Finished my work week well on Friday. When I left I was completely caught up with my chargemaster update, payments and data entry. Now when I get there on Monday I can get a fresh start on my "problem" pile.

Saturday brought getting flowers ready for church and rehearsing with the soloist for an upcoming wedding. She did really well and am feeling quite good about this one. The soloist reads music so that is always a plus. When I got home, Mike was gone on an ambulance call and the boys had already downed a batch of Hamburger Helper. So I made a wrap for lunch and then ended up taking a little nap. Did a little housework and then Mike said, "Do you want to go for a ride and get a bite to eat?" This sounded like fun so we got in the car. Then I remembered how fun this always sounds to the family pet too and it doesn't always turn out in their favor. I did notice that all the guns were in their place on the gun rack so I figured I was in pretty good shape! We ended up deciding to drive south because we hardly ever drive south. We took blacktops through Kanawha and south and then kind of half-heartedly made our way to Thor and thought we would stop at Unkies. Apparently we didn't get the memo that they were closed for some particular that night. So we decided to keep going and ended up all the way to Fort Dodge. We ended up at Sports Page and had a very nice supper there. If anyone ever ventures south, I would recommend it. From there we headed back north on Hwy 169 until it detoured further west. It took us to Humboldt where we stopped for some ice cream and then headed home via St. Benedict. That is where Mike's mom grew up and they will soon be closing the church where his parents were married in that "town". We made our way home and no sooner crawled into bed when Mike got a call asking if he would take an ambulance transfer to Iowa City that night. Of course, the answer was, "Why sure!" Needless to say he has been a bit tired today.

We went to the farewell dinner for Fr. Hertges at noon. It was quite a good turnout for being a busy summer Sunday. There was so much good food there -- I feel like I don't need to eat for a couple of days! They even had free beer -- probably not something every pastor in just any church would get on a send off! Fr. Hertges will be moving to Maquoketa and will be "the boss" of his own parishes now. Best of luck to him!

Gabby gave us our own piece of shocking news. She has decided to take a job in ---- TEXAS! It is in a town east of Dallas called Mineola. She will be the assistant trainer at a ranch that breeds, trains and shows Arabians. She will be doing much of the same thing she is doing now but will have the opportunity to travel to shows and train horses for them. I know she has been looking for another job for a while but now that it's a reality, I just don't know how I feel about it all. You always know that your children will grow up and be on their own and leave you but in the back of your mind you think they will stay and be "on their own" in a closeby location. Now that it is happening, I kind of had the mindset that if I just didn't talk about it, it wouldn't happen. I don't think that's really going to work, so I'm left with hoping and praying for my daughter and letting go and just letting God be with her. Who knows -- she may move to Texas and along this path find happiness and things that could change her life forever. After all, if my mother hadn't moved to Iowa from Illinois, where would I be?

We'll see what this week will bring, maybe even a dull moment or two!