What Goes Around... Always Finds Me

Apparently, this is the time of year that my body just decides, "Hey! You know what you need? A cold! I'll get on that for you!"

This year's late winter cold was a gift from Hubby (as my mom said, he such a good sharer!). I tried to take care of him and myself while he was sick, but with school and work both being a bit nuts, I failed to protect myself from getting this bug. 

On Thursday morning I had a sore throat and was starting to cough. That night Hubby made me grilled cheese and tomato soup, something my dad always did for me as a kid when I didn't feel well. By Friday I had a mild fever, my nose wouldn't stop running, and my throat still hurt. Hubby got me some more Nyquil and some orange juice, all the good stuff that would (hopefully) make me feel better. I took Thursday and Friday evenings off from homework, thinking that pushing myself would only make it worse. I guess I'll never know for sure, but it didn't seem to work that way at all.

Saturday was definitely the worst. By mid-afternoon I had already gone through almost 2 boxes of tissues and was so hot that I wanted to turn on the a/c (but settled for Hubby bringing me an ice pack to cool my neck/back). No matter how I felt, I still had to get homework done and study for an exam on Sunday, so I did my best to push forward. It was stressful to say the least, and that night I got to a max temp of 101.3 (not terrible, thank goodness, but enough). I tried to sleep, but it took me over an hour to finally crash (even with Nyquil). Even then, I was waking myself up with coughing fits every few hours, and during one of the fits, I ended up changing my pajamas because I had sweat through them. Lovely.

I felt better when I woke up Sunday, but I still felt pretty crappy. Somehow I managed to get a 97% on my exam, even feeling like shit, and that kicked off my spring break week. It was a lazy afternoon (complete with 3-hour nap), which was beautiful. I've been slowly feeling better since then (even though my voice hasn't gotten the memo), but have still been waking up with coughing fits. When I was little, waking up coughing meant that Mom would take me into the living room, give me a hard candy to suck on and put me in her lap while she sang to me. These days it means trying not to wake Hubby up (which, really, I shouldn't be too concerned about; he sleeps through anything), and trying to get the coughing spell over with as quickly as possible to maximize sleep time before the alarm goes off and work becomes a reality. When a fit woke me up at about 6 this morning, I almost didn't bother getting out of bed. I hoped maybe it would resolve itself, but it didn't. And now I'm paying for it, groggily sliding through the day, hoping that I can make enough sense out of things to get by until I can sleep again.

Here's hoping that you and yours are all feeling better than we have the past two weeks... Well, except Maxine. She's doing just fine. :)

The Holidays are Over; Bring on Reality!

I guess I went AWOL for a bit there, hey?  Sorry about that.  Things have been busy.

Christmas was good to us, I will admit.  Christmas Eve Day I got to exchange presents with K at Ella's Deli (yes, we exchange Christmas gifts at a Jewish deli).  That crafty lady made me lip balm!  Seriously; she MADE it.  How cool is that, right?  Anywhoozles, that afternoon I decorated sugar cookies while Hubby napped.  Maxine, in her Christmas sweater, napped along with him for most of the afternoon, and I spent some good time with my parents.

Christmas Eve dinner was, of course, fantastic.  Mom made the best Yorkshire pudding ever, and when I found they were out of hot cocoa mix, Dad made me some from "scratch" by heating up some pieces of Dove chocolate and mixing with milk.  I have to say that my family is pretty great, and that helps make my holidays so wonderful.  Would've enjoyed some snow, but, it was still lovely.

My parents got me a 3,000-piece puzzle (which is HUGE, btw) and a Jambox (which will come in really handy for school).  They got Hubby a Gentleman Jack giftbox (so, basically, good booze and two glasses).  They got Miss Maxine a bunch of toys and treats.  Oh, and best of all, they got us a new water heater!  (Apparently I was thisclose to getting an iPad, but they decided to get us something practical instead.  Ah, the joys of being a homeowner!)

