The semester ended a week before Christmas. I made it, survived, just barely squeaked by with a C in Statistics! The big plan was to prepare for Christmas, and to send out cards with lots of letters catching up with loved ones. The goal was to spend lots of time with the kids, baking cookies, making candy, playing educational games, etc. My “to do” list included fixing, gluing, painting, cleaning, selling, and organizing. And I had planned on writing several Bunny Trails posts, because I quickly found that I don’t have time to write them during the school semester. Well, you know what they say about “best-laid plans.”
My semester ended and the boy still had a week to go before his winter break. I had a wrap-a-thon and checked off the first item of my to-do list. Then I packed for our visit to friends and family, whom remain in the city we moved from a decade ago. Gifts were exchanged, people were caught up on current family events, and we raced home as an ice storm was following close behind. Only a couple of hours after we reached our homestead and unloaded the car, our world was glazed with a half-inch of ice. The destructive ice came, downed trees and powerlines, and melted within 24 hours. We were lucky; a mere 30 miles north of us had hundreds of thousands of people without electricity, some for days and even throughout Christmas.
The day after racing the ice storm home was the hubby’s much anticipated, annual family Christmas gathering. We had a great time as usual, kids running around willy-nilly while the adults play catch-up and stuff our faces with pot luck food. But in the hours following the party, hubby spent most of the overnight awake, making several trips to the bathroom. He was feverish and exhausted, so I got up with the kids. When he was able to crawl out of bed, it was my turn to crawl in. I spent the rest of the afternoon feverish and ill. We had been stricken by a noro/roto-type virus on Christmas Eve eve. I rallied on Christmas Eve to do some shopping for food and supplies, and picked us up some fast food because I was not feeling spry enough to cook, yet the kids still needed to eat. Hardly anybody picked at their supper, what a waste of money! I fell ill again immediately after eating, duh-you don’t eat fast food after being sick! Hubby got better and the kids only had a few symptoms but, for some reason, it clung to me for a while. Christmas night was the worst, I hardly slept a wink. When I awoke and realized the nasty virus had run its course, I suffered a headache all day. I didn’t care, I’d take the headache over the stomach virus any day! But alas, the headache morphed overnight into sore throat, swollen tonsils, and a deep cough.
So my best-laid plans dissolved into three weeks of sickness. No cookies were baked, no candy made, no games played, none of my to-do’s crossed off the list. School resumes for the boy tomorrow, and next week my college courses resume with a whole new schedule. There is a silver lining to these events though. I’m grateful that the illness struck between semesters; I can’t imagine attempting the course load I have ahead of me, while being this sick. Besides, the children have no idea that they were gypped out of any holiday traditions. They had a relaxing vacation with lots of TV watching, video gaming, and very few demands made of them. All in all, a pretty darn good holiday.