Digging out from Under...........

Conferences, vacations, even long weekends, all end the same way. Mountains of laundry, boxes of stuff you brought back and piles of crap, in general.

One of the perks of this conference is the food. The staff of the conference get to split and take home the leftover food. Now, when you have a conference of 2500 people, where they serve 3 meals a day to that many people, they always over buy which means there is a lot of leftover food. If any of you buy organic food, you know how much it costs. So, cases of milk, cheese, butter, garlic, olive oil, yogurt and pasta can add up quick. The main problem is, where do you put it all?? Lucky for us, we live in an area where we can use the porch as a refrigerator/freezer. Our indoor fridge and freezer are packed and the front porch is doing its share. Now all we need is a couch, a recliner and an old car in the front yard and we'll be in Redneck Heaven.

We had record number attendance at the conference and sold a record number of books. People spend serious money on books, folks. Every year, I'm amazed at the amount of money that flows through the bookstore. The books help the conference raise money and allow it to get bigger and better every year, something I am proud of.

Influenza had made it's way through our house, our town and our state in record numbers also. The schools are almost empty and there are people testing positive every day. It decided to take over my husband the day before we left for LaCrosse. You can only imagine what this did to our conference plan. He is my Number 1 - right-hand-man. My only other option? My kids. Now, this could go either way - good or bad. Lucky for me, my kids pulled through and we could not have accomplished what we did without them. John finally was able to leave the hotel bed on Friday morning and was able to help with the big job of packing everything up and closing shop Saturday. My kids might drive me to drink now and then, but they come through when I need them and I guess that's what's important.

Today brings laundry, laundry and more laundry, getting ready for Brenna's 11th birthday dinner tonight and my cousin is coming in town and will be staying with us for a couple days - not great timing.

What I should be doing? Ordering seeds, starting up a greenhouse and getting ready for the growing season. This will have to be put off for another week, I'm afraid.

Now, I'm going to ignore my to-do list a little longer and head over to your blogs and see what the heck you've been up to!