I feel a bit guilty for being mostly absent on the forum and even not commenting on the blog for the last month. I know it is OK, that life takes over but I still feel like I owe the fellow fabbers some explanation.
Life HAS been busy lately - well, "busy" is an understatement actually:
1. My Dad was hospitalized in June and spent over 6 weeks in the hospital. He was diagnosed with stomach cancer a year ago, had a surgery in November (when almost all of his stomach was removed) and then several rounds of chemo and radiation last winter and spring. He was doing fine first but apparently he was not eating well so by the beginning of June he became dangerously underweight (48 kg for 176 cm height). As a result he had the blood pressure dropping and sudden falls and also became mentally confused.
As I am the only child here in Canada all support is heavily on me. In addition he did not want to learn English for 11 years he leaves here so we often need to translate for him when he was in the hospital and after he was discharged and has home coming support.
The most scary thing was his mental state - doctors said it may be a start of dementia and not sure if he can continue live alone anymore. Even after his blood pressure stabilized and he gained some weight (60 kg now) he was still confused after the discharge. The first week after the hospital was really scary and tiresome - we had to come every day to make sure he has enough food to eat and doing OK. In addition he became very aggressive towards my hubby and myself without any reason - it did not make it any easier. We were looking at list of nursing homes a week ago. Thankfully he became better for the last week and while still have problems remembering some things at least we can understand what he is taking about. Here is a hope that he can live independently still with some support from his assisted living seniors building (big sigh of relief)
2. My younger son has some turbulent story after graduating from high school. He started engineering and dropped after 2 years because he did not like it.Then he tried arts program for another year. Now with the help from his older brother he started learning the computer programming and entered a computer program in the college last January.
He seemed to do well and worked on additional project with his brother so we relaxed a bit. This summer he was in the 2nd term of the program. Imagine our reaction when we were having a family dinner a couple of weeks ago and he told us that he will fail this term because he had an anxiety attacks which he did not know how to deal with and did not go to the classes. And this is all on top of the potential dementia of my Dad!
Good thing was that he admitted this to us so we were able to help him. I went with him to the college and we made sure he can continue in the program and gets help with his anxiety. So this is all sorted out now and he has a plan in hand but oh boy, I was so worried for the last couple of weeks.
3. My work is heating up as well. I am leading a big project with a new customer in a completely new region for us. It takes every bit of my energy to keep it afloat and do the best we can with the resources we have (the usual software project story - over-promised and under-resourced). The big delivery is in September - right before I have to leave for 2 weeks European vacation - and I need to make sure it is all done before that. Mission Impossible, anyone?

So between these 3 things on my plate I am barely keeping with everything else - and unfortunately YLF had to take a back seat for now. I did not even paid much attention to what I wore for those 2 weeks!

I am slowly getting back to normal now. The work will remain hectic but at least my Dad and my son are doing better now and do not need that much of my help. I was even able to take some WIW pictures this week so maybe I will post them if have time

Sorry for such a novel: I really feel guilty for being inactive in this community and wanted you to know it is not because I don't care - life DID get in the way.