OUT SICK

In case you are wondering why I haven't been posting (or knitting) ... I am out ill.
started as a little head cold, moved into the chest, then became like the flu, now back in chest and I have no voice because of the rawness in my throat from all the coughing.

My cough has quieted down today, but we will have to see ... if it gets bad again tonight (it gets really bad when I lay down or relax) I am going to the dr just make sure it hasn't progressed into either bronchitis or pneumonia ... we will see -- at least my temp is finaly down .... I think 3 days at 102 was enough, thank you.

It of course means I will have to miss my son's first band concert tonight ... its secondary school band so I'm not expecting the philerhomic, but I would still like to go to support my little trumpeter.

oh well ... you know its amazing how much your throat can hurt while typing? its like there is an uncontrollable spasm to form the words with the larynx (not the lips ... they don't move when I read unless I'm reading something out loud to the kids ... or the husband) ... so I need to fold up for now and give it a rest.

will write back ASAP ... we will see what happens.

We've been visited by the Grinch

or maybe its just Scrooge.

We have had to cancel the big family dinner for next week -- our youngest boy has mono.

dr thought maybe he would be able to go back to school next week since its a short week, but I don't know ... may just keep him out until after winter break.

I hate making him have to make up for two weeks (well, most of last week and this week) ... he should be able to do a great chunk of it over the week and two day vacation ... yep, they don't even get a full two weeks anymore - but I might digress here (actually I already did and editted myself, hee hee)

I will have to contact his teachers and see what we can do to keep him up to speed with his classes, or at least keep him from falling too far behind in them.

But because we aren't having the huge celebration we are comtemplating not putting up the tree ... such a bother to just take it down in a couple of weeks ... but then, it just isn't christmas without the tree.

and then there are the kids ... sick, but they want a tree ... hmmm .... but it just doesn't feel like christmas .... don't know why .... ever since we moved there is just something that keeps me for getting too festive ... and its been nearly 8 yrs now.

maybe we will put up the tree anyhow ... hubby wants to just put up the tree top, I'm leaning towards the whole tree.

we will see ... keep you informed.

I so fricking tired

hmmm, lets see -- first ... I have no idea why the blog reposted about the package I sent out a month ago ... I think I may have been waiting to see if my partner was going to post something about it so it wouldn't ruin her surprise ... she didn't (she was in the middle of a move, so I can totally understand how it took a back seat ... )

I am so fricking tired.

We had been going over the house with a fine tooth comb for a week doing every little thing we could think of ... including the bonfire I wrote about earlier, and taking down most of a dead tree (trunk is the only thing left) ... we were going at a really good pace, including pulling the furniture away from the walls and cleaning behind there -- personally I feel that if the relatives are nosy enough to look back there, its their own fault if they find a mess.

Woke up Wednesday before thanksgiving with a fever.

chilled to the bone and unable to move - rather unable to come out from under the covers for fear of decorating the floor with a pretty array of colors. So hubby and the oldest daughter had to do all the work themselves ... well oldest boy had to do the bathrooms 'company clean' since its his normal chore anyways.

So hubby hit the banquet room - aw c'mon, its what it was designed for even if it would fit twice into what people consider to be a normal size room ... actually the main part not including the outcove for the front door, is 15 X22 so its not small - I think we could fit the whole side of our old house in this room (the bedroom was 10x10 and the living room was 10x13) ... but when its not being used for holiday meals its a great place to sort laundry on the big tables and it had become the place to put the christmas presents as they arrived.

Well hubby and I had started on the christmas gifts Monday while the kids were in school. I had to pack them into my already stuffed closet so it took some major space management -- damn clothes ... if it weren't for them everything would fit perfectly ... hee hee ... but since hubby can't use his closet for all the craft stuff shoved in there (really its not all craft stuff, but it is quite a bit) he has to hang some of his clothes into my closet so I can't really take it all out - besides, where would I put it?

well I hadn't been combining the packages like I would normally do as they come in but I really had to do it this time -- I didn't think I could get two American girl dolls & two doll sleds in the same box, but damn if I didn't and get more inside yet! I will have to take a photo of the box and post it later, the 'space management' of that box is a thing of beauty!!

so ... anyways, I was sick the day before ... but hubby insisted that the meal could go on and that he could throw it all together while keeping me in bed - well, he could cook the turkey, but I had a feeling that the rest of the stuff wouldn't get done on time. So I got a cold wash cloth and pinned it around my wrist to pull down my temp and slept all day.