Hubby surprised me by getting us a bunch of stuff we can enjoy together, including a remote control for our PS3 (so we can watch blu rays without fumbling over the controller), season 2 of "Big Bang Theory" and season 1 of "Raising Hope," and new controllers for the Wii.  He also got me a gorilla pod (that I picked out myself) and a monopod (that was a complete surprise)!  Yes, it was a successful Christmas indeed.  :)

Christmas Day was spent with my mom's side of the family, and then watching the Packers beat the Bears before heading back home.  The day after was Christmas with Hubby's family, which, while a bit chaotic at times, was nice.  I got to spend a lot of time hanging out with my nephew and taking pictures of him (he's so freakin' cute!!), but after being exhausted from all the running around that weekend (and feeling like I was starting to come down with something), I wound up sleeping in the recliner for an hour or two toward the end of our visit.  In my family, it's not Christmas until someone falls asleep in the midst of the festivities, so I guess I was just carrying over the tradition.

You'd think a 4-day work week would go quickly, but it didn't.  It dragged.  A lot.  And while I looked forward to our weekend plans, part of me would've been content just sleeping through the whole thing.  Alas, after a bit of a struggle, we made our way to Madison for S's graduation gathering.  We spent the night at my parents' and the next day had lunch plans with a friend of mine and his wife.  I hadn't seen Mr. P since his wedding, which was in November of 2009 (they moved to Georgia the previous year), so this lunch was LONG overdue.  We actually made plans to stop in on our drive down to Disney in March, so it won't be nearly as long before we see them next!  Color me pleased. 

New Year's Eve was spent with my second family.  K, S and J (my "sisters") had all gotten new toys (iPhones, Kindle, etc) and much of the evening was spent in the same room, but each of us on our respective electronic.  K's dad and his new wife stayed around for dinner, but left around 10 or so.  See, the new wife has a rescue dog named Princess (a bichon, for those interested).  Since she can get along with Eva (J's dog), we tried bringing Maxine into the mix.  Bad idea.  Bad.  Those two were at each other's throats like you wouldn't believe!  My best guess is Maxi made an inappropriate "Yo Mama" joke and Princess was having none of it.  I'm probably wrong, but it works in my head.  So anywhoozles, they ended up crating Princess upstairs in the "other" condo, since the two couldn't play nicely, and so they left early to make sure Princess didn't spend the whole evening alone.  

We had a great time anyway.  K always makes my second favorite meal of the year for New Year's Eve: shrimp and potatoes.  Between that and all the snack foods available, I was stuffed silly.  We played some Apples to Apples and drank to ring in the new year.  Then we crashed at the condo (me on the couch, Hubby on the recliner/floor, Maxi on another chair).  New Year's Day we headed home to drop off the puppers and headed back to see part of Hubby's family for the Packers game (go Matt Flynn!).  Thankfully, we had nothing to do the next day, and we spent it like a couple of lazy bums.  It was lovely.

This week has been... interesting.  But this post is long enough, so I'll save that for another time.

Who Needs Sleep?

This gal.  :-(

The problem with having a clock you can read at night is that you can better count the number of times you wake up.  For example, I recall reading the following times between turning my light off around 11:45 last night and waking up to my first alarm at 7:10:

12:44

1:45

3:40

4:08

4:50

5:22

6:18

There may have even been other times where I just didn't bother to check the clock, as well.  Aye yi yi!

Part of it is my own fault.  Hubby and I took a 3.8 mile walk yesterday (which wore the puppers out and we actually had to carry her for part of it) and then ended up napping on the couches when we got home.  For a few hours.  Whoops.

Also, I apparently had my phone's volume on super high, because I can remember hearing the ding telling me I have a new email.  That's never woken me up before!  Ugh.

And then... Then there was the nightmare.  Nothing too graphic about this one, but it was terrifying.  I think I was a kid again and I was hiding from some hired killers who were at the house to kill my family.  I won't/can't go into much more detail, but suffice it to say that it woke me up and kept me up for a bit last night.

