On a Wing and a Prayer

Has it really been Thanksgiving since I last posted? I think that's the longest I've gone between posts since I first started this blog four years ago. I have just had a couple of the busiest weeks of 2011 at work and home. Whew! This is always a busy season for me at work because of the holiday related community events my employer participates in, but sister mercy, it's been busy at home, too. Yesterday was the first day since before Thanksgiving where I could just sit for a few minutes, unwind and make a list of all the little things I need to catch up on. And that list covers a whole page. So what's new? Dear Lord, please send me two extra legs and more hands. Amen.


Here's what the Hula-gen's have been up to:

-We got Papa T. out of the hospital and back home with some physical therapy and home health. About the time we thought he was back on the right track, he had a very light stroke that sent him back to the hospital for two days. Fortunately, there was no damage to his speech or mobility but it certainly did give us a bit of a scare for a few hours. And it happened while I was in the middle of shooting a wedding, so I couldn't leave and help Hubby at the hospital. Aye, yi, yi. It all worked out though, and Papa T. is back home feeling pretty good and may I say just a little sassy.

-The photography business has been very busy in recent weeks. I had four family shoots and a wedding all squeezed into a three week period. I spent every spare minute this past weekend editing photos and uploading them to my photography site. I am now caught up, except for the wedding, and those pictures aren't due for a couple of more weeks, so I'll be working on those over the course of the next few nights. Weddings are hard work, but I do love seeing the bride and groom enjoy their big day. It brings back good memories. I'm lovin' the photography for pay thing even though it does consume a fair amount of time. Can you say vacation money? Dear Lord, thank you. Amen.

-Speaking of vacation, we are going on a cruise in January. It's been planned for quite some time, and we'll be on the same cruise as several of my cousins and their spouses. It's going to be a blast, and Hula was very proud of herself for scoring $62 planet tickets for the flight to our port city, New Orleans, and $59 tickets for the flight home. But she got a little greedy and was holding out for a great deal on a hotel room in New Orleans for that night before our boat leaves port. And then LSU got a spot in the BCA Championship game. In New Orleans. On January 8th. The night we're staying there. And suddenly the hotel rooms got scarce and expensive. Holy hurricane, Batman! A room at the Marriott Convention Center that was $149 a night three weeks ago is now $445 a night, and most of the mom and pop bed and breakfast inns have a four night minimum stay that week. After an hour and a half on the phone and online I managed to find a room for $111, three miles from downtown New Orleans in a hotel that is not next door to a crack house. I'll take it. It's better than renting a car at the airport, driving out of town to a hotel and driving back in the next day. And we won't have to stay with Madd Maxx and his family in Baton Rouge, which was going to be Plan B, even though he doesn't know that yet. We're still close enough to the French Quarter to boogie on over there if we want, and it occurred to me today that perhaps we should actually try to go to the game. Whatever we do, I'm sure New Orleans will be rockin' that night so it should be interesting.

-In the category of bad news never seems to be far away these days, we got word last week that Teen Angel's cat, Sabrina, has cancer. In fact, she doesn't have long to live. Her lungs are full of tumors so she probably has only days left. She doesn't seem to be uncomfortable yet, so we are keeping an eye on her and lavishing her with lots of attention. One of two things will likely happen in the next week. She will either start to hurt and we'll have to put her to sleep or she will die in her sleep. Every time we walk into the house we run to check on her and hope she hasn't died. This death watch thing is kind of hard. It's compounded by the fact that Sabrina was actually Sissy's cat. Sissy adopted her as a kitten right after Sissy's son died, and we adopted Sabrina when Sissy died. There's a unique attachment there, and it just makes losing Sabrina even more difficult than it normally would be. Dear Lord, please stop with the bad news. It's getting old. Amen.

-And on a really positive note, one of the things we do at work this time of year is to hold a two day event with the local hospitals where we try to stuff a semi truck full of canned goods for local food pantries. The event started last Tuesday with a bang, and then quickly slid downhill when the weather turned to poo. It rained early, turned to wet heavy snow, sleeted, rained some more and then turned very windy. As in it turned over our pop up tent. It was just miserable, and as I huddled with the other volunteers in the back of that cold wet semi last Tuesday night, I thought we were certainly going to go home with much less food than expected. But then the sun shined the following morning and cars started streaming to the truck. Hours later the truck was full, and we had more than 17,000 pounds of food. I couldn't believe it. I guess that's why they call it faith. Dear Lord, thanks for the affirmation that the world is not going to hell in a hand basket. Amen.