Food continues to pour in despite us having told everyone we didn't really need anything until after the surgery. I do, however, appreciate this so very much. It's amazing how much more energy is spent doing your day-to-day tasks when you have such an incredible worry hanging over your head, weighing down on your soul. By the end of the day I feel careworn and overwhelmed and it is a blessing to occasionally not have to worry about dinner. I've learned a valuable lesson about "just doing it" and not waiting to be asked or told.

Today I am grateful to see the sky. I do remember the days when inversion were so thick you couldn't see the mountains or the sky. This time around you could still see the mountains, but you could also taste the air and it was rancid. At this moment I am looking out over snow-covered roof-tops, through the naked branches and I can see soft white-grey clouds mingled with subtle blue sky. I think I can breathe again.

The other day we were dining with friends at Spicy Thai and I mentioned how I was going to bring my kids there so they could taste curry at a young age as I had never tasted it until I was 40. The next day my co-worker informed me that he and his wife had discussed my comment after dinner and wondered what I had meant by that. "When was that, last week?" they had asked.

Bless them.