Update

My mother is in the hospital. It is a long story, but it looks like this is going to be a long ordeal. We are dealing with the situation one day at a time. I am three hours from home, staying at my dad's house, and the hospital she is in is a 40 minute drive each way.

On a much brighter note, my children are with me now! Mark kept them for the weekend, but he loaded up school books, clothes, and the football that seems attached to Abel's hand, and brought them to me yesterday. What joy in my heart. It felt like I had been away from them for weeks instead of 55 hours and 27 minutes (uhm, approximately). They will stay with Pappy and Granny while I am at the hospital each day. I do not know how much school work they will do, but Pappy and Granny assure me they will help. It is hard to focus when the schedule is off, but they would be bored and stir crazy if we took the week off.

It did not take long for everything to feel normal again. Shortly after we got here, Hope found some checkers to play with. She loves to carry around little things that she can count, stack, and play with. (Remember the Splenda packets?) At one point, she crammed them into her mouth, then threw a huge fit when I took them away from her. Mean ole mommy. Elizabeth tried to feed her peanut butter sandwich to the dog. "But Mommy, she likes the peanut butter." Robert and Abel went through every board game in the play room. I am not sure what they will do for entertainment the rest of the week. Hannah spent an hour in the bathroom fixing her hair -- before bed! Ahhh. All is right with the world again. The only thing missing is that handsome fella who sleeps in my bed. I wish we were together, but we know this has to be taken care of and we pray this will be a short season.

Time to shower and get ready for the marathon ahead. How thankful I am to have these five beautiful mouths to feed this morning. I will update again soon, and I promise to get back to posting yummy recipes when I am home again. I also have hopes of following through with a resolution to prepare (and post about) healthy meals each day in 2009. I am chewing on details (ha, ha, ha...pardon the pun) and will elaborate soon.

Blessings,
Bev