Tuesday Ten on Friday: What in the World Have I Been Up To?

Ten Things I've Been Doing Instead of Blogging

1. Being sick. Actually, this one pretty well sums it up. We could just make this item numbers one through ten. Two-and-a-half weeks ago I started getting a low-grade fever and chills every evening and an upset stomach. It kind of went downhill from there.

2. Going to the doctor. I hate going to the doctor. It takes time out of my day that I don't have.

The first doctor was an ass who implied it was all in my head. As though I could invent a fever. Oh wait, he ignored the fever part and focused on what I do for a living and whether or not I get a stomach ache when I'm upset.

The second doctor told me he'd had several patients complaining of the same symptoms (um, hellllooooooooo, doc number one!!) and it should turn into a respiratory thing soon. I woke up the next morning with a nasty chest cold.

The third visit was with my regular doctor, who told me I have the virus of the month and gave me a prescription for cough medicine so that I could sleep, which is all I wanted.

The fourth visit....fever had returned and I felt even worse, so I finally got antibiotics. The next day I wanted to sit down and cry with relief. I hadn't even realized how awful I'd been feeling until I started to feel better.

3. Coughing.

4. School. Here's how I knew I was feeling better after that first double dose of Zithromax: The next morning I sat down at the table to start school and thought, "What are we doing today? Maybe we'll have time for drawing!" instead of laying my head on the table and thinking "What's the bare minimum I can get away with and still feel that my children are being educated adequately?"

5. Thinking about writing a blog post. The very idea made me feel absolutely exhausted.

6. Feeling absolutely exhausted. The very idea of doing anything made me feel absolutely exhausted.

7. Shopping. High school lovely lady has been invited to the homecoming dance. By a boy. Instead of freaking out and locking her in her room until she turns eighteen, last night I took her shopping and we outfitted her from head to toe.

8. And talking. A lot. Lovely lady and loving husband and I have been discussing all of the things we feel are important to discuss when a teenaged daughter is going to a dance and spending time on the phone with a boy. We are blessed with a genuine and goodhearted daughter who strives for honesty and values our trust. This parenting a teenager thing is tight-rope tricky, and could make a whole blog post in itself. We want to be firm but loving, strict but not too strict, open but not permissive, scary but...well, just so scary that she'd never dream of doing anything we wouldn't allow.

9. More coughing.

10. And doin' the Mom thing. Because the family's life doesn't stop just because Mom would like to quietly slip into bed and stay there for two weeks or so. Can you believe they still need to be fed and bathed (uh....oops, maybe I should give them a bath tonight) and taught? Sheesh.

Loving husband, who has been swamped in the middle of a huge work project, gets a huge nod and a pat on the back for playing Mom and Dad as much as he could so that I could rest.

I'm on the mend. We've done some cool projects (only because they were already on the lesson plan) and I've got some other fun things to post about, so look for more soon as I try to get caught up and get the ball rolling again here at Poohsticks!