meh part two

Well, the kids and I were all feeling better today, though still not 100%. Dan is feeling about as bad as I was yesterday, which means he isn't up to do much more than sleeping on the couch.

I did a bunch of housework today. I am despairing of ever having time to work on my and Bill's photos. The housework increases to fill up any and all time allotted to it. And it feels as if I fall further and further behind with it with each and every day. It has been cold and raining now for three days, so I have not been able to work outside at all.

I think my real problem right now, though is just being very burned out from work and the situation with the person on midnights who is calling in so much. I am just emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted. Luckily, I do have a couple of long weekends coming up, as well as a vacation next month. I am so hoping having a bit of time off will help me feel better.

Steven played soccer in the soaking cold rain today. I parked my Jeep behind one of the nets and just stayed in the vehicle and watched the game. The field was like a swamp. Steven came home and took a long, hot shower.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day. I will, of course, work. Dan is saying he will cook up a tasty  breakfast featuring French toast, though, which will be very nice.

meh

Spent a lot of the day doing housework. Spent  most of the rest of it resting. Steven was home from school with his cold, and Bill had a half day and came home sick. I'm not feeling the greatest, and neither is Dan.

Dan came home tonight with a bunch of invitations to parties, meet and greets for a local politician running for congress, and breakfasts - all for this weekend. I told him that he was more than welcome to go to any or all of them, but I just am not up to it right now. He laughed and told me that was what he was hoping I would say, as he isn't feeling well, either.

Watched some movies with the kids this afternoon - Serenity and The Fantastic Four. Steven is reading a fantasy series about warrior cats, Bill is reading Tolkien's Sil, and I am still slowly working my way through a series of biographies of Roman emperors by an ancient Roman. The similar names of members of the noble houses are driving me nuts with this head cold.

ickiness

This week is turning rough on me.

The midnight person has been out yet again.  It seems as if she is gone as much as she is here.  So we afternoon people have to try to cram as much as her twelve hour shift's worth of work into our work shift as possible. So we do not get any breaks, lunch time, etc. And you feel like you've been hit by a truck when you get off work.  And you have to stay over and finish things up and help out the other midnight person. So it really sucks.

Yesterday the high school called really early, asking where Bill was. He has supposed to take the chemistry AP test and he wasn't there, and they were holding off starting the test for him. Well, he had left the house half an hour before that, and should have been there. Then we realized he had probably gone to the church where they have been administering the tests rather than the high school, where they had moved this test to, in an large administrative office in the school administration wing. Bill did not have his cell phone turned on, so Dan drove down to town to find him, but Bill had already realized something was wrong when no one else showed up at the church, and headed to the school. So everything turned out OK, other than me being woken up and having very little sleep by that phone call.

Today I was woken up by the middle school calling. Steven had a hideous cold, could I please come get him and bring him home? So I did that, and then had to run to the grocery store to get cold things for his sore throat. By the time I got home, Bill was home, and he is also sick with the bad cold.  And I think I might be getting it, too, though it is quite possible that my head feels so funny from lack of sleep and my nose is running from allergies.

Some good things:

The patient whose life I supposedly saved is now awake and alert. When I poked my head into his room yesterday to see how he was doing, he looked at me.He has been an impatient sicne April 20, and this was the first time i have seen his eyes open. He is still very sick and still in the ICU, but just being able to pick up his head and look at someone is a good thing at this point. He was improving at a very slow but steady rate, and suddenly in the last couple of days he had been getting a lot better a lot faster.

Being woken up so early yesterday allowed me to watch a couple of movies that I enjoyed (I wastoo tired to concentrate enough to read). Hotel Rwanda was incredibly good, though disturbing due to its genocide subject matter. The violence was fairly muted and implied, rather than being right in your face, which is something I greatly appreciated. I also watched Pride and Prejudice which was enjoyable, though not up to the standards of the BBC mini series from a few years ago.

Today I am too tired to either read or watch a movie. This is one of those days when you go into work and just hope that you're not so tired that you make a bad mistake that could hurt a patient.

another gorgeous spring day

Another gorgeous sunny spring day. In truth, we could perhaps use a bit of rain, but I will not complain about the glorious weather. I spent some time outside this morning, in between bouts of finishing up paying the bills. The snow peas are starting to spring up.

 

Bill had his second of three AP classes today, the one he was dreading the most, American government. I asked how he did when he got home, and he feels pretty confident. he thinks he did well enough to able to get full college credit for it.  His next (and last) AP test is tomorrow morning - chemistry.  When that is over he will be a halftime student for a couple of weeks, then be done forever with public school.

Right now he is asleep upstairs on the couch, with Steven's cat Bud asleep on top of him.

