Life vs Death, Gratitude and the Desperate Need for Chocolate

Well, it's been a difficult week-plus. Daughter #1, sometimes called First Baby is doing OK. She's pretty sore still, but she's been back working since last Saturday. She says she hurts less if she works than if she lies around (You go, girl! No pity-seeking wooses here) All the aches and glory that comes with mucking stalls, cleaning barns, leading horses, training horses, teaching children and adults to ride horses and providing customer service to (what are sometimes, persnickety) horse people. She's still without a vehicle and has been cobbling rides from friends and occasionally her parents as the insurance company moves its slow way toward property settlement. She drove, for the first time, today, since the accident, and she drove my car in what turned out to be a bloody nasty day for driving. We were beset by torrential downpours and much flooding. Both she and I saw several accidents as we drove our separate ways today. I don't know who was more stressed about her driving today - her or me. I watched the clock, barely daring to breathe, praying rather frantically from 6:30 this morning until 7:20, straining my ears to see if the phone would ring. I am certain my ulcer has come back - I know - it sounds like I'm such a hypochondriac. It was all I could do to not call her at work this morning to make sure she (and my car) got there unharmed.

It's 6:40 PM and she just got in from work, tired and nearly on the verge of tears. She had to battle for the right of way on the road with an enormous beaver - no, I am not joking here, that's how bad the roads are flooded - the beaver are swimming in the road. I shit you not. Gas is up to $3.20 a gallon and everyone is driving like they left their brains at home. The rodeo visiting our town is being drowned - and she's bumming because she was so looking forward to seeing cowboys.

What else has gone on in the last week? Well, Daughter #2 got sick Friday night, but as she was staying the night at a friend's house, I did not find out until she came home Saturday morning to collapse in bed. And she couldn't figure out why I would want her to call me and let me know such a thing. I mean, come on, Mom! She seemed to be better Monday, and then was much worse Tuesday night. Then Boy got sick Tuesday night. So, I've been working in the office, nursing sick children, and pumping DH full of fluids and echinacea/goldenseal in the vain hope that he does not get sick. And, after starting to get sick, I've been pumping me full of fluids and echinacea/goldenseal in the vain hope that I do not succomb to the vile bug.

This week also I somehow managed to get behind with the laundry. Would you believe it? The towel hamper is overflowing, there are bedsheets on the floor in the laundry room, so like the Quintessential Mom, I can reach the ceiling by standing on the sheets (I'm barely 5'2" and the ceilings are the typical 8 or so feet high).

On the knitting front, I have not done much. The few times I was able to concentrate at all, I worked on squares for Project Grace. I have finished three and am nearly done with the fourth. I haven't been able to get Bubba (Daughter#2) started on hers, but perhaps being sick had something to do with that. Although, she felt well enough today to have me take her to the art store so she could buy a pallette, an assortment of brushes and some acrylic paints with her own hard-earned babysitting money. After a half-hour of fretting about the size of the tubes, the cost and the selection. Artists. Hmmph.

So, it's Friday. I am immensely grateful because all my babies (so they're not such babies anymore, but they'll always be my babies) are alive and relatively healthy. I am rather depressed, it has rained most of the week and then there's that small matter of almost losing one child. I am going to go tear the house apart looking for some chocolate and, although I don't often drink, I am toying with the idea of, if not getting quite inebriated, possibly just having enough to get buzzed. Because I need to stop my brain. And sleeping would be nice. Ever so nice.