an update

Exactly one week after my last post, on July 20th, I picked my daughter up from her first sleepaway summer camp. It was good to have her home. She had so much fun, but I missed her terribly.

Exactly one week after my last post, on July 20th, I entertained 30+ extended family members in my home for a family reunion. It was catered (well, food was delivered), but it was still an incredibly stressful event. It was wonderful to see all of my father's side of the family, but the timing wasn't so great. My father-in-law was dying, and my husband and I tried to balance my family with his, joy with sadness.

Exactly one week after my last post, on July 20th, after my daughter was home, and after most of the family had returned to their hotel rooms for the evening, my husband called me from the Hospice to tell me his father had died, around 11:30 in the evening. I was still up, cleaning, organizing, visiting with my sister.

The funeral was the following Thursday, July 24th. I learned about funeral foods that day, that week, really. There were casseroles of all kinds (broccoli, squash, green bean, macaroni and cheese), platters of meats (roasted turkey, barbecued pork, roasted and barbecued and fried chicken), creamy salads (potato salad, macaroni salad, pasta salad), and enough desserts to last for weeks (chocolate cakes, pound cakes, bundt cakes, sock-it-to-me cakes, coffee cakes, cupcakes, banana pudding, brownies, and more). Accompanying these foods were gallons of sweet tea.

To say that eating healthy during that funeral week was a challenge would be an understatement. A big one.

But here we are, a month after the funeral, and life has returned back to normal. School has started, work is busy, and I feel more in control of the foods entering my mouth. The exercise, which had been nonexistent for the past several weeks, is happening again. I'm not doing it daily, but aiming for three days per week. And that's okay with me, for now. I have to start somewhere.