One of those weeks...

You know how some weeks are calm and quiet?
Easy and simple?
Relaxed and restful?
Everything goes according to plan?


You know how sometimes you have a week when
you get through all your to-do lists,
answer all your emails, return all your phone calls,
pay all the bills, prepare all the lessons,
exercise everyday and eat well all week long?

Well, this past week was NOT one of those weeks.

(Just so you know - I have NEVER had one of those weeks.
But this week was even more unlike those weeks than ever.)


I'm not saying that it was a bad week. It was a fantastic week.

The Rosecliff Rascals at the waterfalls, Chimney Rock, NC.

I am proud to be the baby of the group!

It started off a week ago yesterday, when I left my home and went away for what we dubbed "The First Annual Brownes Pond Lane Women's Weekend Away." One of the women on my street owns a gorgeous log cabin up on Lake Adger. The six of us sat around eating and drinking and talking and laughing - and then we hiked for a couple of hours on Saturday to burn off all the lemon tart we'd eaten on Friday night.

Then we ate and drank some more and talked and told stories until the week hours of Sunday morning. Other than the small scorpion I saw in the bathroom on Sunday morning (who knew there were scorpions in North Carolina???) , I managed to avoid running into any non-human critters. Of the human kind, there were far too many! I'd love to go back up to that house and spend a weekend alone and in silence. It is the perfect place to sneak off to for deep solitude and rest.

The lake glistened as the sun went down.

A completely unaltered photo...

(Who am I kidding? I don't alter any of my photos.

I don't even know how...)

Then on Monday, a dear, dear friend of mine, a friend I met when Kristiana, now 16, was only six weeks old, drove all the way down to Charlotte from Connecticut with her three children and her mother. We ate and drank and sat by their hotel pool and talked and laughed and bowled and walked and ate some more and watched the kids play tennis and ping pong and a form of mini-golf.

Daniel goes for a strike...

And between all that, I interpreted at the funeral of the husband of a friend of mine, prepared for and taught a class at a local senior living community, took my daughter to her piano lesson, shopped at the supermarket, cooked, cleaned, took my son to his tennis lesson and clinic, took my daughter to her volunteer job, took my children to youth group at the church, and performed a host of other tasks too numerous, mundane, and vitally important to the maintenance of my household to list here.

The crew enjoying ice cream and Karen taking a photo from the other side...

It was a fantastic week. But it was a week that kept me away from the gym (truly disturbing considering all the eating I have done in the past week!!!), from my study, from my desk, from my journal (gasp!), and from a time of connection with my own soul.

I could tell you that my body is exhausted - and it is.
But what is most pressing for me now is that my soul is also tired and in need to rest.
So I'm gonna take a few more days to regroup, after which I will emerge from my cocoon with more stories.

Yes, it was one of those weeks...
and I loved (nearly) every minute of it.