One thing that I think is important to set the horrible week in context is that we'd had a brief vacation right before.
We went up to Seattle over Memorial Day weekend. It was a whirlwind trip that checked off a lot of boxes on our list for that city. I am currently writing about that on the travel blog, and we did enough that I will be writing about it into August:
https://sporktogo.blogspot.com/2026/05/seattle-overview.html
There are two points with that. One is that highs and lows follow each other and get all mixed up together. It is important to keep perspective.
The other point is the "whirlwind" part.
We kept up a fast pace so we could get everything done. Talking to one of our drivers about what we had done, he said that pace would kill him. Based on his kids' ages, I think he was pretty close to me in age, so that feels kind of good, and we got what we wanted done.
We came back very tired.
The first thing that had gone wrong happened earlier but I was still dealing with it.
For my capstone, I need to post on online learning module. I had previously used Canvas, as did almost everyone else because they had a free-for-teachers option that was handy.
A data breach that came in through that program got it canceled. They will try and work something out by fall, but that doesn't help now.
If I had already posted everything and then lost it, maybe after recruiting my learners, it would have been worse. It still sent me reeling.
I could not decide what to do, so I was just going to come back to it after vacation. I had a lot of thinking and working to do.
Then the washing machine stopped working.
Okay, I got a service call scheduled but there was a wait; there always is.
Add in trips to the laundromat to the things I need to do. Okay, no problem.
Then the phone rang.
That always strikes fear into our hearts that it is Mom, but it was a different relative in the hospital after emergency surgery.
The next day's trajectory was waiting for the repairman, finding out that repair didn't make sense so ordering a replacement, dashing to the hospital to pick up keys, going straight to her apartment to feed her cats, then going home to pick up the laundry on the way back to the laundromat.
I didn't get any schoolwork done that week.
A month later, things are subsiding. We do have the new washing machine, the relative is back at home (still needing some help, but it could be worse), and I am getting things loaded into Google Classroom.
I am graduating later than I'd wanted.
Life goes on.
Probably not exactly as planned.
Especially not the schedule part of the plan.
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