Sickbed delusions…

I attended our grandson’s regional spelling bee this morning at 9:00. I got to spend about 20 minutes occupying our 2 year old granddaughter in the hallways of the college it was held at. By the time 11am came around, round five was over and I was feeling feverish. I excused myself and came home. There, I got into jammies, crawled into bed and fell fast asleep for the next three hours. I’ve been trying to stay sorta awake since, because I want to be sure I can sleep tonight. Thus, my little ditty.

Why do my male cats insist on cage fighting in a litter box? Every now and then I wake to find litter everywhere in the bathroom, the box lid halfway across the room, the scooper too. It is funny when you get to witness it, but I hate the clean up. If only I could teach them to clean up after themselves. Bwaaahaaahaaa!

My tummy feels a bit nauseous, but also a bit hungry. The few crackers I tried an hour ago have stayed down.

Why is it that we get stay in bed sick whenever we have a busy schedule? We were supposed to have a gal over to discuss some stuff relating to our fellowship gatherings today. Had to go through the process of explaining I was sick, Thanking her for the well wishes, then rescheduling. Tomorrow I am supposed to provide a bride, groom, wedding planner and a mom a tour of our barn/wedding facility. More explaining, finding a creative way to not cancel the tour, and thinking. Not thinking clearly. Good thing this wedding planner is already familiar with the facility from a previous wedding she organized last year on our property.

La la la la la.

I hate being sick. But I am determined to make the best of it. Catch up on some sleep deficits, play some Solitaire on an old hand held game. Sleep more. Lose a couple pounds in the process. Not the best way to do that, but a minor perk of no appetite.

Look for the silver lining folks. It’s usually there. Just, sometimes hon have to look harder than at other times.

Aughhh!

So what does a very sick, type A personality do all day?

Today I spent a chunk of time transferring a bunch of paper clippings to a word document. Our daily paper publishes something called a Daily Groaner. Puns, riddles, jokes. For the last, who knows how long, I have been clipping them and collecting them to have to share with our grands when they visit and to text my son and daughter in law regularly. They truly appreciate a good groaner, and practice them on us regularly when we are together. And once the two of them get started, the puns fly quicker than I can keep up with. Since I am tired of the clippings, they are now filling a 12 page Word document, which I will pull out whenever I am in need of laughter.

I also created a picture collage for our grandson of pictures I took last night at his first appearance in anLittle League All Star game. He didn’t get to play til the last inning. He is the youngest on the team, but has an awesome attitude. Since I have been struggling with wanting to get him a special gift for his upcoming birthday, this proved to be great timing.

Now, you may be wondering, why I went to a baseball game last night if I am so sick. I had to ask myself that very question also. But when a child starts to tear up when you tell him that you probably won’t make the game because an hours drive is a bit much on a work night, it is dang near impossible not to change your mind. And so I went. Armed with my huge down coat, gloves and a wool hat to keep the chill away. I perched away from the extended family, so as not to cough on anyone. My temperature alternated between sweating hot to chilled. I stayed bundled up for most of the game despite the pleasant 75 degrees and sunshine. I managed to get a few pictures, as that is a passion of mine, and stopped only when my phone battery was down to 17%.

To top the fever off, I had figured that since I hadn’t been eating for the last few days, that I should put something into me. I downed a vegan protein shake before the drive there. By the time we hopped into the car to return home, my gut hurt. Real bad. If only I could fart or belch on command like some other members of my family. It was so bad, that when my honey ordered a chicken fingers basket from our favorite fast food place on the way home, I was not willing to eat anything, for fear of making things worse.

They lost their game, but our grandson looked very happy. It is double elimination, and hopefully I will be feeling better before their last game. Was it worth it? Yea, it was. I was going to be miserable no matter where I was, at least I got to bless our grandson by being there.

Back to today: heat packs on the chest and around the neck, warm tea, warm chicken broth, lots of water, a few rice chips and lots of rest. I even felt good enough for a bit to go out into the backyard with the cats and clean out the kids outdoor toy box in preparation for our daughter’s visit with our other two grandsons soon. The weather was mild, it only took thirty minutes, then it was back to the couch.

In anticipation of my honey’s return from work, I have sanitize sprayed all the handles I have touched in the house during the day and spritzed around to kill all those bad germs flying out of my mouth as I cough and sneeze.

Hopefully this summer does not hold any colds or flu for you.

Sickness…

I have two choices today. One, I can be annoyed by the fact that my grandchildren are such good sharers, and left their cold germs behind when they visited last week. Or I can choose to look at my raging sore throat, sore ears and lack of energy as an opportunity to take a down day. I am definitely torn by these two decisions. Being a type A personality I want to continue to tough it out and get done all the things that are on my l my list for today. However, I know that since I am not hungry, and I do not feel energetic, I should probably crash on the couch with a good book, a fuzzy blanket, and a cat on my lap. Taking it easy is sometimes the best route for getting better, but also the hardest.

That said, I thoroughly enjoyed the two days with our grandchildren. My dad, their great grandpa, came to COSTCO for a shopping trip. We had fun browsing, and topped the trip off with hot dogs and pizza for lunch. The rest of the afternoon was down time, read books, take naps. The oldest had arrived with a cough and stuffy, yet runny nose. The youngest was extremely emotional , and a bit demanding all afternoon. I could tell he was tired. Baseball practice was cancelled due to rain, and after a healthy dinner, we all went to bed at a decent hour. I let them sleep in as long as they could. After eating the delicious banana chocolate chip pancakes, we drove to a nearby citywide garage sale. Each child was given twenty dollars to spend however they desired, with my veto power intact.

It was interesting to watch their two personalities at work. Our granddaughter who is almost 12 chose to spend her money on a travel alarm clock that came housed in an adorable pink gray and white case. Her large purchase ended up being a set of two pieces of luggage in a nice magenta color. Both were in excellent condition. The wheels and handles worked, and they were fairly clean. That was her treasure for the day. Our grandson on the other hand, who is almost 9, chose to look for baseball cards and Pokémon stuff at every stop. He came home with a couple Pokémon manuals (?), two small stuffed animals, a baseball clock, two brand new computer mice, a baseball bat and a huge box of baseball cards that he bargained for all by himself. I was pretty darn proud of the way he handled that. It went something like this: He had gone up to the man with a couple small stacks of cards and asked how much they were. The gentleman said,”that is a good question. Would you be interested in buying the whole box?” My grandson answered in the affirmative, and was then asked how much he thought he would like to pay for the box. He answered quickly and decisively, “five dollars.” The gentleman said he thought that that was a fair price, and then said, “I hope you find a million dollar card in that box”. I so appreciated his generosity.

Lunch at Subway, as planned, ice cream at Baskin Robbins, as planned. Since it had been colder than we expected, we were all a bit chilled, and our grandson had begun to show signs of the cold his sister had, we headed home for some down time before baseball practice. This gave me time to pack some snacks for them to eat beforehand. Baseball always seems to be during the dinner hour. Hopefully the snacks would tide them over until they had a late dinner at home.

They both went home happy, I went to bed that night happy. Our love tanks were full. So, I honk that I will choose not to be annoyed at the sickness. I am so grateful for each moment I get to spend with them, healthy or sick. Time passes way to quickly. So, I am grateful for the down day. I choose to see the silver lining. I hope you will also as you face the challenges of each day.