... of a guardian ad litem. What could be better? What could be more relaxing? What could make more sense?
8:00 In line for coffee and the barista can't find the toasted marshmallow syrup. This could be bad. Looks like I'll be late again.

9:00 On the phone with a counselor for kids. Right. I completely agree. Too much pressure on this kid, we need to back off. We're not disagreeing, I promise you. We're both saying the same thing, we're just coming from different
angles. A meeting? Sure. Just let me reschedule about 4 other things and we'll have a meeting.

10:00 Court scheduling. The 2 desk calenders and the planner battle it out. Keeping the master court calender for 20 volunteer staff and 160 foster kids is no match for me, though. Wait, was that ... did they really just schedule 3 dependency hearings on the same day at the same time in 2 different courtrooms? What the ...

11:00 New kids into foster care ... at least they're physically safe now ... even if they are completely traumatized by being removed from the only thing they know ... and the frosting on the cake is little one's statement, "Can I please just have a family that wants me?" Yeah. Not kidding.

1:00, 2:00, 3:00 Volunteer training. This is domestic violence. This is mental health. This is how a kid moves through the foster care system. This is how you foster your own resiliency. You must foster your own resiliency.

4:00 Lead a cognitive behavior therapy group for the teens in juvie. Yes - you're right - hubris can be what we experience right before we get locked up. It can lead to thinking you're above the law. Kid, I've never heard you say that before. Where did you get that insight?

{And the bonus for us that aspire to pay for out of state, graduate tuition ...}

5:00, 6:00, 7:00 Wait tables.

And 8:00 the next morning? In line for coffee ...

... this weekend is spring release wine tasting. {Although, I very much think this is what I should be doing.}

Vineyard town is stuffed to the gills with tourists, but I, ha ha, I know the out of sight, tucked away, treasure cellars to visit during this busy weekend. Maybe I'll come back for fall barrel tasting.

Instead of sampling the cabs, merlots, syrahs, ... I will be waiting tables, teaching Sunday School, making a hurried trip down to Oregon to see my dad (who is sick, again, this time with heart failure), and hurrying back for an extra shift at the restaurant. It is the weekend that is not a weekend and the busy-ness will resume bright and early Monday morning when I draft a response to a Very Unhappy Letter I received from an area counselor (a letter that degraded the system for not returning some foster children home to some biological parents. A letter written, unfortunately, without any collateral information about this family in question). It's fine. I'm just not a person people want to mess with when it comes to children's safety.

To balance this out with some good news, however, I have had one case successfully end in reunification recently (yay!) and another little guy be adopted (yay again!). Kids in foster care breaks my heart. They so need permanent families.

And I'll continue to hope for good news for my dad. He sees the specialist this week, so hopefully we'll know a little bit more about his heart condition. He man's been continually ill, with something or another, for the past several years, but he continues to hang in there.