A weekend of highs and lows

Yep, I'm a week behind.  That's me!

Last Friday I headed up to Gatlinburg/Pigeon Forge for a weekend of girlie-time with one of my very bestest friends in the world.  We had each made a list of three things we wanted to do, and set ourselves to doing them!  I wanted to go to the Christmas store, eat at the Pancake Pantry, and stay up late chatting.  She wanted to go up in to the mountains to see the leaves (we *kinda* did that...the traffic was SO heavy that we sort of counted the visible mountains from Gatlinburg as going "up into the mountains."),  eat at Mellow Mushroom, and walk around Gatlinburg/PF window shopping.  It was DEElightful to spend time with my girlie.  I needed it.  Oh oh oh!  We rode this thing called the SkyLift up to the top of a mountain...and I literally almost dropped my purse.  OMG.  That would have sucked!!!  But I caught it *just* in time. Shew.

In sad news, just as I was pulling into the Smokies, Patrick called to tell  me that his mom had passed away. We knew it was coming, and it is very sad.  But honestly?  We are relieved that she is finally at peace.  The poor woman was miserable for the vast majority of her life. THAT is the saddest part.  Patrick is of course grieving the loss of his mother...but he encouraged me to go on with my girlie weekend. I had major guilt, but we talked many times throughout the weekend, and he was doing ok.  The hardest part for him is getting his head around the fact that she is gone.  She had, among other things, dementia...so he has been "losing her" for a really long time.  There really was some relief to knowing she is free at last.

I really want to get back to blogging.  Anybody still around to read?