ONE WEEK LEFT! WOOHOO!

My apologies for a super-brief post yesterday. I must be too old for writing on the mobile phone, which was all I had in the few minutes wandering one of my hometowns while waiting for a friend. Perhaps someday I’ll stay in the historic bed and breakfast here, the one my elementary classmates always insisted was haunted.

But that’s for another day. Last night was a lovely evening of laughter and griping about books, work, lives, and so on. I could feel a load of tension drop from my shoulders for the first time all week.

Of course, that tension grabbed right back on this morning.

Bo and I were supposed to drive across Wisconsin and Minnesota to attend a family function.

How the hell will I get work done? What if I don’t connect with the other people there? Can my mother handle all three kids by herself for TWO nights? Did they survive the sledding trip? What if we get stuck on the road? What if we get into an accident? What if–

You know how it goes.

We set off before dawn. Rain slid along the pavement, down our coats and along the car’s hood.

And froze.

Oh, the ice set in quick. The road was nothing better than a skating rink. We could see the trailers of semis slowly wing one way, then another. It didn’t take long for Bo to say, “No way. Rain’s one thing. Snow’s one thing. But this is all ice, dear. We can’t swing this.”

THANK GOD.

How could I not agree? Not just for my selfish “I need to work” reasons, but for our own safety, our kids’ welfare. Yeah, I felt bad about disappointing the MN relations, but kids’ needs first, period. Paragraph. Page. Book.

The return home was tense, but at least we only had a forty-some minute journey as opposed to the five-hour trek just to reach the Minnesota destination. I shook with my coffee carafe by the fireplace while Bo made the greatest breakfast food one could possibly hope for on a cold, ice-addled day:

Yup. Bacon.

S.J. Higbee made such a great comment to me last week after my anxiety attack about the importance of comfort. While the Whole30 diet has been important for Bo and me, the lack of comfort food has made recovering from anxiety all the harder. The new teas have helped, yes, and Bo found some essential oils I can use while driving.

But dammit, I miss peanut butter!

Bacon’s a good runner-up, though, and Whole30 compliant if you find the right brand.   That first bite took aaaall the tension knotted between my shoulder blades. We split the whole package of bacon between the two of us, and neither of us regret a single bite. After a month of remembering lost loved ones and fretting over future changes, the dangerous trek on the ice was the last straw for both of us.

Finding that moment of sensory comfort made all the difference.

So, now that I’m calm and safe, it’s almost time to head back out on the road to pick the kids up from Grandma’s!

(sigh)

Don’t worry. The rain’s finally let up and the ice is melting. My tummy’s got comfort food, I have comfy smells to smell, comfy music to listen to.

And a comfy Bo to hold my hand. x

So while we’re off grabbing children between the raindrops, feel free to check out my stories which are free here, here, and on sale here. Don’t forget to leave a word or two of a review when you’re done, because we writers LOVE hearing readers think!

Read on, share on, and write on, my friends!