I'm baaack.

I know, I know - where have I been?

No where near a horse, that's for sure.

First of all, meet my grandmother, the matriarch of our family, the woman from whom all love flows in an unstoppable river. Estella Hernandez.

She's 94.

She's been a wife, mother, business owner (everything from a restaurant to a 50 acre cotton farm and laundramat with my grandfather), grandmother, great-grandmother, and a great-great-grandmother.  She's the reason my daughters are sixth generation Texan. Our family lived in Socorro - an area outside of El Paso, for generation before the world changed and everyone began to live lives that scattered them around the country.  

 She lives with my mother (who is deserving of her own blog entry and will get one soon) just a few blocks from my house. 

About a month ago, when you last heard from me, my grandmother had surgery. It's not unusual - she's had several operations to deal with hernias over the years. She bounces back in a matter of days and is back to crocheting, laughing at the kids antics and generally being a wonderful loving presence in our lives.

But she didn't bounce back from this one. Family flew in from all over. This was it, the undercurrent was. She's not going to make it. For weeks she's been fighting high blood pressure, rapid heart rate, exhaustion. I had dozens of conversations with her that were 

"those" conversations. Reflections on life, realizations that there comes a time to let go, that life, in a fundamental way, is our selfish indulgence that we never want to end.

I hate those conversations.

Then work exploded with some crazy news hitting the papers and everything there has been upside down. So now I was working 10-12 hour days, 7 days a week just to keep up, and trying to spend time with my grandmother.

So much for time with Canyon, the kids, the blogs.

This week, though, the clouds parted. My grandmother felt better. Work - which is still crazy -is just having to settle down enough for me to have a day off. Sorta. Hours anyway. Cuz no time off removes my ability to think.

So here we are.  I have a funny story about the stables to share along with a video, which I will do tomorrow. In the meantime here's a picture of my grandmother from this summer at our family reunion, going horseback riding.  Two nice cowboys helped her get on a horse since she's got bad knees and a bad hip.  Much love to Snickers, who carried her safely on the trail.

My family members (who don't ride except at this reunion every year) were FREAKING OUT that she was going. Thank god she didn't fall since they would have killed me since I was the one who insisted we make it happen.

Seriously. I would have been disowned.

Ah, it's good to be back.  Looking forward to catching up with everyone again.