some vacation

I’m gonna whine. Sorry, that is just the way it is…

I asked for this 4 days off literally a year ago. I have been looking forward to this week for a year. A YEAR.

I have delayed on making some changes to my life because I didn’t want to lose this week off from everything.

Two weeks ago (Sunday the 10th in fact) I could not get to sleep because my throat was SOOOOOO dry. No amount of water would sooth it. OK I said. No big deal. Jimmy at work had the same kind of thing and her cold lasted 4 or 5 days. I can handle that. So I blithely trained one of the Assistants for (part of) that week (why only part of is part of why the changes WILL be happening and soon) and worked on Mom’s quilt and did Christmasy things and tried to ignore how tired I was. Pat ended up staying home a couple of days with a nasty cold (which turned out to be a sinus infection) and I continued sniffling, but nothing major. Aside from the fact that one of the reasons Pat got so sick is cause he couldn’t sleep due to the GIGANTIC snores coming from his wife. He spent at least part of a lot of nights on the Library futon. I even tried that Snore Away stuff.

So last Friday (the 22nd) I set out to make a cake for my sister’s Solstice party. I have rarely had a cake fail quite so spectacularly. Pat said it tasted all right, but it died as it came out of the pan. I threw the pan away. I VERY rarely ruin a cake.

On Saturday morning… Now understand, I THINK I am generally a pretty nice, gentle person….Through all this, I am getting grumpier and grumpier. Pat, the animals, the cakes, the tree, everything is this close to getting thrown out in the snow. I chalk it up to PMS. No apparently I am really, really sick and just too stoopid to fall down.

So Saturday, I make a layer of chocolate (I had a mix for that one) and a layer of lemon (from scratch, cause I had everything for it) we take the old entertainment center to Salvation Army and go to Party Craft for cake supplies. I am unreasonably angry at the people who didn’t see us behind them carrying the entertainment center and tried to back over us and unreasonably disappointed that Party Craft didn’t have a box big enough for the cake flat (WTF?) that I needed.

I make the “butter cream” frosting and end up having to use lime juice because I ran out of lemon. The paste coloring I bought is not working any better than the liquid that I had on hand. I get impatient and add bunch of water, because my hand mixer is having such a hard time. So now it is all runny. This is all very frustrating. I don’t have the time, patience or ingredients to start again. Hope for the best.

I put the sun shape together and start frosting it. I realize the wedges are moving away from the round an awful lot. Stoopid! I didn’t glue them together. F*** it. Crap! The frosting is so thin it is RUNNING down the sides of the cake. F*** it. Frost it anyway. Now the orange, red, and yellow sugar. Wow that gets everywhere. Hm. The dog apparently likes it. Don’t know if she got cake, frosting or sugar, but she wants more. “Go see Daddy!”

Stick it in the fridge. Cat seemed way to interested too.

Go to Sister’s. Had a good time, but really tired feeling. Just kind of out of it.

Started home. Terrified the entire way. Seems the storm we were supposed to get Friday night decided to delay just a touch. We got to the highway and it was blowing snow. Nasty blowing snow. Visibility was about a hundred feet. Snow machine trailers not cleaned off contribute to the problem. I only saw the huge black painted semi in front of us because of the Lack of something there (lights, snow, whatever).

Pat was driving. His hands were cramping by the time we got to Anchorage. So were mine. I have no idea how long it took us to get from Wasilla to Anchorage, but it felt like a very long time.

I was full blown sick by Sunday morning, but was still thinking, “if I just sit and rest today, I will be fine by tomorrow.” I sat and watched TV all day. I tried to focus on Sudoku and a book, but wasn’t able to follow them. TV was easier, since it didn’t matter if I was tracking or not. By this time I have a nasty cough.

I wasn’t better by “tomorrow”. Pat and I got up MUCH later than we normally do on Christmas. I only got up because a happy grinny face said, “Let’s go open presents.” 🙂

Pat made breakfast and we opened presents, then I went back to bed. For 3 hours. I don’t nap in general, so that was weird in itself.

We went to my parents and had a very good time there. The boys were really good and I think everyone liked everything.

I think I must have been feverish a great deal of the past couple of weeks. I don’t remember anything very clearly. I am pretty sure I finished Mom’s quilt on Thursday, but I wouldn’t swear to it.

I finally went to the Dr on Tuesday. I am a Very Sick Kid. I am feeling a bit better today (she said determinedly) so I intend to get out of my PJs and leave the house. So far on my vacation, I have done exactly what I told people I was going to do. Sit around a watch TV. And read A Christmas Carol for the first time. I wish whoever it is that listens to what I say and not what I mean would stop it. I mentioned at one point that I would like an indoor swimming pool. Not a week later is when the neighbor’s roof Ice Dammed and flooded our house.

Stop taking me so literally, DAMMIT!

I really did have things I wanted to do. I was going to clean last week so that I could vacation guilt-free. Instead, we have 2 weeks worth of clean laundry in baskets in the bedroom, the vacuum has not been run, the checkbooks are not done, the only reason any dishes have been done is that I heard the grumbling and have slowwwwly unloaded the top basket, rested, unloaded the bottom basket, rested, loaded it up again and rested some more. Until yesterday, I was good for about 10 minutes of activity for each 3 hours recumbent. There was a 3 day sale (which ended yesterday) that I wanted to go to. 50% off everything in the store at a Women’s specialty shop. Last time I went I got a HUGE bag full of clothes for a $100. I love going to breakfast with a book. I wanted to go to Long John Silver’s (Pat doesn’t like it as much as I do, so I don’t get it as often as I would like.) I wanted to go downtown and get my face scrubbies during the week because there wouldn’t be as many people in the mall. I wanted to work on a puzzle with talk radio on so that I could yell at the idiots. I can do some of those things today, but I don’t want to push myself too much, because I am still not very well. I thought I would go to breakfast, but I may be a bit sniffly yet for that. I don’t think they would appreciate the box of tissues. Hrm. Maybe Long John Silvers will be my jaunt today. At this point, I’m tired again. Damn. Maybe I will just stick with putting some laundry away while watching a movie and then work on a puzzle. Damn. I hate being sick.

Ok, I’m done whining. For now.