Monday

This is what you should always remember: the stuff that you think will be hard may in fact be easy and the stuff you dismiss as simple may, in the end, stump you.

I am up early. It's cold. There is a pretty dusting of snow outside...






I know it wont stay. We'll be back to brown tones soon enough. But for now, I like it!

Breakfast, where I say a quiet thanks to the Kalamazoo soy candles that have cast a warm glow over each and every day since we had our first blast of cold air back in early November...






And then I make my way to the hospital, where my mother is ready to be discharged. It's a cold day and my car is not easy to get in and out of and so I worry.

Needlessly. Up, swivel, sit. She is in. And I know from her conversation in the car that this hasn't been dramatic for her: she is quite her old self, albeit still totally fatigued.

The Rehab facility is however you want to see it: one step less brutal than a hospital, but surely less homey than... well, home. And there are the messy parts. The paper work to process, the social worker that I have to find ("oh, we're sorry but we're in the process of hiring and training a new one..."), the lost wallet, the needed clothes, the missing papers, the incorrect papers... Oh, you know. Stuff. And stuff is always never ending. It breeds more stuff. You can't downsize and rid yourself of ongoing stuff. It just keeps coming.

Still, this is life: you move through the gritty chores and if you are lucky (like I am!), you return to your calm space with a candle and you pick up mail and you smile at the holiday cards and holiday box in your mailbox and you heat up an espresso with very frothy milk and you put away chores for now and go pick up the kids at school.

(Where is my sister??)






(Lost in a story...)






(At the farmhouse, she goes for the stack of books...)






(He's hoping for "office play")






(No office game today, but all's forgiven!)






(Love triumphs.)





Yes it does!

Kids go home, daylight recedes and I go back to my various chores and obligations. Much has been done. Much is still left to do.