Excuses, excuses
So here's a snippet from my social calendar of engagements for the month of August... my excuses, excuses for not blogging.
We jammed at the beginning of the month to get the house ready to have folks over for a birthday/housewarming over the first weekend. No slacking off for us. We really busted our butts to clean -- and then hide -- stuff to make the place presentable. We had friends over on Saturday for a BBQ, and then we had my family over on Sunday to take advantage of the fact that the house would probably never be that clean again. It was fun but exhausting.
And that's the weekend that SM gave me his cold. The one that I still haven't fully recovered from. Thanks SM. The gift that keeps on giving.
So, cold, cough and congestion firmly lodged in my head and lungs, I worked through the week. The next weekend, I ended up being trapped all weekend for a meeting of the organization on whose (which?) board I now serve. I even had to take off work to participate in the meetings. Take off work for more work? No fair! Oh well, but that's what I had to do. I miss the days when I was the boss of me, and I could just cut out during the day for this kind of thing and make up the time later. But nope, thems days are long gone. I now have a boss who practically hovers -- and even admits that she's a time hawk. It's definitely... confining.
Anyway, I managed to get through that weekend, coughing and hacking away. Whatever SM gave me had affected my lungs by that point, so I sounded horrible and couldn't breathe well. So I got tired really easily and slept fitfully. But, despite the fatigue and need for rest, I didn't get to sleep in -- and sleeping into double digits on the weekend is how I recover. So, perhaps needless to say, I didn't recover that weekend.
I went into the next workweek overtired and still sick. Oh-what-fun!
It actually got pretty bad at one point during the week. Everyone was very aware that I wasn't doing well. They couldn't miss the raspy, froggy voice and the major bags under my eyes. On Wednesday, it got to the point where I woke up with a headache -- which just plain sucks -- so rather than kill myself, I called work and told them I'd be late. My boss had seen and heard my condition, so I don't think too much explaining was required. When I did make it in later that morning, she told me it would have been fine for me to just stay home and try and kick whatever was kicking my ass. But I made it in and generally felt better than I had the day before. That was Wednesday. Thursday was okay too.
Then Friday, I had to get up at o-dark-hundred to catch a flight to San Francisco. Huh, you say? Yeah, remember that organization that wanted me to serve on its board? Well, I was off to a board (or more accurately, a B-O-R-E-D) meeting in SF for the weekend. Now, I love SF, but it's long way to fly for just a weekend. Well, slightly more than a weekend. Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. But getting up that freakin' early didn't help me recover from what was ailing me. Fortunately for me, SM drove me to the airport (rather than me driving myself), which saved me hassle and probably from a car crash since I wasn't all that awake at 5:00 am when we left.
I'll save the details of the fun I had in SF for another post, but despite what may sound like sarcasm in this sentence, I did have some fun.
Flew back and arrived at BWI (Baltimore-Washington-International) at 10:40 on Sunday night. SM, sweet man that he is -- that's what "SM" stand for, ya' know... "sweet man" (okay, stop your groaning at my overly dear nickname for him) -- picked me up from the airport rather than subjecting me to a Super Shuttle scavenger hunt. So we got home in decent time and decent condition.
And this week so far hasn't been too too bad. My cold is largely gone, although I still have cough spams and other symptoms every once in a while. My mom and her sister (yes, my aunt) came over for dinner yesterday, and we served up a mean (and by "mean", I mean YUMMY) Peruvian carry-out chicken along with appropriate side dishes (fried yuca and mashed sweet potatoes). And guess what we both had for lunch today? And for dinner! El pollo peruviano! And I am NOT complaining at all. Oh, yum!
So that brings us to today. I am taking off work early on Friday -- again -- this week. We're off to the Eastern shore of Maryland for a mini-break. My sister is lined up to Gidget-sit for us, so hopefully we'll have a low or no-stress weekend. We have to leave DC early to beat the bridge traffic (over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge), but if we manage that -- fingers crossed -- I think we'll have a nice time, assuming the weather cooperates.
And that's pretty much what I've been up to this month. Lots of activities on the weekend, most of which were not for my own direct enjoyment. Not that I'm really complaining... not really, anyway. I am looking forward to having some time to just sleep and sleep and sleep. Maybe not this weekend because I'll want to do stuff on our mini-vacation (and by "stuff", I mean eat and shop and maybe go to the beach). But perhaps next weekend, Labor Day weekend.
