Breathe

I feel like I've barely got room to. Breathe, that is. We got back from Mexico Saturday evening, short a vehicle (dead transmission; it was the one towing the equipment trailer) and I did a hurried job prepping the media for Sunday morning. After church I spent a wonderful afternoon with Katarina, talking, reading, playing with the cats, and generally relaxing. Deep breath.

I knew this week was going to be busy. Thursday through Sunday is Habitat for Humanity East Bay's big fundraising and building event, the annual Earth Day build-a-thon. I've missed it for a couple of years because it was the same week as the Mexico trip, but it's a great event and I've missed doing it.

This year I'm the chapter specialist for Thrivent Builds, helping to coordinate things between Habitat, Thrivent, and local Lutheran churches. Thrivent is now the biggest sponsor of Habitat ever, but the catch is that local Lutherans need to raise money and volunteer. So I knew I was going to participate, even if that meant *gasp* skipping the Mexico trip. Even though they didn't fall on the same week this year, as busy as I've been the last several months, I was seriously thinking about skipping the Mexico trip. But I looked at the calendar and figured three days of rest would be enough, and decided to do both.

Of course there were the little matters of prepping the media for Sunday (including a video slideshow of the Mexico trip) even though I won't be there, Oakland Firefighters Random Acts having their big fundraising event on Saturday (I'll be ducking out of the build-a-thon early to help), and the host of mundane details that fill up every day life.

Then Sunday night I got an email from Random Acts that a young man I knew named Irving had died. He'd been battling cancer for years, and had been near death a couple of times, so Random Acts, Make-A-Wish Foundation, Children's Hospital, etc. knew him quite well. A wonderful kid, always smiling and cracking jokes, and just wanting to be a normal kid, not a depilated pincushion. Miraculously he was doing a bit better and had gone home from Children's for a while, so this was a punch in the gut for all who knew him. I can't even begin to imagine what his parents and brother must be going through.

So it's time to fire up ProShow Gold and make YAMV (Yet Another Memorial Video) for the funeral on Thursday. I got a break from them a while back to do a video for my sister-in-law's 40th birthday, but I feel I'm getting entirely too much practice at the memorial kind. Say a little prayer for strength for me, and a whole bunch of prayers for Irving's family and friends. Vaya con Dios, Irving.