Sick of Being Sick

We are having a hard winter at our home. It seems like someone or a multitude of family members have been sick since school started with very few healthy breaks. Just a few weeks ago, we had stomach flu, thankfully short lived, which compelled me to lysol the entire house and dry clean all of the quilts in the family room. A few weeks later, we took a trip to the pediatricians to find that the kids had strep. I was so relieved that antibiotics might actually help the kids feel better, but no, that's been followed with terrible colds that won't seem to go away. I've actually gotten embarrassed about saying I'm or anyone else is sick, since it seems like we've been sick all winter. Please bring on the good weather and health to our home. It makes me sad to hear kids with barking coughs, red, chapped noses, and watery eyes. Plus I'm tired of being sick myself. Hopefully, next year will be a better one for us.

When I tend to have sickness, I do a lot more reading. I've added up my number of pages read so far this year, and so far its 4,763 pages. I don't know whether to be proud or think about myself as pathetic. I just finished a good one by Jodi Picoult called The Pact, very compelling, actually hard to put down. I got it yesterday when I was buying decongestant at the pharmacy and I finished tonight. I also read the Forgotten Garden and Winter Garden, both were excellent books, some of my favorite that I've read recently. Just a few reading suggestions.

Since I started by complaining about my life, I better end with a few simple things that make me happy.

1. A warm house on a cold, snowy day. We had an incredibly beautiful snow storm last night that dumped about a foot of snow. Despite a lot of broken tree limbs, we woke to a glittering, beautiful, sun shiny snow day in the Salt Lake Valley. Its hard to beat the beauty of snow-capped mountain peaks against a vivid blue sky.

2. Grateful that Jake was the student of the day at Albion yesterday. He was nominated by his health teacher who says his enthusiasm is contagious, that he's a great kid, and she loves his updates on the Jimmer (BYU basketball player for those who don't know). I'm proud of him! We don't always see eye to eye, but I'm grateful for a teacher who celebrates his unique, great, confident personality.

3. I love that Tyler still loves to crawl in bed with me to cuddle in the mornings. Its become a bit of a ritual and the day doesn't feel quite right if he doesn't cuddle with me. Today, since I had a horrible, sleepless night, he didn't come in first thing in the morning, but later in the afternoon, we got to cuddle and read our favorite storybook, Skippyjon Jones. Its hard to have your kids grow up. Its nice to cling to those simple, kind moments--I recognize they're fleeting!