'Sup?

I'm finally back in the land of the living. For the most part, anyway. I finally caved and went to the doctor on Monday, since I'd really had enough of feeling so lousy. Wouldn't you know, what started out as a cold morphed into a sinus infection. No big surprise there, as I'm prone to them and ear infections. When I smoked, I used to get bronchitis like clockwork, which I don't miss at all.

And as I creep back into the world of the living, I'm back to work on a few new projects. I don't want to say much, since one is ins in the early stages and I have had problems with what I think are really great ideas petering out by 20 or 30 pages into the book. So mum's the word until it gets beyond that, but I will say that it's been fun so far.

The sick has been weaving its way through my house, though. My daughter's been sick off and on for the last two weeks, and my other half started with it on Monday. I can't wait for this winter to end. I'm waving the white flag and hooping Punxsatawney Phil is right on the money. Spring can't get here soon enough.

Still Sick (No, Really. I Am.)

And it really sucks.

REALLY

SUCKS

I was starting to feel better over the weekend, which was a good thing because I'd gotten completely caught up on Downton Abbey, so I was out of new stuff to watch. I've been debating about getting the third season and just saying the hell with waiting to see how this season plays out, but in the end, I decided not.

And then Tuesday night, my throat felt a little scratchy. No problem. My head was all stuffed up. It was just probably from that.

I realized otherwise when I woke up at 3:30 in the morning with my throat hurting even worse than it did last week. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Forget sleeping. I gathered up my ER on DVD (I'm working my way through it again. I was on Season 11 Tuesday night/Wednesday morning), put on my fleecy,  super cozy bathrobe, got me some juice (Juicy Juice makes the best grape juice ever, btw) and when downstairs so I wouldn't wake my husband.

I finally fell asleep around 5AM. My son woke me at a little before 8 with a kiss (he's so adorable that way. It's what keeps me from killing him most days) and after he left for school at 8AM, I staggered back upstairs, where I promptly fell back asleep until after ten. From that point on, it was impossible to stay awake more than a half hour. I kept dozing off. I ran a fever. It was awful.

By yesterday, I felt a little better. I only napped once. The fever broke. My throat no longer hurts. My nose has (finally) stopped running. Now if only this awful Typhoid Mary cough would go away.

Today's the first time in over a week that I've actually felt well. Hopefully that means I'm kicking this awful cold (I don't think it was the flu, or if it was, it was a very mild flu.) And hopefully that means I'll be up and blogging on a regular basis again real soon.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Sick

It's been a rough week in my house. Last weekend, the Girl started with a cold. No problem. She handles them a lot better now than she did when she was a little kid (when I'd be up all night with her because she refused to sleep.) But I was still cursing myself because while the Boy got a flu shot in October, I didn't make her get one, and when her temperature went up to 100 degrees, I was really wishing I'd gotten her one. But fortunately, her temp was back to normal by the morning and it turned out to be just a cold.

However, when kids get germs, they are VERY generous with them. I spent most of Wednesday cleaning - dusting, vacuuming, waiting for my DVDs of Downton Abbey to arrive (which they did that afternoon - woot!) and by late afternoon, my throat felt a little scratchy. Kind of like when you've been at a concert or a Giants game screaming your head off.

Oh.

No.

By Thursday morning, my throat felt like I'd swallowed a dozen razor blades - hot and raw and just awful. I can tolerate fevers, coughing, my head feeling like it's going to explode, but I despise sore throats. They make me grouchy. No, I'll be honest, they make me downright bitchy. And when I'm sick, I just want to be left alone. Throw in a sore throat on top of it, and don't even look at me unless you want me to rip your face off. I'm a lousy patient and fortunately, my husband and I've been married long enough that he knows the best thing to do is stay faaaaar away from me.

So I spent all day Thursday and Friday in bed, waiting for death to come get me. While I waited, I got caught up entirely on Downton Abbey and now I know exactly who everyone is and what's happened to them prior to Season Three. And, even better? Every night, my seven year old son came up to sing Soft Kitty (fans of The Big Bang Theory will understand) to me, which totally made being sick worthwhile.

I still feel pretty blah - now I'm all stuffed up and coughing like a TB patient, so I can't guarantee I'll be back to regular blogging this week, but I will be back next week (in February. EEK! The year is already flying by!)

