Home Again

I'm back from Chicago (got home at 1 am this morning) and glad to be here. I have not a single photo because I was working pretty much the whole time. I taught 17 hours of knitting classes over the course of 4 days and I'm a little brain-dead. I enjoy it though, and have made some awesome friends among the other teachers, so in spite of the lack of photographic evidence, I had a great time. I got to celebrate my birthday on Saturday with a luscious room service breakfast with my friend Debbie from Yakima, and got sung to several times by the good folks I work with at these conventions. It was a good day. It has continued on into this week as I came home to lots of fun wishes from friends and family and the promise of lunches and dinners with pals. That is my favorite way to celebrate. It is good to be loved and I love everyone back. I came home with scads of free swag from the sponsors as appreciation gifts to the teachers, and was relieved that my suitcase topped out at 48.5 pounds so I didn't have to pay 125 bucks to get it on the plane.

Now as reality dawns, I realize anew that it was a less-than-ideal weekend to be away, and even though Eric did an amazing job as usual holding down the fort while I was gone, there were some small details that fell by the wayside. I was scrambling to find the high school bus schedule so Sara and Sam missed the bus, I had no chips, pretzels or fruit for lunches, and I completely forgot to take first day of school photos. I also didn't get copies of Sam and Sara's schedules before those precious slips of paper disappeared into the abysses of their backpacks. I'll probably never see them again. The schedules, not the kids. Evan never received his schedule, so I took him over to the middle school to get it and they wouldn't print one out. He had to just go to homeroom. In addition, because we never received the mailing, he has no emergency cards to turn in, so no locker. Luckily, he's a trooper and handled it all with poise and aplomb. Oh yeah, and I completely forgot to pick songs for Relief Society. I so hate it when I leave people hanging. Those emails made me cringe.

But, if those are my biggest troubles, then I'm a pretty lucky woman. The kids will survive on just a sandwich and cookies and a drink, the photos will get taken tomorrow, and all will be well. Now it's time to get ready for seminary. And so it begins...