Hello! So glad you stopped by.

Sit down and have some tea with me. I certainly need a tea break this weekend after the week I had. I might even have cocoa instead of tea, honestly. I meant to have this little chat and tea time up earlier today, but got delayed by . . . well, a lot.

This past week was a nightmare in many ways. There’s no way around it.

Actually, it all started on Friday of last week when my mom started to have horrible pain in her chest and stomach area. She’s had this before many times and has been told it is gastritis.

To make too long of a story much shorter, my mom was taken to the emergency room and diagnosed with pancreatitis caused by gallstones.

She was immediately admitted to the hospital, 45 minutes north of where we live, and a procedure to clean out the gallbladder was performed on Tuesday. The pancreas had to settle down after that procedure and then a plan was made to remove her gallbladder on Thursday.

While all this was going on, I was trying to recover from a cold, and it ended up leaving me up all night long two nights in a row due to coughing. The coughing only happened when I’d try to fall asleep though and wasn’t happening at all during the day. It was so odd. I wasn’t in great shape on Wednesday, ended up at the doctor, and was told I have severe postnasal drip left over from the virus or whatever I had.

This left me grounded and unable to go to give my poor dad a break from all the craziness. Thank God (literally) we were able to find a room at a Ronald McDonald type house across from the hospital for Dad, which cut down on his driving time.

I felt completely helpless yet absolutely unable to drive myself due to the condition I was in Wednesday.

I took magnesium glycinate Tuesday night to try to get myself to sleep but instead, it woke me up which has happened before when I took it but I had hoped wouldn’t happen again. It was horrible and I was shaking and a mess Wednesday. I was so relieved Mom’s surgery was pushed off until Thursday. Wednesday night I was able to sleep fairly well and Thursday I was able to be with Mom and actually function much better. Last night was another not-so-great night of sleep for me, but hopefully, that will get better soon.

The surgery went well and as I am writing this, Mom is sitting across from me talking to my brother on the phone.

After my sleepless night on Tuesday night, I sat in a confused stupor in a chair in our living room, watching the Anne of Green Gables movie sequel. I had watched the original earlier in the week. I sat in the chair, propped up, so all my drainage wouldn’t make me cough, dozing off for half an hour sprints and waking up to watch more of the movie.

I hated how I felt but I loved having that time to watch a movie with good memories from my past. It was very sentimental and nostalgic. I haven’t finished the second movie yet but hope to this weekend.

Homeschool was a total wash this week. Between The Boy being sick, me being sick, and my mom being in the hospital, we truly really couldn’t find time to do it. We will jump in with both feet Monday and get back on track. We are taking our time and learning through experiences and life skills this year, but are also still focused on actual curriculum. I’m trying to create a calmer, less rigid homeschool experience this year and so far it is going well. Letting go this week and accepting we won’t finish our school year when I originally wanted to was very hard, but necessary.

I am looking forward this week to continuing The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn with The Boy, and hopefully finishing it, and continuing The Children of The Longhouse with Little Miss.

Of course, we will also have Math and Science to delve into and they can be fun as well, but English is my jam, as some might say (though probably not in 20 years).

I’ll ramble more about what I read and watched this week on my Sunday Bookends post tomorrow, but  will say now that being able to escape into books, especially, was a welcome blessing this week.

Our weather remained warm part of this week, but the damp and gloomy days did nothing to help my cold or lift my spirits. I felt like I was walking in a dream world most of the week, but that may have been more because of the sleep deprivation than anything else. The cold weather is already returning, reminding us that it is still winter.

I hope your week was better than mine was.

Did you do anything exciting or fun? How is the weather where you are? And what are you drinking today? Hot tea, a cup of coffee, or cocoa? Let me know in the comments below. I’d love to know.

(After Mom had been home for a while today, and after her nap, she asked if I would put this song on YouTube for her to listen to. She loves the lyrics and I guess it was running through her head at the hospital this morning. She began to cry as it played. Maybe it will mean something to you too.)