Goodbye Week. Hello Weekend. Lessons Learned: Take 65.

Just not the same without you, Steve Jobs.

Goodbye to the beginning of October: off to a very busy start and I'm hoping it's not the set-pace for the remaining weeks ahead.
Goodbye wonderful SPARK Linky Party that I'm guest-hosting and I hope you get a chance to browse all the creative ideas and, also, link up and share some of your own. Great giveaway, too!
Goodbye happiness and joy for a bloggy friend, Lisa Leonard, who's family will be inspiring many as they adventure into their own reality TV show.
Goodbye spending lots and lots of time at school doing "room-mom" duties.
Goodbye 1-year anniversary of Steve Jobs's passing; the world is missing something since you've been gone and it just hasn't been the same.

Hello to all you wonderful new Followers this week; I look forward to getting to know you all.
Hello Tailgate Cookout at the High School football game that was moved indoors due to nasty weather.
Hello Fall Family Fair - I'll be at the bake sale table all day if you need to find me.
Hello sweet first birthday to our Goddaughter, Sela; let's par-tay, baby!
Hello neglected home in the midst of all this chaos; you'll get some attention next week.

The lesson I learned this week is sometimes lessons don't surface in a week's time. Sometimes lessons, at least the big ones, take time to work their way into our hearts and brains. Like a good pizza dough, it takes a lot of kneading to get something good. Sometimes a lesson learned can't be worked out in a week like a situational sitcom is worked out in a half hour. We've got a lot of "life" we've been dealing with this week and the only lesson from it is that it takes time to work out. Nothing major, so no worries, but just "life": busyness, commitments, homework meltdowns, and 5th grade growing pains. You wish you could just stop the world, just enough to catch a breath, wipe away the tears, and read every parenting book on the planet, before the world starts to spin again. But, alas, I have not that power. In fact, I sometimes escape into my room, away from it all; not to try to figure anything out, but rather to go to sleep. Things always look better in the morning, even if the issues are still working themselves out.

Wishing you all, especially my new Followers, a wonderful weekend.