Foggy

Sickness has been our biggest theme for the past week.  It's slowly just spreading to each of us and I feel like I'm walking around in a fog of germs and sadness over the unfathomably tragic death of a 3 year old little girl.  I just can't shake it.  Combining that with the recent slump I've told you about might make it sound like I'm hiding in a hole of darkness, but I'm not at all.  Instead I made myself get out today while the kids are with my in-laws (blessed, blessed Grandparents on both sides who still want to take our kids and be with them even when they're grumpy, snotty, coughing messes, to give us a break!) even though all I wanted to do was crawl into bed and sleep off the sickness.  I brought crackers and Gatorade and soup to a friend  who has that awful flu that's going around and I put grocery carts away for an old lady in the parking lot with her hair all freshly done and red lipstick on while her fleece robe flapped out from under her coat.  I told her that I loved the fleece (it was a fun rainbow pattern!) and she laughed and said, "I wondered what people would think of me going out like this, but it's just so cold and it keeps me so warm!"  It was AWESOME, and I told her so, I wished that I had one on, too! 

I've been so stuck inside myself and my own head lately that I just needed a reason to do something for someone else.  I forget sometimes that the easiest way to pull myself out of it is to think more about others.  As parents, we have that built in because we don't have a choice but to put little one's needs to get to school and eat three meals a day and have clean clothes and read books and snuggle under the covers together before just about everything else.  I'm good at that, but not as good at doing things beyond that in ways that I want to in my life.  Not big, huge things, just little things everyday that matter.  

It's supposed to snow more tomorrow, which means more hunkering down.  I've never wanted to rush winter away, I love the cold air and the slowness and the quiet, but I'll be the first to admit that we just need one warm day right now.  Some sunshine and air warm enough to open windows and let the air in while they run outside and feel free for a while.  But, snow is what we've got, so we'll take a little more while we can get it.  If we weren't all coughing all over everything, I'd make some cookies to take to neighbors while we read my winter favorite, You Can Do It, Sam,  but I'll spare them the germ spreading and do it when we're all healthy again instead.  

What are you up to this week?  How's winter in your neck of the woods?