December 2007

Well, we survived the three big meals in one week during Thanksgiving week, and I probably gained 20 pounds that week alone. You would think with all that good food in me, that I would have stayed well for a while, but I did not. I fell sick again, just at the end of November. I was gasping, rasping sick on the day we closed on our new house, December 3rd. We were scheduled to move the next day, and I had planned on going to work, but I woke up barely able to breath. Quite literally, barely able to breath. I scared Pete horribly with the way I looked and sounded, and was rushed to the doctor's office and sent home with more drugs than skid row, and banished to my bed, which was kinda hard to do considering they were loading my bed up for the move.

I ended up not going to work the rest of that week, and barely managed to do anything to assist in the move. The first thing assembled at the new house was my bed, and I crawled in it and stayed there (and my new hot tub) for the better part of a week.

Uncle Albert and Aunt Nell come to visit from their home in Alabama to (1) help with the move and the kids; and (2) take home the parts of the screen porch from the old house, now affectionately known as the "Roach House" ever since Alex found a dead cockroach in the garage on one of many trips back to the house to finish moving out. They stayed for about a week, and we had an early Christmas with them. We even managed to put up a small Christmas tree we found in the move. Between that, some candy canes, some Christmas music on the radio, and some hot cocoa, we did manage to fool ourselves into thinking we were celebrating Christmas.

I again rallied just long enough in mid-December to actually look human for our family holiday pictures. I even managed to get them sent out, along with our annual holiday newsletter. I also forced myself to attend our annual adoption Christmas party, where Pete plays Santa every year, but other than that, and our annual Christmas Eve children's service at church, followed by the traditional family gathering at Gloria's place, for the most part, the month of December passed in a blurry, congested, drugged haze (for me) of packing, moving, hacking, coughing, dripping, sneezing, aching, wrapping (presents), unwrapping (moving boxes and presents) and a general flurry of activity for a working mom of three babies who just moved, while sick, in the month of December.

How I ever survived that month I will never know...just please, dear Lord, don't ever make me repeat that again every in my life.