Vacation

What a ride the last two weeks.

I have been running in overdrive at school. I’ve been swamped with new assessments, lots and lots of paperwork, and major meltdowns from kids. I’m pretty confident that all of the special education staff has been feeling this way. At the end of the day we all look at each other and just shake our heads. (or laugh like crazy—one extreme of emotion or another)

Just when I thought I couldn’t possibly make it another day, it was the end of the week and time for spring break. Ahhhh!

I spent the week at the Gunflint Lodge outside of Grand Marais, MN. It’s just across the lake from Canada. (funny thing…on the menu at the lodge, domestic beers were listed. The last one in the list was Labatt, which is a Canadian beer. Next to the name it said “domestic because we’re nearly in Canada.”)

It was fabulous. Renewing and invigorating. I took a lantern-lit sleigh ride through the woods in the middle of a lightening storm. I read a book. I walked in the woods and watched the deer eat corn out the front window of the cabin. I went in the indoor hot tub a bunch of times, and I ate great meals cooked for me at the lodge. (AND I didn’t have to plan them, buy the groceries, or wash the dishes. Sweet.) Dixie loved romping through the woods and chasing after bunnies and the many deer. Yahoo vacation.

Diabetes was in good form. No major lows, no pumps sites falling out. Dixie had a pretty light workweek too. That’s nice because she also really needed a vacation. The last week at school she was also dragging. We were quite the pair.

Now it’s back to the grind. Here we go again…


DIXIE TIDBIT:

The more bonded I am to Dixie, the more I understand her alerting behavior. It’s important for us to be together all the time so that she has many opportunities to learn all the ways I am when I am low. People often ask why I don’t leave Dixie at home when I go shopping or out for dinner. It makes perfect cognitive sense to leave her. I made it all these years without her help. It isn’t about how I can do without her; it’s about us being a team.