Last Week's To Do List:

1. Grieve for a brother, who by all accounts, ought to be on the other side by now.

2. Get the kids and me ready for camp. The oldest three are registered in the same week, and I am scheduled as a cook. That expectation has graciously been reduced to "Whatever you can, or can't do will be fine, don't worry about it".

3. Drive the husband to the clinic for minor surgery on his absessed knee, then 15 minutes south to another community every day for a dressing change where they stuff the open incision with sterile gauze while Brian digs holes into the stretcher with his fingernails.

4. Scratch. My body, not sure how to deal with the whirlwind of emotion and stress thrust upon it, has ever so helpfully broken into hives. These insanely itchy little nodules travel from face to limb, not wanting any part of me to feel less cared for.

5. Drive 3.5 hours to camp, move the kids into their respective cabins, and me into the cooks' quarters. My preoccupation having been largely on the children, and other life events.... I opened the rear of the caravan and had a bit of a giggle. My week's worth of camp supplies are sensibly packed into one rough tote for ease of transfer. Unfortunately, the bin is still at home, and it looks as though moving in this year will be exceedingly easy. After scouring the van's interior, I came up with a few items to make my stay more comfortable.

* a tea towel, aka a swimsuit top, change in underwear, or simply, a towel.

*a running magazine, complete with info on how you really only need a little black dress. (too bad I grew out of, and forgot said necessary item..)

*Spongebob tin, empty- no mood stabilizers, inflatable t-shirts, or toothbrushes.

*a few odds and ends: a plastic arrow, lipstick, coffee creamer, melted chocolate bar, sample of cream to rub on stretch marks, and some tylenol.

I'm grateful now, in unexpected ways:

That I spend most nights having nightmares about putting metal bowls and babies into microwaves. I don't think the flow of the dream will be overly affected by my attempting sleep on a bare, blue plastic mattress.

That I hate hygiene anyhow. I hate getting wet.

That I get a free staff t-shirt (oversized), that will double as a nightshirt, and forgivingly cover my generous rear end when I resort to borrowing my 10 year old daughter's "stretch" capris.

That my friends, and fellow cook-ies see the light side of life, and I get to fall asleep at night on a borrowed pillow and sheet laughing, and dreaming up new and innovative uses for a handbag filled with useless things.