At about 3pm I started to stir ... the fever was lower so I was able to move enough to go in the kitchen and start giving orders as to what was to be done. hubby made me go back to bed and brought me a sandwich - it was so good, even if it was just bread, butter, and sliver thin peice of meat (I think it was ham) ... then I slept some more. By 8pm I was up and feeling nearly fine ... so I got the yams in the crockpot to cook over night.

Then I couldn't get to sleep ... I was up late, maybe 1am when hubby finally made me go to sleep.

Thanksgiving day -- I was feeling normal, well nearly ... hubby had a major sinus headache but he wasn't going to cancel Thanksgiving dinner no matter what (we have only had to cancel one holiday meal in 7 yrs and that was because 3 out of 4 kids were sick).

But it was probably a good thing because we were expecting 21 people (well 20 adults and 1 baby) ... but you know, hubby just couldn't be kept down - I have no idea how he does it, he amazes me ... I would have been crying in a corner.

Well we got the table set up - everyone was rubbing elbows. up close and personal. Figured we'd be safe though - after all, one niece tended to only come for dessert and my nephew had called from Chicago to say that he and his girlfriend couldn't make it in as planned (we won't see them for Christmas this year either, but maybe Easter ... we will see)

Well - I've talked to my SIL before about giving me a jingle so I wouldn't have to scramble at the last minute to make a spot ... drop ins are a really pet-peeve of mine, it just strikes me as being rude not to give the hostess a heads-up - and she knows it, we've talked about this quite a few times ... but the neice/boyfriend came (no biggie really, I planned just in case) it was the other neice's boyfriend who I wasn't expecting.

But you know it worked out fine ... we just squeezed him in.



The worry was about how much we had to eat ... see when we found out that my nephew wasn't coming in we had decided that the 18 lb bird would be enough with fixings ... so we only cooked up the one bird and saved the second bird - we like to brine our birds so the decision was irreversable when we found we had another big eater.

We had just enough bird, and there was really very little left overs this year -- not that we get any of the left overs ... love my family, both mine & in-laws ... but the custom on their side of the family is that all the left overs get divided amongst all the households eating - so that means 5 - 7 houses ... so we get very little actually even though we will spend nearly $300 on groceries.

normally we have to wait for New Years before we see a significant amount of turkey - no relatives so we make one JUST FOR OURSELVES ... but now that we've got the college kid - we still don't see a lot of it - who knew he would grow to eat 6 turkey sandwiches at a sitting??

so back to being tired .... so finally all the relatives went home by 5 (amazing I have to tell you, normally at 7pm we are dropping strong hints to my SIL to go home) ... so we got to put everything back in order and vacume up the 'banquet hall' and set up hubby's computer out there so that he could check a few things at work since he had been off all week.

So when we went to bed we were both tired but I have insomnia -- I really have to be super tired to drift off ... or really bored ... so I was up until about 2am catching up on the "Parking Wars" that I had missed and checking 'Drudge Report' (OKAY, I'm addicted, I'll admit it .... but most days its the only news I have time to get and pay attention too).

then I drifted off ... awww. The next day we went to my dad's to visit with my big brother & other SIL before they had to head back to Indiana - and ate some food ... and drank my dad's pop (we generally don't have pop in the house, except for ginger ale - don't get ahead).

Daughter felt a little warm before we went but she was acting fine ... she started complaining that she was sleepy at grandpa's and her cheeks were a tad red, so we left. came home and everything seemed fine. no issues. stayed up late catching up on CSI episodes that I had missed. But I couldn't sleep -- worrying about my oldest brother ... he's got some issues that I'm trying to figure out and get him to go for help on (might as well teach Addy to fly).

so I was up at 430am when the oldest daughter got me out of bed to tell me the youngest got sick ... but it was okay ... and honest she said this ... "she only got a little on the top blanket because she tried to catch it in her hand" ... oh yeah, that makes a mother feel better --- not.

well, her temp spiked ... 101F by 7am, clinic opened at 9am so we figured we could wait a couple of hours, then hubby could run her down to get a strep test done (she said her throat hurt but her stomach was okay).

