending at her house and mine. We snuck into the kitchen for late night ice cream and stayed up late sharing our thoughts. I have even made many a trip to the bathroom in the middle of the night (you have to have the world's smallest bladder) because our long, dark hallway was too scary to make the trip alone. We experienced the bad 80's perm, the mean high school French teacher and first boyfriends. We have cruised the streets of our hometown in the family sedan singing along to the radio as loudly as possible and dreaming of "the one". Rob swears my voice changes when I talk to Angel on the phone. It does. We have our very own dialect.

We aren't exactly alike. And I have to say I am insanely jealous of her ability to take something inexpensive and make it look tres chic, whereas on me it would just look cheap. I would give my right arm for her gorgeous thick hair and I hate, hate, hate that she can eat one bite of something and put it down with an: I'm full.

For my children, the thing I wish most for them in life is A) the courage to follow their dreams and B) a great love and C) a best friend. Happy Birthday Angel. I loves you! (The picture above is of Angel holding a freshly hatched J.T. for the first time. The quality is crap... it is an old picture that was scanned. I found a new one, but can't get it loaded. I'll post it later.)