I spoke too soon

Apparently, I spoke too soon.  This lovely holiday weekend brought me a new sore throat, lots of coughing, and pretty much losing my voice.  I'm blaming this one on my boss since he's the only one that had this particular ailment.  I'm sure most of you can't imagine me not talking, but I don't have much choice with my squeaky voice.
Fortunately, I still have Twitter, Facebook, and blogging to keep me conversing.  I did have time this weekend to tat a few new things for our shop.  I'm happy with how the Southwest inspired tatted items turned out.  This week I'm looking forward to working on designing some wedding invitations for a friend and helping with represent the Women's Business Network at a business expo.  I sure hope my voice comes back soon!

February Adventures

What's the latest and greatest going on in our household?  I've been easing my way back onto my good pills, so the world is definitely a happier place.  Emerson and I finally got past being sick, but then Dwayne got it.  I think Dexter is now coming down with something.

Gambit is now one year old (as of Valentine's Day) and is mellowing out more.  He and Storm are getting along better and on warmer days we're able to put them outside for a bit.  We're happy with how Storm is doing, but we still miss our Scout.

Emerson's been enjoying his job and one of the teacher's he works with let him know about a local ice hockey team. We are now huge fans of the Utah County Blizzard hockey team - too bad their season is nearly over.  Emerson loves driving the Trooper (except on really windy days) and we're happy to see that it has much better gas mileage than the old truck did (especially since gas prices are skyrocketing).  I know he's going to be happier once the weather stays warm on a regular basis so he can get more stuff done outside.  He's definitely the "cabin fever" type.

Work is still keeping me pretty busy.  I've been tutoring two students regularly and trying to work around their treatment center schedule has been challenging.  For example, on Tuesday, one of the girls was in the Intensive Support Unit (ISU) so I couldn't tutor her.  I tried again on Wednesday, but she was still in ISU.  When I tried on Thursday, I waited until she was done with school, then group therapy, and then dinner.  Unfortunately, she then had recreation therapy and I was told to wait another hour.  I went back to my office and worked for an hour and tried again.  Now she was in the shower!  It was nearly 7 pm by the time I was able to tutor her and by the time we were done, her unit/dorm was already done with evening medications and I had to take her to medical services to get her meds. Very long night!  It's amazing how packed these kids' schedules are and it's a wonder they ever get any free time or even time to do homework.  On the brighter side, I have really enjoyed working with the Women's Business Network and it looks like we have some great plans for this year.  Planning is also underway for our annual golf tournament and I still have plenty to do with the Heritage play.  Still, I managed to get all creative and try tatting with some rope.  I thought it would be a bracelet, but it seems more like a ring for playing ring toss.

Do Over...Please!

I finally got over the worst of being sick and went back to work.  It was hard to be away for so long, especially since I feel bad when I'm not there to tutor the two girls I've been working with.  Besides the fact that I LOVE teaching, tutoring pays better than my regular job.  Right now, I am working with two girls for two hours per girl each week.  I was already able to get one girl off of academic probation.

You're probably wondering what all that has to do with the title for this post.  When I started writing, I realized how negative it was going to be and figured it would be better if I started with something positive.  Now for the other stuff...

Monday morning I returned to work and my first call of the morning was from Dexter, telling me that he had lost his job.  It would have bothered me a lot less if I had known how much worse the day was going to get.  In catching up on what I had missed while I was out sick last week, I found out that  a coworker's 21 year old son had died in a tragic way.  Since the coworker has worked there a long time, he and his family are close friends of Emerson's as well.  We went to the viewing and it was absolutely heartbreaking.  Late Monday afternoon, my friend who works as our safety officer at work and has been managing the play rehearsals called me for help.  She found out her son was in the hospital because of a car accident.  Even though he didn't have serious injuries from the car accident, they discovered other problems that led them to discover that he had leukemia.  Now we're all scrambling to cover the rehearsals so she can be with her son now that he will be in the hospital for a month.  My boss was out of town attending a family gathering for his mother-in-law's 90th birthday.  Just after we updated him on all the other things going on, his mother-in-law passed away.  At that point, we were getting scared to answer the phone anymore.

I know things will get better and time will heal the pain for those involved, but it sure made a tough beginning for my week.  Too bad we can't call a "Do Over" and start this week over again....