That Sneaky Easter Bunny

That Easter Bunny sure is sneaky!  I just woke up and started to go outside to answer Nature’s Call.  But, when I opened the door . . . there was a bag of goodies waiting for me!  Neither Tucker (good bad guard dog!) nor I heard him tiptoe across the icy deck!  Or, maybe it’s just that Tucker knows that he doesn’t need to guard us from the Easter Bunny.  Anyway, the contents the bag contained were both traditional and non . . . but OH, so appreciated!!  

EB (Easter Bunny) must know my Bundle of Joy and her family well because there was a hand-made (of construction paper) basket there for Bopee from her . . . as well as get-well treats from her mama!  Someone (either B of J’s mama or one of her wonderful “aunties”) helped her make little chocolate nests filled with jelly bean eggs for the basket, and then there is a loaf of (ahhhh!) fresh bread, a Tupperware of (ahhh!) homemade soup, some corn chips for same, and some Emergen-C and Throat Coat tea! 

Taking the Emergen-C to mix some up immediately, I left the bag outside in the cool weather.  However, when I peeked out the door, Tucker had gently lifted the handmade Easter basket out of the bag and was looking at it with “TREATS!” on the mind!  Ohhh, no, you little twit.  Not gonna happen.  So now the bag is hung out of reach.  ;)

So, yes, much to my chagrin and disappointment, I’ve been sick again.  I’m SO ready for my body to be fully recharged!  And I thought it was . . . but no.  L  As I’ve mentioned before, after getting SO sick with it one year when I lived in Minneapolis, I am susceptible to Strep Throat . . . and it hit me with a vengeance Tuesday night.  We’ve been SO busy at work with pallet after pallet being delivered with summer stock that I went into work Wednesday morning to put away the most recent order.  Everyone could easily see that I was in BAD shape, and so – as soon as that was done – I left at 1:00, an appointment at the clinic waiting for me 45 minutes later.  I was pretty sure I had Strep, and I knew I needed (ugh) antibiotics for that.

They have a nifty, fairly instant test now for Strep (instead of waiting the 24 hours for the culture like used to be necessary), and the pink line appeared (it looks like a home pregnancy test) while the nurse was still checking my vitals.  So, I was flat-out for the rest of Wednesday and all day Thursday, my normal day off.  We were VERY short-staffed at work this past week, so I really wanted to be able to be there on Friday, but I just couldn’t do it.  Or, more to the point, I knew that if I did go in, I’d put myself so far back in recovery.  So, yesterday was my first day back at work, and I was – understandably – dragging by the end of the day. 

So, today will be another fairly quiet day for me.  I was hoping to make the rounds to my little ones with Easter baskets, but that ain’t gonna happen.  I’ll go to my folks’ for dinner late this afternoon, and that’ll be about it.

Hang on – I need another cup of coffee, and I need to let the cat in who I hear attacking the front door with vigor!

Of course, my Strep was double-whammied with what’s become my unwanted hallmark:  a sinus infection.  This time (after MANY suggestions during my past bouts), I finally borrowed Mama Pea’s neti pot and used it.  (And I *will* be getting myself one now.)  Here’s the thing, tho:  they only work if you can actually breathe a little through your nose!  If your sinuses are SO swollen and impacted that you absolutely CANNOT breathe through your nose, they don’t do nuthin’!  Case in point, one night before bed, I prepped the solution and took myself, along with my box of Kleenex, out onto the deck.  I bent over, chin and forehead parallel to the ground, shoved the pot up one nostril, and turned my head 90 degrees.  Nuthin’.  Wait, wait, wait for it . . . nope.  Not a drop of solution came through.  It was pretty funny, actually:  “oh, sure, Neti pots work GREAT . . . as long as your sinuses aren’t already impacted”!

Two other things happened while I was sick.  Things that seem to fall under the category of ‘Oi vey - only Chicken Mama’!  One of the days, when it was warm and melty out and I was still a little shaky on my pins, I went outside to pee.  Just as I was alongside the wood sawhorses, my Crocs slipped, and my feet went out from under me.  I know that I turned my head away because I knew I was falling into the frozen-into-the-ground sawhorses, but my left forearm took the brunt of the fall, smooshing along one of the sawhorse’s supports as I went down.  FORTUNATELY, I had a sweater on, so it didn’t break the skin, but the entire underside of my forearm is bruised – a lovely, tender blue.  And then I have a little bruised egg on the side of my right wrist from the fall, too . . . and I can’t figure out HOW that could have happened since my PALM should have been facing the ground.  There must have been a stick poking up that got me there.    

Finally – and you can file this under STOOPID – I did have a (very) little energy on Friday (or, more to the point, was tired of lying in bed!), and so sorted through some of the PILES that still occupy the entire east-end of the cabin.  I filled two LARGE Rubbermaid totes with excess rugs, towels, pillowcases and sheets . . . ready for storage.  The lids are – most unfortunately – packed somewhere in one of the two storage units, so they had no covers.  And, having no room in the cabin to move around when they were in here, I put them out onto the deck to await large garbage bags and then subsequent storage.

It’s funny how some things don’t wake you up that should (the Easter Bunny) and then those that bring you straight up out of bed, clearly awake at 4:00 in the morning when you’re sicker than a dog.  In this case, it was the first rain of the spring.  Pouring rain.  Coming down on those fully-packed, open totes sitting outside on the porch.

So, instead of sleeping the precious sleep of the sick, that’s what I was doing in the 30-degree rain of the wee hours of Saturday morning:  hauling those wet containers back into the jam-packed cabin.  Oi vey.  Tonight, when I’m at Mama and Papa Pea’s for Easter, I’ll unpack them, throw everything into the dryer, and repack. 

Sigh.  What an idiot.