How is it possible that the summer is over already? E-gads.
We jammed at the beginning of the month to get the house ready to have folks over for a birthday/housewarming over the first weekend. No slacking off for us. We really busted our butts to clean -- and then hide -- stuff to make the place presentable. We had friends over on Saturday for a BBQ, and then we had my family over on Sunday to take advantage of the fact that the house would probably never be that clean again. It was fun but exhausting.
And that's the weekend that SM gave me his cold. The one that I still haven't fully recovered from. Thanks SM. The gift that keeps on giving.
So, cold, cough and congestion firmly lodged in my head and lungs, I worked through the week. The next weekend, I ended up being trapped all weekend for a meeting of the organization on whose (which?) board I now serve. I even had to take off work to participate in the meetings. Take off work for more work? No fair! Oh well, but that's what I had to do. I miss the days when I was the boss of me, and I could just cut out during the day for this kind of thing and make up the time later. But nope, thems days are long gone. I now have a boss who practically hovers -- and even admits that she's a time hawk. It's definitely... confining.
Anyway, I managed to get through that weekend, coughing and hacking away. Whatever SM gave me had affected my lungs by that point, so I sounded horrible and couldn't breathe well. So I got tired really easily and slept fitfully. But, despite the fatigue and need for rest, I didn't get to sleep in -- and sleeping into double digits on the weekend is how I recover. So, perhaps needless to say, I didn't recover that weekend.
I went into the next workweek overtired and still sick. Oh-what-fun!
It actually got pretty bad at one point during the week. Everyone was very aware that I wasn't doing well. They couldn't miss the raspy, froggy voice and the major bags under my eyes. On Wednesday, it got to the point where I woke up with a headache -- which just plain sucks -- so rather than kill myself, I called work and told them I'd be late. My boss had seen and heard my condition, so I don't think too much explaining was required. When I did make it in later that morning, she told me it would have been fine for me to just stay home and try and kick whatever was kicking my ass. But I made it in and generally felt better than I had the day before. That was Wednesday. Thursday was okay too.
Then Friday, I had to get up at o-dark-hundred to catch a flight to San Francisco. Huh, you say? Yeah, remember that organization that wanted me to serve on its board? Well, I was off to a board (or more accurately, a B-O-R-E-D) meeting in SF for the weekend. Now, I love SF, but it's long way to fly for just a weekend. Well, slightly more than a weekend. Friday morning until Sunday afternoon. But getting up that freakin' early didn't help me recover from what was ailing me. Fortunately for me, SM drove me to the airport (rather than me driving myself), which saved me hassle and probably from a car crash since I wasn't all that awake at 5:00 am when we left.
I'll save the details of the fun I had in SF for another post, but despite what may sound like sarcasm in this sentence, I did have some fun.
Flew back and arrived at BWI (Baltimore-Washington-International) at 10:40 on Sunday night. SM, sweet man that he is -- that's what "SM" stand for, ya' know... "sweet man" (okay, stop your groaning at my overly dear nickname for him) -- picked me up from the airport rather than subjecting me to a Super Shuttle scavenger hunt. So we got home in decent time and decent condition.
And this week so far hasn't been too too bad. My cold is largely gone, although I still have cough spams and other symptoms every once in a while. My mom and her sister (yes, my aunt) came over for dinner yesterday, and we served up a mean (and by "mean", I mean YUMMY) Peruvian carry-out chicken along with appropriate side dishes (fried yuca and mashed sweet potatoes). And guess what we both had for lunch today? And for dinner! El pollo peruviano! And I am NOT complaining at all. Oh, yum!
So that brings us to today. I am taking off work early on Friday -- again -- this week. We're off to the Eastern shore of Maryland for a mini-break. My sister is lined up to Gidget-sit for us, so hopefully we'll have a low or no-stress weekend. We have to leave DC early to beat the bridge traffic (over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge), but if we manage that -- fingers crossed -- I think we'll have a nice time, assuming the weather cooperates.
And that's pretty much what I've been up to this month. Lots of activities on the weekend, most of which were not for my own direct enjoyment. Not that I'm really complaining... not really, anyway. I am looking forward to having some time to just sleep and sleep and sleep. Maybe not this weekend because I'll want to do stuff on our mini-vacation (and by "stuff", I mean eat and shop and maybe go to the beach). But perhaps next weekend, Labor Day weekend.
How is it possible that the summer is over already? E-gads.
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