Busy, Busy, Busy

I don't think I've ever worked so hard in my life. And I've had two babies...one of whom was stuck. Friday afternoon and late into the night I worked packing up my parent's shop. They had an automotive franchise. About 10 of us spent whatever time we could packing up 5 bays, the office, the computers, the parts, the equipment, everything - including all the bolted down things. We had about 24 hours to get it all off the property. Head office politics were heavily responsible. It's not the first shop they've yanked out from under the people who run them. There are class action law suits pending in both the States and Canada. I've never seen my parents so exhausted. It will take a couple of days to see what they are going to do. Perhaps they'll just help my brother set up the business to run on his own.

After working all afternoon Friday, I took a break for dinner and bedtime with my family. I returned to the shop to work some more and the sad part of things started. People were getting tired. My brother was at the hospital after almost slicing his finger off when moving one of the hoists. The wait at Emerg was taking too long, so we called our family doctor/neighbour who came into town and patched my brother up. While the patching up was taking place, my sister dropped a filing cabinet off of the dolly onto her foot. She was forced to calling her new husband in to help. He'd already been there for 12 hours and had just left to have a couple of beer with some friends. So poor sister with three damaged toes, was delegated into driving around her husband until his blood alcohol was back within legal limits. Later on in the evening, we discover that my mom had badly broken a toe earlier in the day. We didn't notice because first, she didn't say anything and second because she was keeping the business running while the rest of us were dismantling the place. There were a few other minor incidents. Just after midnight, we called off the work and left the rest for the morning. By 10am Saturday, the place was empty.

I grabbed four hours of sleep and then I was off for my Home Schooling Conference an hour out of town. It was a great day and I'm so glad I offered to drive up anyone who wanted a ride. It was nice to have company. The conference was great. The key-note speaker was awfully disappointing, in my opinion. I had two awesome seminars given by Cyndy Regeling (scroll down), some great shopping, a nice lunch and more than enough time to touch, feel read, discuss, compare and criticise all the wonderful resources the vendors brought with them.

Saturday night I slept like the dead.

This is what we did on Sunday:




It was great fun and a lovely change of pace. We even went for ice cream after. It was very Mary Poppinish. It didn't occur to me until later that night that my kids had never been kite-flying before. Raiden kept telling us that it was the best day ever.

Hopefully the muscle pain in my arms (and legs...and back, neck, feet and hands) will clear up shortly and I can share the treasures I brought home from the conference. Have a good week, all.