Just Add More Cookies

I've been admittedly absent lately. Absent in a broad spectrum, I have barely left this house at all kind of way. (personal hygiene has also taken a back seat these days) The reason? There are more than a few.

Just before Valentine's Day (yes, this dates back to February!) a seemingly benign cold hit our house. It went through the ranks, (as these things tend to do) Little Man, Squirt, Bunny, Me, and The Husband. It knocked the more, ahem, senior members of our household on our rear ends. The Husband had bronchitis, and I have been at varying stages of ill ever since. Being too stubborn to go into the Quick Care, (I abhor waiting rooms, being a supremely impatient person) I just figured we all have bronchitis. WebMd informed me bronchitis is just one of those things you "get through" for up to 4 weeks, I tired to ignore it and go about life as normal.

Life often has other plans.

The past week has simply been a flurry of emergencies, meetings, and big-fat-deal things that stress me out, overwhelm my synapses, and leave me at the end of the day shoving cookies into my craw while watching the latest episodes of Khloe & Lamar in my pajamas. (don't judge, I am a victim of total lack of worthy TV lately- thank you award season!)

I took on a calling within my church- sorry don't care to talk to much about religious things here- this is the internet; Not HEYWANNAHEARABOUTMYRELIGION?! But I mention this only because it is going to be a rather large portion of how I spend my days from now on. There have been meetings- oh, the MEETINGS! And there has been an epic mix-up with my email, which has meant I have been called in the middle of picking up the twins from preschool and asked "Are you coming to the meeting? We've been waiting for you?" I hate that feeling. While it isn't my fault (wrong email, so never got the memo) I just can't stand feeling like a flake. There have been misspellings of my email, (it shouldn't be too hard! craftyashley! at gmail!) which have led to me waiting in an empty parking lot and calling others asking "Are we having the meeting that I asked my Husband to call in sick for work so he could watch the kids for?" Oh... been rescheduled? Let me bang my head against the dashboard now.

There have been some family matters that have really sucked and taken me away from the kids for long stretches. And the stress of being very alone and very in charge of too many things has worn heavily on my delicate constitution. (delicate constitution being code for crazy-lady-brain)

And! One afternoon... like 4:00pm, I got a call from my Realtor. She does this- calls with things that I must print, sign, scan in and send back THIS VERY SECOND. DROP EVERYTHING! DO THIS! Sort of issues all the time. I imagine it is like knowing your house is going to collapse at any second, yet you must go on about your business as normal until it does. I will confess, I cringe a little when I hear my phone ring. My heart drops to my toes when I see her name on the caller ID. I will be very much looking forward to the day when I do not hear from her for the foreseeable future. (She's a great realtor, a real shark, and perhaps the short sale process is more of the problem than her. But it has come to feel like she can unravel my day with one- or three- phone calls)

Anyway, I got the call late in the afternoon that GOOD NEWS! The house is closing. The albatross of a house that has taken OVER A YEAR to sell. However, this great news also came with the news that is is closing THE VERY NEXT DAY.

There was panic, finagling with Husband's bosses, and I still have not received the final IT'S TOTALLY COMPLETELY done. (that should come today)

Still, HALLELUJAH, it is (kinda) DONE. I will have more thoughts on that later; I spent the better part of a day compiling a sappy montage about the house and all the memories we made in it set to an Avril Lavigne song, (I will spare you that atrocity) and did more than a little weeping over the bittersweet farewell.

Somehow with all the chaos we've managed to plunge ourselves further into The Sickness. It's all DING! Round Two! So we've been barricaded in the house, kleenex boxes and a whole pharmacy's worth of medicines & salves on every flat surface of the place. We should probably all go to the doctor at some point, (When does this turn into pneumonia?) but we'd seriously have to haul all five of us into some poor, unsuspecting waiting room- what a sight, and hassle- that would be.

I am going to try and make today our first "day back." I've promised the children we will go "somewhere," as the kids have all reached the height of cabin fever. Besides, we have things/appointments/preschool scheduled this week! We must pick ourselves up from the bootstraps, perhaps demanding, nay- INFORMING our bodies that we are to be well THIS INSTANT.

So if we pass each other in the aisles of Target, ignore my hacking cough behind the curtain, smile and nod. I'm fine. WE'RE ALL FINE.