Laid flat

I’m getting old and thith ith how I know: the common cold hath laid me flat.

Ithn’t that awful? Thinthe when did a ‘notty nothe keep me glued to the thofa? Thinthe never, that’th when. But now that I’m 35, I thniff onthe and collapthe in a heap. It’th pathetic.

Would it drive you much crazy if I wrote through my nothe for the entirety of thith potht? Yeth?

Yeah, well, me too. I’ll stop now and talk like a normal, non-stuffy person even though I’m a decrepit, congested, blow-my-nose-so-hard-my-ears-pop woman. A veritable Wimp O’ Woman, if you will.

In case you haven’t already gathered this, I don’t handle being sick too well. Resting for several hours is fun and wonderful, but resting for two days is torture. There’s nothing to do! It’s boring! I wasn’t sick enough that I could stop thinking of all sorts of things that I wanted to do but not well enough that I could muster the energy to do them. It was a limbo-ing place to be and I hate being in limbo.

The good thing was that my mom had Yo-Yo and Sweetsie at her place for much of the time (not because I was sick—it just happened that way) so I was able to rest up real good. The bad thing was that I didn’t get done all of the stuff I wanted to do during my 50% kid reduction days, things like bake and sort clothes and read books and write and bask in the half-empty house.

So I focused on the one thing I could control: getting better. I drowned myself in cups of tea and quart jars of very diluted juice, transforming my solid-rock tummy into a distended, jiggly, gurgly mess. I steam bathed my head in tea tree oil-infused water. I nixed the Halloween candy (sent it all to work with Mr. Handsome just to be on the safe side) and dairy products (minus some Provolone cheese to go with my crackers to go with my weak juice. I slept.

Today all the kids are back (goodness, they’re loud). I oversaw an abbreviated version of lessons, put two chickens on to boil, watched an episode of I Love Lucy, and am now, at this very minute, drinking my first cup of coffee in three long days. Glory be!

This same time, years previous: living history