Last week, we'd been making a big push to finish getting the house cleaned up (my server area and office -- two separate areas at opposite ends of the house, for those who haven't been here) before Friday evening because Treanna was supposed to have an after-school playdate with her best friend. We'd take best friend's little brother, and later their family would come our way for games after the girls were done. Well, that got cancelled because her friend stayed home sick with fever and vomiting, so poor Treanna was pretty upset. We compensated by having hot chocolate, Pringles, and watching The Prince and Me. Needless to say, the house was mostly clean but there were a couple of islands of clutter left.
So, I faced the weekend with cleaning left to do -- never my favorite way to start the weekend, especially after spending at least a couple of hours cleaning and sorting every evening during the week. My body kicked into high insomnia mode, and I didn't get to bed until 5:30am. Slept too late on Saturday, and when I finally got up it took me a while to get into gear. Just as we finally got moving and I was making progress, we got a phone call from one of our church leaders and found out that Moe, our priest's husband, had suffered a heart attack that morning and died. Since his daughter is the head Sunday School teacher, they really needed to make sure Steph and I would be there for the kids -- Moe regularly played guitar for the Godly Play class.
Sunday morning service was, understandably, subdued and tearful. Someone at the diocese showed an unusual level of tact and diplomacy and arranged to have Father Bob, our previous priest, come supply for us since Esther wasn't going to be up to handling things. Even though the typical policy is for a priest to be hands-off regarding a church once he leaves, in this case it was a nice move because he's been gone long enough -- and enough changes have been made -- that it clearly wasn't "his" Church of Our Saviour (CoS) anymore. Yet enough of us there remember him that we had family sharing our grief with us, instead of some interloper. Nevertheless, bombshell number two came at the end of service, as the Bishop's Committee (we're a mission church, not a self-sustaining parish, so we have a vicar and a Bishop's Committee instead of a rector and a vestry) announced that Esther had been called to (and accepted) a position at a new church and would be leaving CoS at the end of February. She had been planning on making an announcement that morning. So we are now a parish once again in transition. I was on the BC the last time we were in transition (we ended up hiring Esther), and I was asked by a couple of people to please take over an empty slot on the BC this time around (in addition to several open seats that must be filled during elections next week at our annual meeting, we had some folks step down). So, I'll be joining the BC again -- at least for the next year.
Didn't feel the greatest Sunday afternoon, but between the dust from cleaning and all the crying, I didn't think anything of it. Until I woke up Monday morning, sick as a dog. I've been down the last couple of days. I still don't feel completely on top of my game, but I'm clearly on the mend and I'm digging back into work now that I have the attention to spare.
So there is the saga of my Suckiest Weekend Ever. There were some high spots -- my shiny new Windows Mobile PDA/cell phone showed up last Thursday, and it is tres sweet -- but in all, I'd rather not do that again any time soon.