Chin Up, Chest Out, Shoulders Back

 A banner weekend for me in more ways than one: physically, emotionally, maybe even spiritually?

I took my girls to our Southwest Veterinary Symposium in Fort Worth; I seem to have succeeded in showing them a good time on a little mini-vacay - I booked us rooms at the Sheraton. Metroplex traffic has gotten so horrendous - I know I saved us between 3 - 4 hours each day of commuting time. I had to get my truck serviced Thursday for this upcoming weekend’s trip, so I was a little late getting out of my gate;  coming up to Fort Worth in the late afternoon I only hit one minor traffic jam which probably delayed me 10-15 minutes but felt like forever!

I did not book Dr. M & her husband a hotel room since they were going to stay with her daughter in Heath (a nearby suburb which under normal circumstances would be 30 minute commute). However, after 2 days of bucking northside traffic, on Friday night Dr M bunked with me - & Saturday night we had a full-fledged slumber party since her husband stayed over too; he didn’t feel like driving back after our celebratory “family dinner”. (Well, it wasn’t a full-blown slumber party since I couldn’t convince P to sleep over, he just drove over for dinner - & what a dinner it was!)

To Be Continued…

As you can read, I continue to cope with most of life's issues through dark'ish humor - and while I was not thrilled to sacrifice my privacy in my upscale hotel room (I know for my mother, highlights of her existence were our vacations when I became a teenager: we were well-off enough that we no longer had to camp out, we stayed in hotels & ate in restaurants where somebody else was doing the laundry, the cooking, & the dishes! Of course I absorbed those traits), I was trying to make the best of it & even felt some guilt after Dr M's profuse gratitude. It really was not that big a deal!

The physical aspects of my victory came from surpassing 10K steps on Friday, attending my first "real live" yoga class on Saturday (not perfect but I tried to keep up), and fasting all day Saturday in preparation for our Big Fancy Family Dinner Saturday night - Dr M & her husband were celebrating his successful recent cancer surgery which he came through like an absolute rock star. He insisted on picking up the check at the Ft Worth Stockyards steakhouse (easy to remember as it's named Lonesome Dove) where we enjoyed exotic sausage (rabbit & rattlesnake), wild boar ribs, and sharing tidbits of elk tenderloin, Berkshire pork chops, bison ribeye, and my own beef filet which, hands down, was one of the best pieces of meat I've had in my whole life! MM insisted on picking up this hefty tab, so I could justify my hotel room sharing as part of "paying the piper".