EKjourney Backup

So, last week was "reentry" back into real life...I may or may not have threatened to put the children in school and I may or may have said I am NEVER leaving again.  It may have been a difficult reentry... As I have probably mentioned many many times lately, we are in a challenging stage of life.  Phil works a lot of hours and the kids have their extracurricular activities.  School is a full time job for me and it is the first time in my life that I have been unable to juggle the basics.  I literally have to choose between dinner, laundry, or school plans.  As someone who like order, organization, and a manageable to do list, this has been one of the hardest seasons of life in regards of not being able to run things efficiently.   And then Monday, my beautiful friend Kelly had an appointment on the status of her diagnosis of Muscular Degeneration.  She has been expecting the switch to a diagnosis of ALS.  Indeed, that is what the test shown....

I took a 6 night, 7 day trip to the Midwest to visit my friend Cherry and my friend Kelly.  This was the longest that Phil and I have been separated (by 2 nights, I think) and the longest that the children and I have been separated (by 4 nights).  It was an interesting trip and I have so much swirling around in my head that I have had trouble processing it all today.  I will try and break down the trip through pictures... This was such a "happy" moment for me.  I had the whole trip in front of me to look forward to.  It was early morning, my favorite time of day.  I was very early, which is also my favorite.  I had a couple of hours to kill with nothing on a to do list, no place to go, no one to monitor.  There was nothing and I had nothing but a bag and several choices of entertainment (read a magazine, a book, listen to audio story, crochet, sketch).  I got a tea, turned on an audio story, started a new crocheted project with my new yarn....