Here's hoping I don't fall asleep on my keyboard while working this AM.   

Is It Rapture Time Already? (aka, "Beam Me Up, Jebus!")

Boy, time flies!  It seems like just yesterday we were saying goodbye to certain loved ones, preparing for them to be beamed up by the G-man himself because the world was clearly going to end in 2000.  

Actually, there have been a LOT of predicted Rapture experiences.  Check out this list on Wikipedia for all the previous supposed dates of Rapture.  Personally, I'm gonna go with Sir Isaac Newton on this one.  I'm thinking we've got a good 50 years at minimum before Jesus decides he wants to be saddled with the responsibilities sure to accompany (and follow) the Rapture.

In case you weren't aware, I'm not particularly religious.  Wait, that's an understatement.  I am NOT religious.  I'm what most people would probably categorize as 'agnostic.'  I'm pretty sure there's some kind of higher power out there, but I don't believe in any specific God-like figure.

Being a-religious was sort of hard on me growing up.  I remember being in 1st grade or so and a friend asked me if I prayed at night.  With sort of a sideways glance I told him that no, I didn't, to which he promptly replied, "Oh, well you're going to Hell then."  Lovely.  

6-year-old Erika kind of took this to heart (in other words, I was f*cking terrified) and tried this "praying" thing a few times.  Turns out it really just wasn't my thing.  I also completely missed the whole point of prayer, so it would go something like this:

"Dear God, I really want to get a good grade in Math.  And I REALLY wish I could fly.  I think I could, but I need some help, you know?  OK.  Amen."

In the following years, I started coming up with snarky responses to religion-based questions. 

"What church do you go to?"  "I attend the Church of Erika.  We meet Sunday mornings in my room and sleep."

"How come you celebrate Christmas?"  "Because my parents celebrate it."

"Why don't you believe in God?"  "Why don't you believe in dragons?"

Now, I've attended services at a few churches.  When I was a kid, I went to a Lutheran service with a friend and her family.  It was close to Christmastime, and I remember the music was beautiful, but the rest was so-so.  Later in life I sat outside of SEVERAL Catholic services between Girl Scout cookie booth sales.  Not my thing.  And when I was in high school, I went to a Presbyterian service with one of my best friends (the best of my church-going experiences).  It was pretty cool (they were a VERY accepting church, which was a new concept to me), but still just not my thing.

My parents once told me that they wish they would've raised me in a religion so I could choose what I wanted to do about it when I became an adult.  (I'm not sure how they would've accomplished this; Mom also grew up a-religious since my Grandpa is an atheist and Dad went to a Methodist church when he was quite young but also grew up mostly sans religion.)  

I'm actually thankful that they brought me up the way they did.  Sure, I miss out on some religious references now and then.  And for me, Christmas is about a fat guy with magic reindeer and Easter is about bunnies and chocolate.  But I'm not sorry for these things.  I take great joy in giving gifts every December and to this day I hunt Easter eggs at my parents' house!  And I don't need an antiquated book to tell me what's right or wrong; my parents' did that for me, and they did a wonderful job all on their own. 

So, all that being said, I wish all of you believers well in your journey to Heaven, however you may get there.  As for me?  I guess time will tell.  It'll be an adventure, that's for sure.     

New Theory

You know how sometimes you wake up before you have to because you have GOT to pee?  You pretty much have two options: Stay in bed and hope that you can sleep through it without waking up soaked in your own urine OR get up and pee.  I typically get up and pee.

My theory is that when you do this, your bladder only expels as much as it needs to in order for you to be comfortable enough to get back to sleep.  Because seriously, no matter when it happens, I STILL have to pee first thing when I get up.  So unless I'm sleep-drinking, my bladder clearly isn't getting emptied that first time around.

This has been a random theory by yours truly.  Have a good day!