I have been struggling all morning to write this post. I started off the day quite early, preparing for a live segment on our local Fox News about our upcoming conference. For awhile this morning the videotape wasn't working correctly, resulting in a flurry of emails and phone calls about that. It appears to be working now.


After the TV spot, I rushed home to prepare for a scheduled radio interview over the phone. For some reason that didn’t happen this morning. But in the meantime, I received an email from a Juvenile Justice worker who has a 20 year old incarcerated female who needs a “mentor”. Apparently this young lady is a Russian adoptee whose (adoptive) family has bailed and when she leaves the prison system in the next year, she will have no one. She is taking college courses and appears motivated to make better choices in her life. Her parole officer had been trying to figure out what to do with her and she saw the segment this morning on television. She is hoping to attend the conference and I gave her some suggestions on how to find a mentor in the community … someone who would understand when to hold this young lady ultra-accountable and when to simply support and nurture her. I referred her to FRUA to hopefully find a mentor and told her if that didn't pan out to call me back.


In between those conversations and emails, I managed to arrange for my church to include something about our conference in their e-blast to 10,000 people and something in the bulletin the week before the conference.


I am still dealing with the pup who had the trots all last night and who managed to insure I didn’t sleep more than a couple hours at a time (not her fault.) All the dogs are whining and chasing each other through the house because it is too hot and I have no time to walk them.


In about an hour I leave to pick my mom up at the airport, as we leave tomorrow to drive 700 miles to visit ill relatives in Tennessee. We will hopefully return in time Saturday to see Beth’s Level II swim championship meet.


I’ll be home for about 3 days before I turn around and fly with Beth to Tampa for the NACAC conference. We will return the night before her last meet of this competitive season, the Level I championships.


Two days after that ATN’s conference begins.


Five days after the conference, I have ten people coming to stay at my house for three days.


SO ... The bottom line here is, be patient with me in the next few weeks. I will try and write blogs as regularly as possible but it is going to be insane for awhile.


And by the way, I have SO much to tell you ...


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