Wednesday, February 18, 2009

What Can Ya' Do, But Laugh?

A friend just e-mailed me and filled me in on what's going on her VERY pregnant life. It was exciting to hear the anticipation in her words over her first child. She ended the e-mail by asking.. "How are YOU doing?" I thought... Wow, now would be a great time to make a public announcement. THIS is how I'm doing...

All three boys are sick and have been sick for over a week. California has been hit hard with this nasty bug that produces fevers, coughs, sore throats and gunky noses. They fell one at a time, but now everyone is hacking up lungs around here... most recently, ME! I took the bug Monday night, and it's so NOT fun. Okay, so I'm not letting it change my week though.

We hit the books hard yesterday morning. The boys were doing great. We were all sitting around the dining room table working diligently on school work. Keirrah (the baby girl that I watch) was slumbering in her bed, in spite of the bug that caught her too. I was on the computer researching a new phonics book to get Caleb when the power went out. UGH... did I mention that we have had some pretty big storms rollin' through? We had over a foot of snow this past weekend! Yesterday it was mostly just raining, so I'm not sure what the power outage was about, but here we were in the dark. Another two minutes rolls by and the smoke alarm goes off downstairs. We open the door that goes downstairs and there's a MASSIVE amount of smoke filling up my downstairs!

9-1-1... What's your emergency?

I need fire crews at my house... my downstairs is full of smoke.

Per the dispatcher, I load the boys (still in their pj's... they're sick!) and a baby girl (who was happily sleeping) in our mini-van parked in front of the house. It's raining AND snowing while we sit there waiting for what seemed like an eternity while the fire crews make their way to our house. They arrive. I get out of my car and completely soak myself with rain walking from my car to the door to explain. I have this bug. I'm MISERABLE!!! My throat feels like they should take the extinguisher to IT!

After investigating, they found that the smoke was due to our pellet stove that was running earlier. It was still smoldering and when we lost power, the stove "burped" the smoke into the house. Shouldn't there be something in the manual about this? People lose power all the time, right? Anyhow, BIG relief... there's no fire in the house. Oooops... at least not YET. The fire fighter's ALSO found that TWO breakers are broke on our main electrical board. They shut those breakers down and instructed me NOT to turn them back on until an electrician comes out. Oh... no fire, but we now have no power downstairs. That wouldn't really be a huge deal (just an inconvenience) EXCEPT for the fact that our deep freezer is located down there.

With my throat STILL on fire and a HUGE headache, I start cleaning out the freezer upstairs (my side by side fridge/freezer) to make room for stuff. I am now a stress case and I just want to sit and have a big ol' cry because... I DON'T FEEL GOOD! I'm putting the meats and other miscellaneous things in a bag to haul upstairs when I drop a full bag of frozen hamburger patties on my middle toe!!! OWWWWWWW... now I AM sitting on the floor having a HUGE cry while crying out to God,

"Pleasssseee... STOP this crazy day!"

I packed my freezer upstairs (managing up and down the stairs with a firey throat, a head ache and a THROBBING toe) and then call a friend to ask her if I can bring over the excess that won't fit. I put everyone in the van again (it's still pouring down rain) and drive two bags of frozen goods to my friend's house. She lives a little further up than I do, so I have to trek through the snow in my mini van and HOPE TO GOD that I don't get stuck, because that kind of circumstance would REALLY go along with the kind of day that it was shaping up to be. I didn't get stuck. I made it back home. The baby's mom comes to pick her up and I make dinner and follow it with a shot of Nyquil and hit my pillow. I was gone. I don't even remember the boys saying good-night.

So... today's a new day. Today the sun is out (a little). Today we got out of our house for a bit (I'm now calling it the box of worries). My throat has blisters all over, but as long as I keep the ibuprofen nearby, I'm okay.

This too, shall pass.

Ummm ... how are YOU?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hope those bad breakers are not my fault!!!!

Love you guys!

Anonymous said...

That last comment was me~

partyoffivetn said...

Wow...I guess all I can say is we are fine here in TN...I don't think I could say otherwise...I hope you all get to feeling better soon...and I keep telling you...move to TN!

Talysa said...

Are you sure you don't have STREP?!?!? My gosh, sounds like us Party of Fivers could use a night of chips and salsa and Mexican music blasting in our ears....although between Donna being pregnant and having all that goes with THAT....and you having blizzards and toe throbs...I really don't seem to have much to complain about! What IS my problem anyway???? Maybe I'm just in a "I want school to be over cause I can't seem to focus enough right now to get it done" funk! Surely the Curriculum Fair in May will cheer me up...Lord I hope so! Hope you guys are on the mend...enjoy your snow...sounds so nice! We have daffodils and forsythia blooming here! Crazy!

Anonymous said...

Well, I'm glad I asked how you were doing! Crying can let off a lot of steam. I am amazed that you made dinner that night. I would be done. DONE. Take-out only.

-Jen