So 9am she's off with dad to the drs., I needed sleep so hubby made me stay behind. well it wasn't long before he called to tell me that he got down to the clinic and they were closed, but there was a note saying to go to a different city about 10 minutes away, so he was going there.

okay. well they took a really long time to get back ... not so long that I was going to catch any zzz's but long enough to make me wonder what was going on. Well when he got back, hubby was just dropping her off so that he could go get the prescript filled .... strep test came back negative, but dr figured with a temp that high she was fighting some sort of infection so she got a prescript for some REALLY strong med that she was to take once a day, for 5 days, but it is so strong it stays in her system an additional five days.

but her first dose was more than twice a regular dose to give her body that kick start -- boy did it ever ... head first into the Porceline God!!!

So all afternoon and all night Saturday I was up with her ... she finally went to sleep about 5am sunday morning, so I crawled into bed ... I got woken up about 730a by this horrid crying/screaming/keening really ... she was in the bathroom with her dad and she was just in misery. So it was off to the clinic again -- only to find out that hubby had taken her to a different clinic than our normal one yesterday ... different medical group that is ... so they didn't know anything about this child or the family history or anything - men!

actually it probably wouldn't have made a diffence in the long run. They were lucky enough to get our regular dr at the clinic and he kept her on the same meds but suggested we break it into two portions over a 1-2 hour period so it wouldn't hit her stomache so hard.

well that seemed to help yesterday - so hubby let me take a couple hours nap ... of course it happened to be at the same time I wanted to watch a particular show, but I really needed the sleep. so I woke up to more 'catterwalling' (that's what I'm calling it now).

Hubby decided that since she had done so well that he would give her some plain chips & oyster crackers - hey I would have thought the same - but her stomach had other ideas. So all day yesterday, and all of last night we (she & I) have been up.

she finally took a good nap about 10am this morning -- me? I got about 10 minutes in before she woke up crying and holding her stomach again. she fell asleep again and then woke up about an hour later asking 'what do we do now?' meaning she was feeling better and wanted to get soemthing to eat ...

I ain't falling for it. she can have a bit of chicken broth later - it seemed to o okay last night - but then as she is laying here on the couch next to me sleeping, i can hear that stomach churning away ...

man I hope she gets better soon -- and I hope I can get in a few hours sleep tonight.

(ps. I started this post last night and have gotten interrupted about 4 times by her --- the post started around 11pm last night and now its 12n-ish ... man)

cyber Monday will just have to exist without me today ... I got one order in to TSC and that took 6 hours to finish -- but number 2 son should be done now -- I know what I wanted for Yule this year, but it will have to wait ... hubby wound up buying a used car for number 1 to get back-and-forth to school/work with ... even though I don't want much I know it will all add up. I will stick with the practical stuff -- like the cast iron I ordered at TSC as long as I had an order going in.

okay ... off to try to get some rest.

health

some of you may have noticed I haven't been up dating as much lately ... my MIL was in the hospital with double pnumonia in another state and we were waiting for word as to how she was doing.

It was a real surprise because we had just seen her the weekend before and she was fine, then by Monday night she sounded like she had a bad cold and by Tuesday night she was in the hosp. Pretty scary - it hit my husband hard ... he was faced with her mortality.

I think his concern was about cancer though - the way we lost my mother - because of how quickly it seemed to hit. My father-in-law had it the week before and was already on meds.

Mother's are those people who you never expect to leave you ... and I guess mother's are people who never expect to leave either.

but she is home now on a nebulizer, steriods, and antibiotic. We get to go up this weekend and play nursemaid while FIL goes to family reunion in different state -- he wouldn't go except he knows we will take good care of her .. who knows he may change his mind and stay after all.

Now I can breath again ... and get back to my crocheting/knitting/etc. ... you know it used to be that when I worried I would grab a project and get it done ... but ever since mom's death, I don't ever want to associate crafting with illness again -- its really funny.

We have a scoutmom-buddy who's husband has terminal cancer (so sad, their son is only 12 yrs old) and she took up cross-stitch when her husband started chemo and she had to sit there while he was 'hooked up' (her words not mine) ... she said she hadn't touch the craft for a long time. My guess is that after his death (gods I hate that thought) she will set it all aside again.