The Saturday 7

1. What a week. I was miserably sick for the whole of it. I had actually already taken the week off of work because I'm way over my contracted hours due to the auction. I had to be there Monday for library and to wrap up all the last minute auction details, but by 1:00 I was dead, so I begged my co-librarian to cover my last class for me and went home to bed. 

2. By Monday night the cough was out in full force and I only managed to sleep in 2-hour intervals. As much as I'd hoped to spend my week off being productive, I recognize it for the grace it was. I was able to sleep in 2-hour stretches throughout the day and night because that's the only way I was getting any sleep. I did manage to restore order to my horribly neglected house. And because I anticipated having the freedom to make meals every night, I had bought the stuff when I did my grocery shopping before the cough got bad. So I made a few delicious meals throughout the week. 

3. But mostly, I forced myself to rest. I deleted all my phone games, stayed off facebook, and spent a lot of time in my Bible, sleeping on the couch, watching "The Middle," and reading all 8 books of Emma M. Lion. Lol. Yes. All 8. What else was I supposed to do from 2-4 in the morning when lying down resulted in lung-crushing coughing spasms? Resting is difficult for me, because I have a propensity toward laziness, so anytime I'm not being productive, I feel guilty. 

4. The resting didn't even help, though. By Thursday, when I still wasn't sleeping and my cough was getting worse instead of better, I dragged myself to the doctor for the yearly rigamarole . . . So your cough isn't getting better? Do your sinuses hurt? No. Do you feel short of breath? No. Let's see how your lungs sound . . . surprisingly good. Hey, did you by chance have childhood asthma? 🤦I don't understand why they don't put that in my chart - "Patient comes in once a year with debilitating cough. She did not have childhood asthma." I've finally started answering, "Not that I know of, but I'm beginning to think I did and it went undiagnosed." They give me the cough syrup with codeine and a prescription for Prednisone and I go on my merry way. It takes at least 3 days for the meds to really work, but the codeine at least lets me sleep for 2.5-3 hours at a time. Gosh, I'm a bore. (Title of my memoir.)

5. So, how seriously are we taking Tuesday's doomsday prophecy? I got sucked into an article about it on facebook (I gave up on fasting from facebook yesterday) and now the algorithm is trying to convince me to become a prepper . . . or at least buy a gravity-fed water filtration system. The failures of Microsoft and the FAA aren't inspiring much confidence in me. When I was waiting for my cough medicine to kick in yesterday, I started weighing my options of where to go in case of a grid failure. Justin's parents have the most room, but not a lot of natural resources. My parents have a fireplace but no water source. Niki has a lot of land, but I think her fireplace is electric and her water is just a muddy creek. So I think I'm going to have to end up with Luke and Esther - they live on a private, deep lake (not too polluted) so we'll have water and fish. And they have a fireplace. I don't think it works, but between Luke and Justin they'll figure it out. Esther is a gardener and canner. And I . . . will read to the children. Dibs on living with Luke and Esther during the apocalypse!

6. That's all I've got. Enjoy these pics and memes and be thankful for what you get.

This is the centerpiece I didn't have a pic of last week, and the one that was hardest for me to conceptualize. It's for a company that specializes in heating, cooling, and plumbing. Finally, I decided to lean into red and blue for heating and cooling, and found a plumber rubber duck to represent the plumbing. Haha.

This was my week . . . sleep for two hours on the couch, wake up and cough for four hours, crash and sleep on the couch for two more hours. Stella decided to cuddle with me at one point and Levi took a picture. She bolted as soon as I started coughing again.

She's also a big fan of snuggling with Levi. 😂 (Ask him how he got a two inch scratch on his arm.)

And two serious-ish ones

I had a visceral reaction to this one. Even the picture makes me think of Uncle John and Aunt Claudia's house. All those coats on the bed, the adults laughing at the table - a sure sign of a good family get together.