Blue-Footed Musings

• My parents visited us over the weekend. It was great to see them
• It didn’t feel like Christmas, though. I was hoping that it would somehow, and I had even left the tree up, but the magic wasn’t quite there. Anyway, my parents seemed to like their gifts, and we liked ours. I got some new books to read, which is of course the last thing that I needed but still one of the things I like most.
• I had thought that when my parents left they were going to take their car and leave us with their SUV, the reason being that the car is easier for my mom to drive. So I was really confused when my father insisted on taking the SUV instead. Oh, well. I prefer the car anyway. And it just goes to show that you can know people for your entire life but still not always be able to predict what they’re going to do.
• My father accidentally left behind his hiking gear: scarf, gloves, hat, jacket, and shoes. Now that I could have predicted! This is not the first time we’ve had to mail their stuff back to them.
• The house is cleaner than it had been for a long time. I hope we can keep it up for a while.
• Alas, now I have to put the Christmas tree away. 🙁

• Yesterday I got my annual mammogram done. Mammograms aren’t fun, but at least they’re fast. I was home within an hour of having left, and that was with at least 30 minutes of drive time. I wish all medical-related visits were so quick.
• This week we got a letter from the school vice principal about Marshall’s attendance, because he has missed more days than the school deems appropriate. The school has stopped caring about Covid and kids’ health. All they care about now is keeping the desks filled. I mean, at Livia’s middle school orientation, the principal said, “Don’t come to school when you’re sick. But also, don’t miss any school.” (Those weren’t her exact words, of course, but it’s what Livia and I both understood her to be saying.) I knew then that it was only a matter of time before we got one of these letters, but it still made me angry to get one, especially because I believe that we all got sick for Christmas because other parents are sending their kids to school sick. Once upon a time I would have called up the school to give them a piece of my mind. Instead, I bitched them out in my head and otherwise ignored the letter. Experience has taught me that that’s the best way to deal with such things.

I spent a lot of time over the last two days shuttling back-and-forth between home, doctors’ offices, and pharmacies. Both of the kids tested positive for strep. My husband and I tested negative but were prescribed meds anyway, just to be safe. It took seven trips to the pharmacy to get all the necessary meds, thanks in part to ongoing staffing problems at the local CVSs (they’re always short-handed, and have been for years). I am exhausted and feeling on the verge of getting sick again. I need to rest today.

I spent most of yesterday in bed. I had a fever, and I wasn’t feeling up to much.

Today my temperature is still elevated, but it doesn’t classify as a fever anymore. So I guess I’m cured and had better get to all the Christmas prep that I dropped when I got sick.

Yeah, that’s not going to happen. What is going to happen is that I’m going to do a couple of necessary loads of laundry, and I’m going to do a bit of necessary cleaning, and I’m going to wrap the presents, and that is probably all that I’m going to do.

I don’t feel very Christmassy, but I am feeling grateful, because there’s a lot of bright side today. I didn’t finish my Christmas shopping, but the kids will each have several presents to unwrap tomorrow. And even though we hadn’t planned to spend Christmas here, we decorated the tree last week, so we have a place to put the presents. The storm knocked out our power twice, but it came back fairly quickly both times. The storm also took down a tree and assorted limbs around the property, but did no real damage otherwise. We have plenty of food and drink. If we can just get a little more Christmas spirit going, maybe it will turn out to be a good holiday after all.

Marshall came down sick with a cold on Sunday night. Now he’s recovering, but the rest of us have caught his bug. My parents don’t want our germs anywhere near them, so we had to postpone our trip northward. We’ll be spending Christmas by ourselves this year. 🙁

Meanwhile, there’s a big storm bearing down on us. It’s not going to bring us any snow, sadly. Instead we’re supposed to get rain and heavy winds. Power outages are expected. School for tomorrow has already been canceled.

My cough isn’t too bad unless something triggers it, but I’m so tired. After spending most of the day in bed watching Christmas movies, I scraped up just enough energy to do dishes, laundry, clean off the counters in the kitchen, and prep for the storm. That wore me out, though, and I had to go back to bed to save up energy for Craft Night. For Craft Night we made our own set of “Punishment Dice.” That was fun, but tiring. Now it’s late, and I’m going to bed again, this time to sleep.

Maybe we’ll feel better tomorrow.