Week 36 - My Endless Cold

Well, I can’t say I got much done this week. I spent most of my time coughing and trying not to move because that would just get me coughing. So no swimming for sure but very little else either. And there was sweating too. Lots and lots of sweating. I was a real treat!

Connie left first thing Monday morning so I made her an omelet for breakfast – protein to offset a day of road food. Within half an hour of her driving away, I had her bed stripped and remade, everything I’d moved out of her room moved back and the laundry sorted and started. I was dripping wet so jumped into the shower and then the sitting began. I was still fully congested at this point so the coughing hadn’t started yet.

With all the down time I had, I spent Monday finishing a pair of socks I’d started last October when I was home after surgery. It was a complicated pattern with gorgeous yarn – an expensive skein from a local dyer. Well, it had come in two hanks, which I took as convenient for making socks, but the second skein didn’t feel the same. When I finished the socks, they were completely different. One was wimpy, fuzzy, came out bigger and was a slightly different color. I washed them for blocking and it got even worse. They were so different that I didn’t want to keep them and couldn’t give them away. It was time to contact the dyer. After several emails, we decided that I’d take the good sock to Yarn Charm to hang for display near her yarn and she’d give me a new skein. So much time and nothing to show for it! At least I got an entry in my knitting group’s WIP contest. And after frogging the second sock, I have 50 grams I can use in another project. It’ll be fine on its own but sheesh!

In my effort to get back to “normal” this week, I spent some time slogging through paper and clearing surfaces. One of my hot spots is the corner by the fridge where I throw random food that doesn’t go in the cupboard – chips, bread, cookies… that kind of thing. While cleaning that corner, I started putting extra food on the table. Well, by the time I got the corner under control, the table was full. Let’s not even discuss how many boxes of cereal I have. So I’m declaring here that I’m done buying food. I’m going to see how long I can go eating out of my cupboards, freezer and garden without buying food. Of course some things will be exempt – milk, TP, cat food, etc. This isn’t about saving money but rather clearing things out. All good, right? Please ask me how I’m doing on this. I should really take some before and after pics.

By the end of the week, the congestion had abated but the coughing had set in. Some of it was drainage related but not all of it. I was SO pretty to be around at work. At least it was getting some better by the weekend. I had vet appointments with all four cats on Saturday morning – 2 at 9:15 and 2 at 10:15.  They all needed shots but the first two needed their ears cleaned and I had to drug Pie since she needed treatment for a UTI. I was home and showered (taking cats to the vet is gross – they blow fur when they’re stressed plus the shaking of the ears. Ewww.) before lunch and then started neatizing. I ended the day with a trip to the Laundromat with comforters (they’d gone from piled on the spare bed to the middle of the front room floor) so I could hang them on the line to dry, watering at Lorri’s (the mosquitoes were horrible from all our rain so I blasted the water on the plants while flailing my arms and managed not to be bitten) and a stock up run (no food though) at Dollar General. I was happy with the level of productivity by the time I went to bed.

Sunday was Carter’s, my cousin’s grandson, baptism in Hickman, which is an hour south of Wahoo. I was dressed and on the road by 9:00. It was a lovely service and they had pulled pork for lunch afterwards in the church hall. I helped do the pulling so was speckled with meat bits. It’s all good. When I got home, I got cooking. I’d signed up for potato salad for our food day Monday so made that, some stuffed peppers and banana bread. I’d started the day making a pound of bacon so I could make BLT’s all week and then came back from the baptism with home grown tomatoes and cukes. It looks like I’ll be doing fine with my first week of not buying food and it’s all good, healthy food too. Yay!