This week (starting with Sunday - yesterday)
Sunday - Himself, the boy, and D2 spent the weekend at the lodge at Doughton Park. This place is in the BOONIES! No TV, not even cell phone signal. Just a rustic lodge, good southern cooking, hiking trails, and quiet. Sunday morning they got up and had breakfast, then D2 peeled off from the rest and headed back to UNC for the week (she is serving as a mentor and chaperon for a journalism conference for NC high school newspaper groups) and the other two headed home. I on the other hand got up and drove D3 to Alpharetta Georgia (suburb of Atlanta) where she is spending the week teaching Irish fiddle to a bunch of kids at Celtic Camp. As I was making the 3 hour drive back home I got a phone call that my mare - Rosalie - was barely able to walk into the barn that morning. So now I'm bawling my eyes out in frustration as I try to drive 75 mph down I 85 and no way to reach my horse for several hours to be sure she is more or less ok. This thing with her is breaking my heart, my unspoken fear is that nothing is going to help her and I am going to have to put this beautiful, otherwise strong healthy horse down. I made it home and for now she is still limping along, I am still praying that I am just expecting too much too soon and that the medicine will eventually help her. She has been going through this almost a year now.

Monday - Barn work early in the morning then a "basketball" haircut for the boy. I buzz his noggin myself regularly. This is basketball camp week for him. It's a half day camp this year and a 30 min drive from here so it will be drive and drop then drive and pick up everyday noon to 4:30. When I pick him up today it's back for evening barn work and checking on Rose (she is getting new shoes today, just what she needs with an already sore foot - pounding nails...)

Tues -Same as Monday except no evening barn work so I'll probably get the groceries in. And maybe a shower? If I'm lucky...

Wed- No barn work so I'll just go check on my girl, work on the house stuff, then get the boy to camp. Must go to Best Buy and try to find a new battery for D2's laptop, she should have already done this - but no, so I gotta get it done. In the evening after he is back from camp he'll go to youth - I think they are bowling this week.

Thurs - Early am load Rosalie for the 45min trip down the mountain to the vet for xrays - please God let them show improvement. Then race back to get boy to camp on time.

Fri - Boy must ride to work with himself this day and Dad will have to take him to camp, attend the looonnnngggg parent program they do on the last day, and get S1 home because I have to head back to Atlanta to scoop up D3 and drive her to Columbia, SC (4+ more hours) so that she can teach both Irish fiddle and Irish harp to a bunch of folks for the weekend. Now sometime late Fri morning D2 will get home from UNC with her laundry and have less than 24 hours to get herself organized to leave for London and Oxford University. I will not be here to help her, I'll be staying the weekend in Columbia, so she is on her own with the laundry. I'll not see her again until Aug.

Sat - I'll be serving as a volunteer at the SC Irish Arts Weekend while D3 teaches. Himself and the boy will drive D2 to the airport in Charlotte. Then himself will take the boy to the Billy Graham Library - not our idea, the boy's idea. I can't think of much that would be more boring, but hey, if he is interested it can be done. Part of that experiencing as much as possible thing we do. Technically school is over for the year, but really it is a year round thing.

More or less, sorta kinda, this is the week. Lord willing and the creek don't... ya know