Ooops

It's been a few days, hasn't it? Sorry about that. I can't really even blame being sick, since I started feeling more like my old self a few days ago.

Part of it is that I've written and rewritten a post several times over. I haven't posted it because it's very strongly political and I've tried to keep my political views out of this blog. I've tried to keep this blog kind of light and fun to read (and hopefully I've succeeded) and so I'm not entirely sure I want to drag politics into it. Let's just leave it at politicians are making me sick. I can't wait for this election season to end. I can't believe all the nonsense surrounding birth control and women having access to it and when the hell did we get zapped back into the 1950s?

Ahem.

So, since I'm not so sure I want to bring politics into the mix, I'm going to blame my short absence on writing. I've been chugging away at the fourth McKenzie book (although my Musa editor doesn't know about it just yet.) This is Emma's story (she's Drew and Garrett's sister) and so far, I'm loving it. I'm a little over a quarter of the way into it and have already been pleasantly surprised by a few events that I didn't see coming until the words were on the screen. Yay!

What I'm not loving about it is the title. I don't have one. It's been Untitled since I began it a few weeks ago. I hate having it called Untitled. By now, I usually at least have a working title. Not this time. No title and I can't seem to come up with anything. Rats. I'm not good at titles to begin with and this has been driving me crazy. I hate coming up with them. I'd rather write a synopsis than think of a title. Wait... no... that's not entirely true. But you get how much I hate coming up with titles, right? (Not to mention how much I seem to just really like the word 'title'. Yeesh.)

But since the story is flowing like crazy, I'm not going to go too insane over it just yet. It'll come to me. I hope.

Still Sick

Last week, I started with what I thought was a cold, caught from the Boy because he just loves to share. Sore throat (ugh. I despise sore throats with every fiber in my being. I heard that if you have your tonsils out, you never, ever get sore throats again. I'd voluntarily have them removed if it meant I never had to have another sore throat. I'd probably voluntarily give up just about any body part, if it meant I never had to have another sore throat again.) Cough. Stuffy nose. Watery eyes. It. Sucked.

And with the hubs working the way he is, I didn't have any chance to really rest. The kids were really good about not killing each other, but the Girl's only 11 so she's not really ready to cook meals yet, and they still needed to eat, and I still had to get them off to school and all, so just hiding under the covers until the Ick went away just wasn't an option.

Well, by yesterday, not only was I still sneezing and coughing, but my right ear was starting to bother me. It felt all clogged and uncomfortable and since I'm prone to ear infections, and usually can recognize them, I caved and called the doctor.

Turns out it wasn't an ear infection yet, but there was fluid trapped down there and it turns out I have a sinus infection that probably would have morphed into an ear infection if I'd waited any longer. Sigh. So now I'm antibiotics and Mucinex-D (which you need a driver's license to get. Thanks, meth-heads, for ruining everything. A-holes.) With any luck I'll actually be able to breathe through my nose very soon. I don't like being a mouth-breather. Not one bit.

Spring can't get here soon enough.

But on the bright side, I've started work on another McKenzie book. As of right now, this will probably be the last one. Then again, I thought A Perfect Lady was going to be the last one, so never say never, right? I'm about 50 pages in, still don't have a title, but it's going well. Or, at least I think it is. We shall see. I've made it beyond the first thirty pages, and that's usually when I hit the wall, so I'm pretty optimistic about this one.

Sick...

I'm probably not going to be blogging for a few days. Seems the Boy is very generous with his cold germs and, as a result, I'm sick. I'm hoping to be back to regular blogging by Monday.

A Long Few Days

That's what we've had in my house over the last week. A looooong few days.

My mom used to live with us. Now she is in an assisted living facility, in her own little apartment. My brother and I usually go up to see her once a week or so, schedule permitting. And since my other half is currently working second shift, that means that if I go up to see Mom, the kidlets have to go with me.

So Tuesday, we're up there. Along with my brother. Unbeknownst to us, there was a stomach virus going around the place. You know where this is going, right?

