Wrote you a long blog post, deleted it by accident, here's the short version
The short version: I had a wonderful three-week vacation in Europe with my husband, then spent almost three weeks being sick, which was far less fun. I was so sick that I wasn’t fully functional. Fortunately, my rheumatologist took one look at me and prescribed antibiotics and other meds to make me well, which still took a while. Ugh. And then I became a grandmother. (Details below the photo gallery.)
The long post I wrote and accidentally deleted had tons of vacation photos from Barcelona and Thessaloniki and the cruise we took between our stays in those wonderful cities, which involved stops in France (Corsica), Italy (Sardinia, Sicily, Salerno/Sorrento and Civativecchia), and Greece (Santorini, Athens, and Mykonos). At least the photos got saved to my website, so here’s a brief photo essay of our trip. Pretty sure if you click an image, you will embiggen it.
Grandbaby news!
My granddaughter was due in late June, but showed no signs of moving on out. My daughter Maggie was admitted to the hospital to be induced almost two weeks late, and everything went smoothly. Right up until it didn’t, and an urgent emergency C-section was required. From the sounds of it, the doctor was downright heroic (not an exaggeration), and the baby was never in any danger despite the need for a running trip into the OR. Maggie and the baby are both doing well, though of course my poor daughter is still recovering from unexpected major abdominal surgery, and she and my son-in-law are still working through the trauma of it all.
It helps that my grandbaby is an amazingly wonderful baby, who is excellent at all the things newborns are supposed to do: eat, sleep, grow, poop, etc. Truly the only downside (or is it an upside? depends on the day and who you ask) is that little P is a contact sleeper, which means she only sleeps if held. (She houdinis herself out of swaddles and startles awake otherwise—she’s very clever.)
Between the C-section recovery and the contact sleeping, I’ve spent most mid-days holding a sleeping baby so that her mama and daddy can get naps, or Jon can get some time to do things like work out or mow the lawn. I am decidedly not complaining. I love every minute I get to spend with with P, and with her parents.
Just this past weekend, I took a day off from baby duty to throw a birthday party for Morris, who turned 80 the other day. It was wonderful to have our friends and relatives and a group of Morris’s tai chi students here for the day.
All of these things together have me coming up with some pointers, so here goes:
Celebrate the people you love, whenever you can, and while they are here.
Tell people you love them. It’s okay if you make it weird.
Take the vacation. Really enjoy yourself. Tomorrow isn’t promised.
When things go sideways, and sometimes they do, it’s okay to grieve over what went wrong, even if things turned out kind of alright in the end.
Go to the doctor if you (like me) are five days into a cold and suddenly spike a fever. It could be pneumonia (or, in my case, a bacterial infection of the lungs).
Aren’t you glad you got the “short” version?
Look for my next blog post to be more business-related. After all, the Wheel of the Year keeps on turning. Lughnasadh (the first harvest festival on the Celtic calendar) starts this weekend on the 1st of August.
