Head Cold

Yep. I feel terrible. It's not stopping me from enjoying all the spring-ness. But it is stopping me from jumping for joy about it.

I kinda breezed through that last post, as we were really about to leave. Let me say again that my mommy came over, and brought beautiful flowers for me! I planted them yesterday.

I put the iris from Mom's yard down by the fence. They're not the "good" iris, they're the chunky purple and brown ones. That's why I assigned them to that location. The bottom of my yard is a strip of wet clay. Anything that doesn't die and makes flowers for me to see from the deck is welcome. Abbie and Grant each had tulips, and the kids decided they wanted them in my already established "flower bed" next to the deck stairs. I had never seen daffodils with a "pink" center before (looks more salmon than pink), and mom gave me two of them. One I split under the mailbox, and one I put with the tulips in the "flower bed". I also dug up those tulips that seemed to still be in the front yard and put them up by the house with the rest of the transplantees. Hope I got them all this time. Oh, and I figured out why I missed them last fall: they were planted too deep. I've never had coral bells before. I dug a big rectangle next to the garage for the one my mom gave me. It's on the corner. And back to the "flower bed" - that's where I planted the beautiful bulbs my dad gave me for Valentine's Day.

That may not sound like much, but you have to understand a few things. Thing number one: I'm sick. Bleh. Thing number two: clay is really [insert vulgar adjective of choice]ing hard to dig! Thing number three: The kids lost my good spade, so I only had a dandelion weeder and a cheap little spade that bent every time I used it. Plus the full sized shovel, which I confess I started using toward the end. I was pretty worn out after planting all of that. I'm not done, either. I have a peony that I'm going to put on the front corner by Abbie's window, and a weird little ground cover that I still don't know what the heck to do with. Plus, for the deck, I have to re-pot a pink geranium, a red geranium, parsley and rosemary.

By the way, I also did a little weeding. There is this weed - tell me if you know the name of it - and it has long, rounded, darkish leaves all from the center (think dandelion) and a huge taproot. I got one out of the ground yesterday and said, "Good grief! It's as big as a carrot!" A very bendy, long carrot. I've nicknamed them "vegetable weeds". I have removed several from my yard and I feel pretty darn good about it...except that huge holes remain in their stead.

Well, I was too sick to do taiko. Actually, I was pretty sure that I would not be doing much actual drumming, but this cold is very contagious. Abbie got it, and then the rest of us had it the next day. Not a good sign. Usually I get whatever head cold is going around, but not the boys. We all got this one. And right away. I could only imagine the creative names I would get called if I showed up unnecessarily to practice, infected them all, and then stayed home while they were stuck driving to Wisconsin with colds. BUT! Michelle couldn't get another ride. Her parents, for some reason, couldn't take her, and Eddie was staying home. So, I loaded up the kids, drove to Denny's, and took Michelle to practice. I let them walk around for a minute before putting them back in, and got a nice surprise: Jenn was meeting Bill, who was going to take Carter home, so Carter and my kids got to talk a little (from a safe distance) before we left. That was great. We all love Carter. But then we had to go back home. I was starting to feel bad again. I needed a few things from Wal-mart, but didn't stop. Too sick. Too tired. But the kids slept all the way to UMSL, so they didn't go to bed early.

Oh, I forgot to tell you: we went to Lisa's house and stayed all afternoon and evening and then some. The kids watched sponge bob. Not my favorite at all, but what can you do? And we grilled, and played washers. Her dad made her a mini set. It's cute. She had a friend named Andrew who came by, but he wasn't the easiest guy to talk to. And he spent a large part of the day looking up sports scores on his phone. I'm sure he's nice, though. Chris came by later. Much more fun. Secretly, I was too sick to go out, but didn't know it until it was too late. Like...around 4:30 or so.

Today, it is rainy. I checked on my plants. Most of the tulips that went into the ground yesterday look unhappy. The daffs look fantastic, though.

I need to get a few things at Wal-mart still. Kleenex, for example. After that, though, I'm in for the night. I'm exhausted. Yesterday has officially caught up with me. I feel terrible. Really, I shouldn't even be going out. But when you're out of kleenex, what can you do?

Wanna hear something amusing? Josh was all depressed a week ago because he was applying to all these places and couldn't even get a call back from Pizza Hut. Then, this Coca-cola job came up, and he felt better. I had said to him at the time, "You have to be patient. These positions haven't even closed yet!" But he didn't listen. He was determined to feel unwanted. Well..he got two job offers just yesterday. That's right. TWO. So...who was right? Oh, yeah. Me. If anything better than the come job comes up, he's going to take it, of course. So, unless you hear otherwise, these offers aren't enough to coax him out of his 40 hours plus overtime.

Josh is doing fine. He's trying to fit everything into his new "schedule", which is rough, but otherwise, things are going well. And the kids are fine, too. They've actually been playing nicely together lately, which is a huge relief to me. I hate refereeing and mediating and bossing all day and all night. Grant's kindergarten screening is on Friday. And the kids are going to spend the beginning of next week at my mom's house.

Well. I had better get moving. The sooner I go, the sooner I can be done for the day. Hope you are all healthy and happy. It's going to cool off today. Won't that be nice? Happy Wednesday!