the week that was...

Wow, it's been a while since I wrote anything here. Truth is, I had all of last week off of work which, you'd think, would be a very good thing. I was in need of some time away from work and taking a week off with no real plans usually gives me some rest, relaxation and fresh perspective. But last week just gave me a major head ache.

We are dealing with, from a very far distance. a change in Alex's father's health that means he may not be able to ever live on his own again. Being thousands of miles away does not make it easy to try to get information about what's going on, what's to happen next and where he goes from here. We were planning a vacation to Sweden but now that vacation time will be taken when we have to help the family move his things so it will not be the restful leisurely time we had hoped for. Also the distance and time change between here and Sweden meant that to get any information at all it had to be done when businesses were open in Sweden which, much to our chagrin, was about 2 or 3 am our time. Right now my sleep schedule is a little loopy!

Another thing we had to deal with was the sudden death of my sister's ex-husband. I can't honestly say that I feel saddened by his passing though I feel very sorry for his two adult children who are dealing with the death of the parent for the first time. I don't mean to sound so callous, that I don't feel anything, but he was an ex-brother in law and someone I haven't associated with for a very long time so it's not as though I knew him very well at all. Still, a death in the family is a death in the family and just as stressful either way.

In the middle of all of this, we had our friend come over to give us a quote on what he would take to paint three rooms in our apartment. Turns out he's quite affordable and he's starting this Thursday. Even with that one bright spot there was still an overwhelming feeling of being stuck last week.

We have big plans but have no way to implement them and after a while all the wishing, dreaming and hoping gets a little old and one starts to feel stuck. I'm sure we'll be fine and plans will roll as, well, as planned but it's been a weird week that has made seeing the light at the end of the tunnel just a little bit harder.