Not twenty-four hours later, we are all sick as anything. Now my brother lucks out - it's just him. But in my house? No such luck. The Boy fell victim first. Every 15-30 minutes, poor kid. Then the Girl. Then...

it got me


Awful.

Whatever this bug was, it kicked the crap out of my son. He couldn't keep anything down for three days and all he did (when he wasn't throwing up) was sleep. The Girl and I fared better, but still... it knocked me for a loop.

But we're all on the mend now - thank God. It's no fun being sick like that. Give me a good head cold over a stomach flu any day of the week. I can deal with stuffy and sniffling and coughing and all that. Stomach flu sucks. Just. Sucks.

Ahhh.... Modern Medicine!

So, it turns out that what I thought was the beginning of the mother of all colds was actually, in fact, strep. Great. I've only ever had strep throat once before and that was nearly 20 years ago.

I went to the doctor, who ran a Rapid Strep test. The poor nurse - twice I backed away from her, the third time, I pushed her away. The fourth attempt was the charm (what can I say? I hate throat cultures. Gack!)

Long story short, the test came back negative (WTF!@#$!???), but my doctor said that it's only 80% accurate to begin with and, judging by how red my throat was, she was fairly certain I fell into the 20% who have it despite the negative. So she prescribed me Zithromax and sent me on my way.

Wonderful stuff, this Zithromax. By Saturday night, my throat was almost 100% better. By last night, I was thisclose to my old self. Yay!

However, what also might have helped was that, for the first time in forever, I actually crawled into bed and got some real rest. I stayed in bed, in my jammies, all day Saturday (once I got home from the doctor's) and all day Sunday. I never do that. Isn't it funny how, when men get sick, they expect the world to just stop for them and they crawl into bed, sleep for two days, and spring up healthy as anything? But women don't get that luxury. For some reason, the world does not stop for us, no matter how lousy we feel.

Well this time, I made it stop. I stayed in bed and did nothing but read. For two days. I can't remember the last time I did that where childbirth wasn't involved. It was probably at least 8 years ago - BK (Before Kids.)

My husband's birthday was Friday, so earlier that week, I was in B&N to get part of his gift when I remembered I hadn't bought Janet Evanovich's most recent Stephanie Plum novel. They usually come out in May/June, so I was waaaaay behind with this one. Truth be told, I wasn't all that thrilled with the last few Plum novels, so I just never got around to buying the Fearless Fourteen. Just kind of forgot about it.

So I bought it as well. And read it in about six hours. It was hysterically funny in parts. Despite feeling so lousy on Friday, when I started it, I burst out in such laughter at one point, that my husband actually came to see what was so damn funny.

Since Friday was his birthday, I'd invited a whole mess of family for dinner. I didn't want to cancel it on account of a silly sore throat (it wasn't until later Friday night, when I really started feeling awful, that it dawned on me that I probably had strep) so I made dinner for ten people despite wanting only to crawl into a hole and die. I kept my distance from everyone, though, so all should be well. I hope.

When I got back from the doctor's on Saturday, I curled up in bed with Fearless Fourteen and blazed through it. The earlier Stephanie Plum novels were (and still are) some of the funniest books I've ever read, and Fourteen seemed to recapture it. When I finished it, I went back and dug out Lean, Mean Thirteen and re-read that. Same thing - funny as hell.

Since I was feeling better, I went and pawed through my books to find the other twelve Plums. So far, Hot Six and Twelve Sharp are still missing, which kind of sucks because Twelve is a hardback. They're probably in a box in the attic. I hope.

I figure by the time I finish re-reading them, book fifteen will be out. And hopefully I won't be disappointed.

So even though I felt like hell until last night, it wasn't really a bad weekend at all. In some ways, it was nice to just enjoy the peace and quiet. And I actually had peace and quiet. Even the kids seemed to understand that Mommy was sick and my husband kept them fairly occupied so I could rest. I think it was my going to the doctor that had him thinking I was thisclose to death, since I never go to the doctor when I'm sick.

Anyway, now it's Monday and, for the first time in a loooong time, I'm feeling pretty good. Of course, I think the Boy is coming down with something again (I can NOT wait for spring!!!) so by tomorrow I may be sleep deprived and cranky again. We'll see.

Sick (Again)

I am sick.

Thank God it's the weekend.

That's all.