In Which Things Go From Bad to Worse

(I've been reading Pinocchio to the kids, and those old-fashioned chapter headings really get to you.)

I'm trying to remember when things seemed to begin going haywire, and it seems like sometime about the beginning of October things had been humming along almost nicely for what seemed like a week or so. Then I got a call letting me know that the main, steady work contract I had was being given to someone with more experience. That was distressing.

Then DOB's work, always very busy, began to get insanely busy as he was without any assistance, and then had to navigate getting his own assistant. He was working eleven and twelve hour days. Meanwhile I was grasping any one-time projects I could find, all of them with short timeframes and a lot more stressful than the one steady project.

Finally DOB got a new assistant hired and went through an initial week of training and catching up. He was all set for things to settle down, when he sprained his ankle. His good ankle, which meant that for the first week, he couldn't even drive.

Now, the good thing about that was that he really did start coming home for supper--and even eating breakfast at home--since he had to ride with an assistant who kept normal 9 to 5 hours. The other nice thing was that he discovered, with the assistant and with a deadline, he really could get most of his work done in that time. The bad thing was, he couldn't exercise or do much of anything else.

Meanwhile, the kids got sick. First the twins had a bad cold. So we stayed home from our few outings that week. They seemed a bit better by the weekend, and we went ahead with our plan for them to stay overnight with Their Majesties (which was fun for them and us), and then we took them swimming so that DOB could get some exercise. We made it to church on Sunday. We were doing almost OK.

However, on Tuesday morning, Deux complained of an itchy back, and I pulled his shirt up to see a scattering of suspicious red spots. We stayed home, in case they turned into chicken pox. They never did. But Dot also complained of itching that evening, only in her case it was a bout of hives, which kept her up till nearly midnight.

Deux got over his rash, but then the next day had an earache. The following day, a headache. Then a fever. So we stayed home some more.

Saturday DOB woke up feeling really cruddy, but he sometimes does, especially when he hasn't exercised regularly. So we tried to work him through it until midday, when we finally decided he was truly sick. Then we all got it. I just made it out to the store for grape juice and we subsisted on that and toast for a couple of days.

In the small hours of Sunday morning, as I was coming down with the stomach complaint, Deux woke up with a croupy cough. Now everybody has that.

Meanwhile my (brand new) computer power cord won't hold into the port anymore, and the only way to keep it in is to tape it, and the tape has to go right over the power button, so every time I try to readjust it I turn the computer off. We're still trying to figure out what to do about getting it repaired or replaced.

And it's beautiful fall weather--and how rare is that around here--and instead of being out and seeing the leaves in all our favorite parks, we are stuck at home.

At least we can sit out on the deck and get some sunshine. And hey, I don't have any work to do.

But, of course, it COULD always be worse. But let's not think about that.