Huh? What did you say?

Photographer’s assistant.

I’m getting so tired of posting without pictures that I just grabbed the most recent photo I have of one of my kids. “Most recent” is equivalent to Feb. 28th in this case. How sad! This is Eleanor carrying my tripod back after we went to the park to get some landscape photos for my class. She was done carrying my tripod as soon as I was done taking pictures of her carrying it.

I was rather sick last week, and I’m still recovering. Rather sick seems like an understatement since it was the sickest I have been in a long time, but I know other people have been much worse. I had a sore throat Monday evening before we went to bed, and things just got worse from there. My sinuses plugged up with sludge, and by Tuesday evening, both my ears were plugged. Of course, Grant was going to Portland on Tuesday to take his final, so I was alone with the kids until after they went to bed. Wednesday was more of the same because Grant had registration for work. I wimp out when I’m sick –especially with a sore throat that won’t go away. I called my mom a lot to wallow in self-pity and cry. I told you I wimp out. I even tried arranging to pawn off my kids to give myself a break, but it didn’t work. Moms don’t get sick days. Oh, how I wish we got sick days. Grant is actually very good to stay home when I’m at my worst and help me out, but I always seem to get really sick right when he has something at work he absolutely cannot miss.

Thursday, Grant’s schedule wasn’t quite so brutal, but I had to get all my final photography stuff done and turned in. I went to class, turned things in, and left. By then, I was so tired of being in pain! That night, it occurred to me in the middle of the night that I could have strep throat. I had Grant look at my throat first thing in the morning, and he told me to call the doctor. The doctor took one look and said it surely looked like strep. I’ve been on antibiotics since Friday. Grant stayed home Friday, and I was finally able to rest. The sore throat only took about a day to leave me alone. My nose has cleared up, but now I have a pretty thick cough. My ears are still plugged; they have been plugged since last Tuesday. I feel like I’m under water. I can hardly hear, and some of the time, my ear has a ringing that makes it even harder. My cough has made it difficult to talk at times, which can be rather frustrating with little girls who require me to repeat myself several times before the message gets through.

Last week was difficult, but I don’t want to complain (even though that’s what I just got done doing). I am so grateful to no longer have that pain in my throat. Thank goodness for antibiotics! I am so glad my nose has cleared up, and I’m finally getting back my sense of taste. The other stuff is inconvenient and can be frustrating, but much more livable than my previous state. I’m hoping it will all clear up soon. Besides the blessing of modern medicine, my girls certainly are a blessing to me. While I was busy feeling awful and feeling sorry for myself because of it, I think they could sense that they needed to go easy on me. Overall, they were pretty well behaved and fairly low-maintenance last week. I didn’t know how I could take care of them when I felt so awful, and I really didn’t feel equal to the task, but it was as if they took care of me by getting along and keeping out of trouble (mostly). For that, I feel very blessed. I told my mother on the phone the other day how I felt like they sensed the difference in me and were taking care of me. My mother and I continued to talk for a bit, and when I got off the phone, Eleanor dropped what she was doing, came and put her arms around me, and said, “Yeah, we’re taking care of you, Mommy.”