And with that, I am out the door and on my way to work.

bills bills bills bills

I'm making pretty good headway on the bills. I have sorted out everything, and discarded the junk mail. I have about half of the actual bills paid, and the rest ready to be paid in the morning. I'm starting to get tired, though, so I think I might go to bed pretty soon. The important stuff like Bill's dorm room down payment went out already this morning, along with the broken dvd's.

Work was OK tonight, so maybe this week will be OK. We're already short handed for tomorrow night, though, so maybe not.

I think for now I will just continue to do my best to ignore the former friend. Maybe if I keep just staying as far away as possible, eventually I will get over the urge to vomit whenever he is around.  I'll get some nice breaks anyway in the next few weeks. Maybe those, and the lack of stress (from work) surrounding them, will help me feel better about the whole thing.

I have been reading some books on vacationing and day hikes in the Tetons and Yellowstone. Sounds like the perfect place on Earth for me. Lots of wildlife, high mountains, canyons, lakes, rivers, hot springs, geysers, waterfalls, forests, etc. Don't know if we can afford to go next year, but one of these years...

sunny spring day :-)

Today is a surprisingly gorgeous spring day. Not too hot, not too cold - and the sun is bright as anything!  It's close to being a perfect day. You should see the tulips blooming right outside the back door. They are bright red with yellow in the middle, and they have three rows or ruffled petals - more rose shaped than tulip shaped - they are simply stunning.

Have been spending the day paying bills and stuff like that. Hopefully I can get finished when I get home from work tonight. That will be one task done for the month!

I did watch one of my netflix rentals this morning. The three movies have been sitting there a week or so, and I finally got around to opening them this morning. One of the three was fine. One was cracked in half. One was shattered in a bunch of pieces like broken glass.  I was really surprised.  It's the first time I have had any problems with them like that - though I suspect that the discs were damaged somewhere in the mail.

Work had calmed down a lot last night. I had been completely dreading going in, but things were a lot better than last week. It was actually pleasant.

Dan and Bill burned a lot of leaves yesterday - the piles are still smoldering. I went into town early and got some prescriptions refilled and then farted around at the bookstore before going in to work.

My former friend has been hanging around a lot all of a sudden in the places and with the people where our worlds intersect. Every time I see or hear that he has been around, I feel like throwing up.  That is obviously my problem, not his, and I have to find a way to deal with it.We both have a perfect right to be in those places, and we both have a lot of mutual friends that neither one of us should have to give up. So I have to find a way to deal with wanting to puke whenever he is around. Short of leaving those places and people myself. Well, I'll be out of town a lot and/or very busy towards the end of the month and into next month. Maybe just being too busy to be in those places and with those friends will help with my disgusting problem.  Maybe I will have outgown that urge by the time I have more time?????

thank God for the weekend

Well, Thursday night at work was every bit as bad as I had been dreading/fearing it might be. I am not sure how I managed to make it through, but somehow I did. I do not want to talk about it anymore.

The weekend has been pleasant, though today was a bit chilly. We will be getting a frost tonight, so I am glad I did not jump the gun on getting the more perishable plants for the garden yet (like peppers and tomatoes and annual herbs).

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, and in this area of the country it means that many people eat Mexican (or Tex-Mex) food. We had a nice family dinner with chips and salsa, tacos, Spanish rice, refried beans, and sweet corn cakes. It was pretty yummy.

I spent the day resting from the nightmarish week at work and grocery shopping. I also went to the nursery and got three blueberry bushes (to replace the one that died over the winter and a couple of bonus bushes that looked very healthy) and two blackberry vines that are very lush and healthy looking. That trip to the nursery tempted me greatly to get vegetable plants and herbs for the garden, but with tonight's frost, I am very glad I did not give in to that temptation.

Today was sunny and lovely, but chilly. We went to Steven's soccer game this afternoon, down in Tecumseh, and poor Steven took a hard shot in his private area. Poor kid grabbed himself and went instantly down on his knees. He's OK now, though.

We got home in time to watch the Kentucky Derby, and then we had a southern style dinner to celebrate Derby Day. We had salad, barbecue, mashed potatoes (with six cheeses mixed into the potatoes), black eyed peas, and honey cornbread.

This weekend Bill has been studying for his upcoming AP tests in American government and chemistry, and I helped him get some paperwork ready to send off to Ball State about his room and board and freshman orientation. Steven played soccer today and will play again tomorrow and again Monday. Dan has been working. I rested as much as I humanly could. The dog has spent most of his time sleeping, as he usually does these days. The cats have been cuddling and purring a lot.

Tomorrow Dan and bill will burn what is left of last fall's leaves. I might escape to Ann Arbor early to get away from the smoke.