Many of you have met Tiago.  He is the man who runs my mom.  He is in charge of virtually every aspect of my mother's household and much of the business as well.  Recently he hurt his elbow and was gone from work for almost a week.  Well when that happened, my mother called me crying, "My Empire is crumbling!"  She didn’t know how she was going to live without Tiago.  It was during this time that I was spending a lot of time at mom's to help, that I found out that my "Tiago", a lovely man named Tony, without whom I cannot live, told me he needed to go to Brazil for a week.  That was when I realized that in the five years he has worked for me he has never once asked for more than one day off at a time.  And I realized how slowly over the years he has subtly taken over more and more jobs and more and more responsibilities and has taken so much off my shoulders that now I depend upon him completely.  But in a good way.  On top of that, Tony's wife Mariah, who cleans house for me and works mornings for mom is already in Brazil and will be for two weeks.  Oh what are we poor little lost lambs to do?  Well aren't we two double fortunate?  Tiago is back and healing nicely, and before she left Mariah arranged for another wonderful woman, Aline, to help out.  And Tony arranged for his son-in-law, Marcello, who works for mom and is a good friend to me, to come help me out a few times this week after school.  Also Aline came to help me out too. (We're an inbred bunch) So you will be glad to know that The Head Quack and The Princess are being cared for in these difficult times.

"So," you are probably asking yourselves, "Why do you tell us this, why should we care, and we certainly hope you've learned something from all of it."  Let me start with the last.  I have learned something from this.  It's very easy to let someone else take care of you if you let them.  Sometimes we just need to let ourselves be cared for instead of doing all the caring for others.  There is nothing selfish about that.  When you need to step up and do for yourself, that's a good thing to do too.  It seems also that there are plenty of wonderful people out there willing to help if only you would ask.  Everyone needs help sometime.  There is no shame in that.  So slow down and take time to smell the roses.  Be brave and think good thoughts and soon the good will swing around again.  It always does.  I tell you this just to share in hopes it may touch someone.  And you can care or not, that's okay too.

Hugs and Quacks,

Lee