the end

mark & tina & their baby girls left today. i've so enjoyed having them around; being able to drop by to see them, to hold aly & zoe, just to hang out and be together... i will really miss them. when my girls were small, and we used to drive away from mimi & papa's house with them sobbing in the backseats, we would tell them "it's good to miss people, because it means that you love them." turns out we were right. :) i love that little family. they are my peeps. :)

this is also the end of the first week of school. my 10 year old daughter, she with the tenderest heart you may ever find, is taking a 9 week exploratory class on "law" in her middle school, where today they read a story of a family of 5 who were robbed in their home and then shot execution style in their living room. as a mom, it seems to me that perhaps they could choose a less explicit, or less violent crime to teach 6th graders about "victims". she spent a long time in tears talking to her dad about it... poor girl. i realize that kids have to learn about what is out there in the world, but i don't know - this seems like too much. thankfully, other than that, both girls have had a week that's been victory after victory...

and now i am d.o.n.e. i am spent. my heart is tired, my body is tired, my brain is tired. but we have company staying with us this weekend... one final night (tomorrow) to be the hostess and hold it together. thank goodness monday is a holiday! if i didn't have that to hold on to, who knows how i would get through the weekend...although there is that bottle of wine in the rack... :)