Queasier

Sunday night found me in the bathroom more than not...over and over and over.  It was miserable. Monday morning arrived way too quickly.  I slept in until after 6 - very late for me and that's saying something 'cuz I have moved my wake up time a full hour (later) in the last month already.  I wrestled with 'I can make it'; 'no, I can't'; 'yes, I can'.  'No, I can't' won the day - and I stayed home yesterday. Too late for the 'call-in' to the robot line to report my absence (even though my job doesn't require a substitute, it still won't allow me to 'record an absence' after 6AM) which necessitated a lot of emails to various people to be sure they knew I would be out and to ensure the absence was recorded against my sick time.

Maybe it's a sign of my advancing age but I have quite a bit of sick time available and it's starting to occur to me 'use it'.  Why go in feeling punky and miserable from some stomach bug when sick time is there to assist?

And I am no sloucher.  When I call in sick, I am sick.  I retired to my bed, watched some Good Wife videos on the iPad and pretty much slept most of the day.  Woke up with a huge start at 10:30AM thinking I was hearing our dog crying out over and over - pictured her in the pool drowning - raced (as fast as I could given my condition and that no one races down our new laminate stairs anymore - they are slicker than slick and still hard to navigate) downstairs to find J. had replaced (FINALLY!) the gasket on the pool filter and the tightening of the cover back onto the filter sounded like the dog. Geez!  I made myself some toast with the thinnest coat of almond butter and some honey and a cup of hot tea.  Went back to bed and slept until after 4.  I did help get dinner ready, dared to eat and stayed up for a bit.  Then went back to bed and slept all night.

My body needed that rest.

This morning, I felt 'so-so' upon awakening but I made it out the door - meetings that happen once a month are not to be missed and there's plenty to do.  Grateful to be reminded this weekend is a three day weekend so yeah!  Just get through Friday and I'll have three days to just rest.

We ordered the Euros from our bank for J. and H.'s trip to Rome - they leave on 2/4 for Rome and will spend the night of 2/3 near SFO.  I am excited for them.  And a teeny bit excited for me, too.  I will miss them with every ounce of my being the entire time they are gone and this huge house will feel so empty with just me and Chloe dwelling in it - but I am excited about close to a week alone. Plenty of projects to work on; reading and movie watching; piddling around.  I get so much done when no one is home and I look forward to quiet evenings and the weekend alone.  I will be coming home a couple times during the day to give Chloe breaks - we thought about taking her to the kennel so I won't have to worry about her - but it's expensive and I will appreciate her company in the evenings and weekends when the family is gone.

We haven't heard much from B. since he left - he told J. that he's been staying completely 'sober' since he left 'cuz his unit is on standby for some activity.  It's not that he's a raging drunk - but he and his buddies do go out pretty often and drink beers, etc. - pubs and bars are all over the base - so it's been different for him to not do that.  He told J. that it's 'so much easier to get up in the mornings'. Yes, sobriety will do that.  I don't begrudge him 'partying' - he'd be doing that in college, I'm sure...it's just that in the Army, it often feels like that's all they do for entertainment.  Maybe a movie now and then but dinner and drinks is the standard way they spend their time.

Oh well.  Young men will be young men.  He's pretty level-headed and has his priorities pretty straight, so I am probably worrying way more than I need to.

It's post-dinner and I'm craving something sweet like crazy - so I need to get up and go do something. The cleaning ladies came today so there's not actually much to do - but I'm sure I can find something.

I re-read some older blog entries tonight to celebrate the anniversary and I chuckled out loud at quite a few things I wrote.  Maybe the blog was just more entertaining when the boys were around more? I'll have to work harder at posting some of our travel escapades now that there isn't as much 'young men' amusement afoot.

J. and I can be pretty amusing.  :-)  Thanks for reading!