Sniffles and sneezes...but it's quiet :)

Hey, you,

I apologize for the long absence. My parents did leave early this morning and I could have written today, but somewhere between last Wednesday and last night, I came down with a rotten cold that has me coughing non-stop, except for when I'm constantly blowing my nose. I felt so miserable this morning that instead of going to the gym herself, K brought me a Starbucks tea and visited with me for a bit. I took some Dayquil so I wouldn't spend the whole day on the couch, and that helped a little.

I did get my house cleaned up (it looked like a tornado came through it after everyone left) and made a nice, comfort-food dinner (meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and gravy, new food mixed in with leftovers) since the weather is sooooo crappy. J was only home for dinner then headed out again for a meeting.

Now that the cold medicine has worn off and I've slowed down for the day, I'm starting to feel terrible again. I'm not feeling very literate, either, so forgive this Dear Diary post. The visit with my parents went well all the way through, save a little glitch at dinner Saturday night (CC wanted to go home early and Big E got his feelings hurt) and a big glitch yesterday (Bro J fell off the ladder putting up his Christmas lights and spent the better part of the day in the ER.) Big E and CC went along with him, (now there's a barrel of fun) and finally brought him home around 8:30 last night with three fractured ribs. Fortunately, no other injuries...he didn't hit his head or puncture a lung or anything super serious, but the whole broken ribs thing is so painful and so untreatable. Poor thing had to sleep sitting up last night and is on a ton of pain meds today. This really sucks for him to be out of work right now, too. Being in his line of work, he doesn't have sick time.

So it's a good thing our entire family had our family portraits done by CC on Saturday morning and I can write her big check for that...how was that for a segue? We got to go down to her loft studio in downtown Tacoma and it was all artsy fartsy and I was totally jealous. Not so much because she's launching this already-semi-successful business, but because she has this amazingly cool little space in a huge warehouse loft were she can go and just be artistic. I know, there's more than one reason I'm not following that path, starting with the fact that I'm about as artsy as a block of cement. But still, a girl can dream.

Football this week, along with M's driver's test, various doctor's appointments...you know, back to the usual, like everyone else. Thursday night we have some fancy fire department dinner that would be fun under ordinary circumstances, but we have to sit with the commissioners, the ones who are completely f***ing up my husband's career. I'm afraid I won't be able to be gracious, so I'm debating whether my best shot is to not drink at all or to get totally ripped.

Just kidding! Like I'd go that sh** sober.

More tomorrow if my head doesn't come off in the middle of the night.
Love you,
A