Haven't posted anything in nearly a month. Crazy, crazy schedule these past few weeks. Here are the highlights:

- bought mini van to transport our growing family (one of the car lot salesmen saw our 5 person family squeezed into my little Geo Prizm and stated "You really DO need a minivan. " I replied, "Yes, we REALLY do." I didn't tell him about what our other car looked like!)
- Rees has been having some difficulty in Kindergarten with his behavior - not listening, talking in line and hitting a kid; had to institute intense discipline
- submitted big grant at work that had me working 12-14 hour days for several weeks - application was about 150 pages long (could the above and my schedule have anything to do with one another????? Go figure.)
- developed some sort of upper respiratory infection
- finished work on a new set of publications on health literacy for state officials
- traveled to Newport, RI and DC for two meetings on health literacy; spoke at both and distributed the new publication; the Surgeon General spoke at one of them - very interesting guy - he went from being a high school dropout to being a doctor and then Surgeon General!
- found out my husband had developed pneumonia, I had bronchitis, and the baby had an ear infection from this bug we passed to each other
- had to cancel church on Sunday as well as Peter's ordination as a deacon and our trip to North Carolina because we were all sick
- still working long hours, this time finalizing work on another publication on chronic illness - this one bigger report that has to be to the printer this next week
- getting ready for trip to Denver this next week for a meeting my group is hosting on, ironically enough, infectious diseases (SARS, West Nile, etc.); I am trying NOT to be a poster child for this event
- beginning work this week on another publication on improving diabetes care for a federal government grant and also preparing a couple of resolutions for my organization's Annual Meeting at the end of October, one on Medicaid reform and the other on Mental Health reform.

In the meantime, I've also been trying to keep on top of kids school work, grocery shopping, dinner, reading to the kids, laundry, and the list goes on. This is a pretty full September, dont' you think? October is going to be hellish as well. I keep thinking things have got to slow down come November. But what if they don't? Can't maintain this pace indefinitely. Not good for either my physical or my spiritual health. Nor my family's either, obviously. I would appreciate your prayers.