Gonna cough a little, sneeze a little

even blow my nose.... OK OK OK I'll be truthful it's not a little it's a lot. I'm up most of the night either coughing myself or dealing with a coughing Bean. So I'm tired and my nose is tender from all the blowing and I think I pulled something when I had that last coughing fit.


I'm hoping that I'm not deluding myself into thinking that I'm getting better, I don't feel quite so bad as two days ago perhaps this flu hit when my white count was nice and up instead of at a lull. Some day's I wonder if I'd be better off banking a little blood when it's up and transfusing it when I get sick. Really I don't even know if that's something that can be done or not but wouldn't that be great? Instead of a month long cough fest I could get over a bug in the 7 to 10 days other folk do it. Any positive healing thoughts and prayers out there will be so much appreciated I can't even tell you.

On another tangent all together. I'd like to include a short list of what I'm thankful for, things that made me smile or laugh over the last few days:

The Bean's big wet sloppy baby kisses
The Peanut and the Bean giggling together on the way home from a shopping trip
Having a newly reorganized and cleaned Living room
All the crow's perching on the wires outside our window this afternoon

Anything make you smile today?

What are you doing New Years Eve?

If you're anything like me heading to bed soonish with a good thick application of vapo rub on your chest and a fresh box of tissues. It's not all about the hacking though, We enjoyed a butter chicken feast spicy enough to clear my sinus for a little while and watched Rango on Netflix together before banishing the girls to bed to cough and sneeze themselves to sleep. In case you're wondering yes, we are all a little sick. Any strong healing thoughts are welcome, appreciated and currently high on my wish list for the new calendar year.

To end the year on a good note I give you my girls this last month:

One of my favourite wishes for the coming year can be found here It's better said than I could ever say myself and speaks to me in all the right ways. To you and all of yours I wish you safe and happy celebrations tonight. I'll see you in 2012.

Oh boy,

So last weekend the Peanut woke up coughing a nice phlegmy cough with a mild fever, by last Monday she was dripping from her nose and by Wednesday her nose was spouting green. On Thursday the green was less opaque and was turning orangeish in colour, she was still coughing but the fevers were gone. And we are headed into day nine of her cold and there seems to be no end in sight. We're out of tissues and using TP (toilet paper) I'm considering getting out her old receiving blankets to make her some flannel hankies. This is the worst cold she's had and she's turned into a little emotional terror. If Mommy does something she's asked Daddy to do she melts, if she wants milk with her breakfast she doesn't ask for it she melts, if I can't find the toy that she was just running around with she melts... you get the picture.

My patience is like a yo-yo since I am not a martyr and there are lots of hugs being given out to soothe little egos and hurt feelings and sore noses. Somewhere in there the husband caught something and spent most of yesterday in bed and will probably stay there today as well. So far I've kept it at bay despite having boogers wiped onto my hands, being coughed on with impunity and sharing kissy kissy faces with the Peanut. My white blood cell count must be at an unusual high, keep your fingers crossed that I'm not jinxing myself.

Friday night we had roaring wind and heavy rain. At one point I was sure that I felt the house being shoved a few inches and I know that I saw the double glazed windows bow in a few times. We hunted for eggs yesterday and the Peanut bit the ears off her first chocolate bunny. I cooked my butcher's ham with a Dr. Pepper Glaze, garlic mashed taters, peas, carrots, salad and apple pie for dessert. The ham was big enough to feed about 8 so we're going to be heartily sick of ham by weeks end. My Thyme has sprouted and I think the pumpkin or maybe it's the watermelon but I think I'll have to try again with the rosemary.

In other news I have a photo shoot planned for the middle of this month. I'll be shooting a local metal band for their website and possibly their EP cover. It's a freebie meaning I'm doing it for free and to have my name in the credits. The guitarist is also in one of the husbands bands so it's a networking thing too. I'll be researching the work of Anton Corbijn to get ready and I'll be posting some of the finished shots here.

How was your weekend?

You'd think we were tearing her limb from limb

It's not easy to get a three year old out of a place she's having fun at. Lesson learned have the what's going to happen when it's time to leave talk a few times before you even get there. But oh the blood curdling "you are ruining my life" screams coupled with the dime sized crocodile tears...

