Making The Transition

From nuclear family to single parent to orphan.

For Randall, at least, this will be a very busy, hectic, tiring week. Starting tomorrow morning.

He's got a Leadership Seminar to be at from Friday until Sunday after lunch, and then the annual Pastors and Spouses retreat (which, he found out a few months ago, he's sort of in charge of) starts.

We've decided that he'll zip home from Cochrane when he's finished there and do a turn around, taking me with him down to Banff so he can be there for pre-retreat meetings first thing Monday morning.

I'm looking forward to the retreat. We missed it last year because we were, for real, in transition. We honestly couldn't justify asking the church we were leaving to send us to the retreat a week before our last Sunday with them. We also thought it might be a bit presumptuous to ask the church we were joining to send us to the retreat a month before we were officially on the payroll. Besides that whole stressful thing about being in the midst of packing and sorting and moving.

So we gave it a miss.

This year will be different yet again because, since the conference annual meeting, Randall's been the chair of the Ministerial Board. This means (as he's been very careful to point out, lest I have any disappointed expectations) that he'll be pretty much working during the two day retreat. I'm getting quite good at thinking of ways to amuse myself, though, and we're in Banff, so how hard will that be?

I'm anticipating a good non-spa spa day on Monday while he does Ministerial Board Chair things until supper time. I've already lined up a lunch date and I'm hoping to get to Welch's Candy Store to snag some fun Christmas bowl treats.

This will not be the first time we've left children home alone, but it will be the first time there won't be children with the children. We've had offers of places for Micah to stay, but he really wanted to stay home. So we're going to let him give it a try.

"What if I miss the bus" he asked this morning when I opened his door, turned on his light, and said (at 7:05) "You're not inspiring me with a lot of confidence in your ability to get yourself up in the morning!"

Considering that he's only going to be home from about 4:30 pm until 7:45 am, and that during the time he's here he has to make supper and clean it up, do his homework, sleep, get his breakfast and make his lunch... he won't have too much time to get lonesome. Or in too much trouble.

I'm not even too worried about realizing, after Randall's gone with the car, that I forgot something vitally important when I did the big provisional grocery shop last night. I know by now that there are any number of neighbours who would gladly pick it up for me when they're in town.

So... for me? A quiet, fairly relaxed week with some much anticipated events looms on the increasingly chilly horizon.

For the rest? Probably not so quiet and relaxed, but here's hoping the men-folk come through alright.

And, really, as long as I'm not stressed everyone else will be pretty well off. 'Cause- what's that old saying? Oh, yeah. "If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy."

I'm thinking Mama's going to be happy.