I cannot believe after dealing with pneumonia just a few short weeks ago that I am sidelined again with the flu!  My throat felt scratchy Saturday and I was just really tired on Sunday, but I managed to rally and make it to work Monday.  My head was killing me with congestion, but I made it through.  By the time I got home, I was miserable and in bed by 6:45 PM.  I was up and down all last night, so I called into work this morning and went on into the clinic.

I was just positive this was maybe a sinus infection.  The nurse practitioner insisted that I needed to be tested, so I allowed it.  Yep…I tested positive for Flu B.  Tamiflu makes me sick, so there wasn’t much she could do to help me.  I did take a prescription for some Ibuprofen and came home and went straight to bed after eating a little something.  I slept ok, but I suppose I ran a little fever because I woke up sweating.

I plan to take tomorrow off as well and see how I am feeling Thursday.  I hope this is just a mild case.  I have had it in the past and definitely felt much worse.  It’s just a hassle finding people to cover duty for me and I’d rather not have so much duty to make up next week.  Testing starts next week as well, so goodness knows I’ll be tired enough without adding in extra duty days.

So, I’m back at square one on getting well.  For it to only be February this year sure has been rough!  I sure hope the rest of the year is much better.  I hate being sick and sidelined.

I know I mentioned it yesterday, but I am so anxious for Spring Break to get here.  I’m excited about decluttering the house and doing some deep cleaning.  I just feel so much better when everything is in order.  That might sound crazy to some people, but I’ve always been like this.  It will be nice to be off work and able to take care of our home and spend more time with my family.

I always look forward to summer as well for the same reason.  I get to be a housewife all summer, and I love it!

I didn’t work after we first got married because I decided to go back to school full time and finish my degree while hubby was stationed overseas.  We were married for only 5 months when he had to leave.  He came home to meals cooked each night and clean clothes and a tidy little apartment.  However, I was raised to believe that I was supposed to work and get a degree and so as soon as I graduated from college, off I went back into the working world.

It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy working.  I did.  However, as soon as I had my son, something shifted.  I went back to work after having him, but I constantly felt pulled in all directions.  I never felt like I was giving him or my husband enough of my time.  I was overwhelmed as well with the housework while juggling it all.  I did eventually stop working when my son was two and went back to work when he was 6.  Now, after having heart surgery, working a full day is exhausting and I still feel like I’d rather be home.  However, there are bills to pay.  And insurance.  But if I had it to do differently all over again, I would have chosen to be a housewife and lived very, very below our means.  It’s amazing how your values can change over 20 years.

Ideally, I need to work full time for four more years.  That’s when my son will graduate from high school.  Once he does, we have talked about downsizing, which would reduce our expenses greatly.  Then I might be able to work only part-time if I have to work.  For now, it’s just an idea I toss around.  Things may change and I may have to work until I can retire.  Or croak.  Whichever comes first.

So while I wake up very early each morning and head to work, deep down I want to be a housewife when I grow up!  Does that sound crazy?!

Ahhh.  It’s finally Saturday!  I so look forward to the weekend.  I’m a quiet type of person and it doesn’t bother me in the least to have lots of quiet and alone time.  I’m around so many people every working day, so I tend to hole up in my house and just decompress on the weekend.  Saturday is like a recovery day for me, I guess.  I do the bare minimum on this day and take lots of naps.

I did make a point to be better about doing a couple of loads of laundry during the week.  I sort of had to let that wait until the weekend when I was dealing with pneumonia a couple of weeks ago.  Then, on the weekends, it seemed like I had a never-ending pile of laundry.  I didn’t want that to be the case this weekend, so I stayed on top of it.  It will be much more manageable this weekend.

Our new bed frame finally came in this week and hubby put it together last night.  It looks fantastic and sleeps so well!  I love the wood color and can’t wait to change out the rest of our bedroom furniture.  We have pretty bedroom furniture, but it was purchased in 1993 and it’s a little clunky now.  I’m really into mid-century modern style and the new bed hits the mark perfectly!

I am so thrilled to see the sun out today.  This week has been very rough weather-wise.  It’s been rainy and super windy and super cold!  I used to love winter, but now that my sternum seems to feel every pressurized weather event coming through, I don’t look forward to it anymore.  It’s 47 right now but the sun is shining bright and it’s feeling a little warmer.

I don’t know how this beautiful purple flower has managed to survive, but it started poking through the ground not long ago and it looks so pretty!  One of the previous owners of our home told me what this flower was and now I can’t remember.  My neighbor even has daffodils growing!

I’ve decided to make myself a list today of the projects I’d like to get done around the house when spring break finally arrives in a couple more weeks.  Most of it is deep cleaning, paper filing stuff, and cleaning out.  I’m so tired of extra stuff that I just keep having to clean and care for that we don’t really need.  It takes up a lot of time during the school year and that’s time I’d rather spend doing other things.

In my last post, I talked about how I’m trying to make better choices when it comes to personal and beauty products.  I’ve discovered more great websites and podcasts to help me on this journey.  I’ve even started to branch out into the cleaning products I use around the home.  I’ve been busy compiling a list of products I want to purchase to swap out the toxic cleaning products I currently use.  I’ve been learning the difference in what “clean” means and “natural”.  For instance, I just learned that even toxic substances naturally occur.  Just because a product says “natural” doesn’t mean it’s non-toxic.  Wow.  So much to learn!

I’ve decided I’m ready to make some small decor changes around our home.  It just feels so dark and gloomy.  I’m scared of color.  However, I love the clean and minimalist look of white walls now.  We had our downstairs painted a taupe color just three years ago and it just doesn’t make sense economically to change all of that out right now.  I was browsing on Amazon and these pretty curtains caught my eye:

I ended up ordering them to replace the current curtains in our front living room.  If anything, I think these will help to lighten up the room.  I don’t know what I was thinking when I was drawn to the green and brown BOLD curtains we have now, but they’ve also been hanging up for three years and I just want something lighter.  The new ones are definitely a softer pattern and very neutral, so I figured I could add in some texture and a little color with pillows.  I am hopeless when it comes to decorating.  I’ve never been very good at it.  We’ve also had our living room furniture for many years and I’m also ready to switch that up a bit.  I was drawn to dark wood, but now the lighter wood colors just speak to me.

One thing we did go ahead and do was to purchase a new bed and mattress.  I have seen so many rave reviews of these mattresses in a box, and I was really skeptical.  We’d had our Sealey Posturpedic mattress for a while and it was feeling a little lumpy.  Hubby and I talked it over and decided to try out the Zinus Memory Foam mattress.  It was delivered right to our door and once out of the box, it started to rise up.  The first night we slept on it we couldn’t believe how wonderful it felt!  We’ve been pleasantly surprised and very pleased with it so far.  We’re still waiting for the bed frame to get here, but I decided I also wanted to go with more minimalist decor in our bedroom as well, so I went with this one.  Of course, now I want to change out our bedside tables and dressers.  And paint the bedroom….and on and on! Ha!

I have the day off tomorrow for President’s Day, so I’ll be taking the kid to school and pre-registering him for next year.  Going to go visit my mama and my grandmother as well as soon as I finish that.  I’m trying to get caught up on housework this afternoon so tomorrow can be open for whatever else I want to do.  I also have some donations to drop off at our Salvation Army, but they may not be open.  We’ll see.