This weekend we did a jam session BBQ at our good friends place. Good food, good music (he wrote a beautiful song for her for their 23rd wedding anniversary) and great conversation always makes for a great night. The only draw back was the Peanut's response to the news that it was time to go home...

Last week I was fighting a nice little stomach bug. I had thought that it was something I ate but really not so much. So I was tired all week long, had little to no appetite and was running around getting things packaged and mailed. So not a whole lot got done. I managed to make dinner every night and a load of laundry did get done here and there. The bug made it's exit for Saturday, just in time for BBQ steak and prawns, rice and corn and a crisp green salad. We supplied pie.

Yesterday the husband treated us to brunch and then took himself and the Peanut out for the afternoon. I got some painting done and and I'm looking forward to sharing the new project I've been working on. I'm hoping to share soon.

stage five Klingon:

That is what this cold is.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocked off my feet and curled up in an ever growing pile of tissues. That part of the cold ended two weeks ago. I'm a functioning member of the household, but I'm still coughing, still have stuffed sinus and still have an irritated throat. It's getting better, but not quite as fast as I'd like it to.

I've been going stir crazy and the Peanut is stirred up even more. She went to a play date with all her friends and Daddy on Sunday (I stayed home so I wouldn't cough all over everyone) and she cried all the way home because she wanted to go back to play with her friends. So more play dates are called for once I've got this sucker kicked, I'm aiming for sometime this week so that we can make it to the Santa Parade on Sunday.

With the weather sunny and rain free, we'll be heading out of the house more so that I can soak up some Vitamin D. Yesterday the playground, today the garden center to look at holiday decorations. We did the tree and set up the toy train and village on the weekend. Setting everything up and starting to decorate meant that we had to rearrange all the furniture in the living room and then put most of it right back where we started.

How is your holiday prep coming along? do you have special plans?

MIA why I haven't been posting

When I get sick it's a long drawn out affair which lasts way longer than most people's battles with the cold and flu. My body likes to attack the Neutrophils (a type of white blood cell) in my system so my abilities to fight off illness is a little compromised depending on whether the roller coaster ride that is my my white blood count is on a rise or heading downhill. The good thing, according the the hematologist we went to last fall, is that my body does reproduce the cells, but I get my blood tested every four months to keep track of the ups and downs.

So I'm heading into week three of a coughing, hacking, nose blowing, sinus head aches and sore throat bonanza. I'm on antibiotics this week though, after two separate visits to the clinic last week. These visits really illustrate how the whole H1N1 scare is affecting people. The first involved the Dr standing as far away from me as possible, asking a few questions, treating me like I was wasting his time and putting him in danger of catching something with the advice to come back if it didn't get better in a week. The second visit with another Dr involved a look at my throat, in my ears and a thorough listen to my lungs with a prescription for strep throat and advice to come in again if I experienced pain when breathing and or blood when coughing.

And I haven't really felt up to posting, the laptop has actually been closed most of the week while I've travelled to and from the pharmacy to pick up more tissues, cough drops and some vitamin C for the Peanut who had a fever for three days last week and is now stuffed up. I've been reading my favourite blogs and commenting here and there but posting myself has seemed like too much work. I'm hoping that this week I'll be feeling more up to it, as well as getting the house decked out for winter celebrations.

How are you faring with all the bugs and ickies floating around?

So we're packing

and The shelves are down, the books are all gone into big boxes that we've been assured are the right size for boxes but there is no way that We'll be carrying that sucker down the stairs (thank what ever gods for movers) and I have a large Dishpack box open in the living/dining room area that is mocking me. I've got so much more to do and I'm contemplating putting everything else on hold until we're in the new place.

On top of it all our Peanut Butter is not feeling well. We had fevers last week and gobs and gobs of thick yellowish mucous flowing out of her nose. The combination of a head cold and a bunch of strange people traipsing in and out of our home to give us estimates on moving or to show the space to rent it out leaves us with one very out of sorts little girl. And by out of sorts I mean tantrums and night wakings and the new mantra of "I'm crying again" repeated over and over as I try to keep my cool.