More From the Homesick Front

We are beginning to decorate for Christmas, and once again I am struck by how much STUFF we have. How could we possibly have accumulated this much stuff? It couldn't possibly be because I am an impulse shopper and often come home with things we don't really need.

NAH.

That can't be it. Maybe there is a little elf that mysteriously plants things all around the house that just accumulate and accumulate until I have a breakdown. Yeah, that's GOT to be it. An elf.

Well, the stuff has to be moved to make room for Christmas stuff, so I will be dragging out the bags and boxes to stuff with the stuff that we don't really need so that we can store it until after Christmas when we can bring it out again and decide what we want to keep and what we should throw or give away. Or perhaps I should give it all away as Christmas presents.

Yeah.

That would work.

HA! Watch out, everyone.

You never know what I might wrap up for YOU this year.

So I went to the doctor yesterday and was diagnosed with bronchitis. Well, THAT explains the month of coughing I have had! I had waited so long to go to the doctor because it didn't really hurt, and if it doesn't hurt, I don't go to the doctor. The decision to go was made when I couldn't taste anything for several days, and my life was a living misery. I LOVE taste. I am DRIVEN by taste. Taste is what helps me get out of bed in the morning (sad, isn't it?), what spurs me to go to the grocery store, what makes me love my husband so much when he comes home with a box of Godiva chocolates just for me (can I make a more obvious hint?). And I wonder why I need to take off a few pounds. I don't eat because I am trying to avoid starvation. I eat because the food tastes SO darn GOOD. It is *stopping* eating that presents problems.

So now that I can't taste anything (7 days later), I am having to find other ways to amuse myself. I have taken up scrapbooking. Wait, you say, wasn't I doing that before I lost my sense of taste? Well, it means so much more now. Everything does, really. I am finding other things to fill the place that food used to fill in my life. So bring on the tasteless food. This is GOOD for me.

Soft, fuzzy socks, a warm blanket to wrap around me and Sammy, since he is now a permanent addition to my side -- more on that later -- a nice sweater and a cute pair of jeans, a clean house (did I just say that?)... these things mean so much more to me now that I don't have food to make me continually happy. I can't just run to the kitchen for a snack when I get bored now. Well, I could, but there would be no joy in it. I have found other ways to amuse myself. So goodbye, food addiction. This is a brand new me.

And oh, it is amazing (as I was just telling Mike last night during dinner -- and yes, I do mean *night*... I wasn't motivated to cook until 7:30pm, so we ate dinner while the boys should have been going to bed). I can actually tell when I am full now! Either the "FULL" switch in my brain wasn't working before, or I just wasn't paying attention to it, but it is easy now for me to realize when I am full and have had enough to eat. Since the food doesn't taste very good, why eat more???

So more on Sammy. I took him to the pediatrician a couple of days ago, because he had had a three-day-long fever, which finally broke, and when it did break, he was stumbling around running into doors and walls and tripping over his feet, and generally just acting very, well, drunk. He wanted me to hold him nonstop, and did not want to eat much at all.

They think he has mono.

SHEESH!!!

Anyway, he is not so woozy anymore, but he is definitely still tired, cranky, whiny, and has a sore throat. All classic signs of mono. Well, except for maybe the cranky, whiny bit. If he is not better in a week (by next Monday) we'll be going in to get bloodwork done on him so they can tell us he has mono and "You can't do a darn thing about it, so just deal with it -- oh, and keep him well hydrated."

This should be a FUN Christmas. We might be spending it at home by ourselves! No one wants to get this stuff, I'm quite sure of it.

So good things and not-so-good things are coming out of our sick time. I am trying to focus on the good, since we know these things are not going to kill us. I am sure that God is using these trials to make us stronger!