Blessings

I have survived my first week at home and there has only been one major catastrophe...  I was supposed to have dinner with my youngest brother, his wife and son Monday night and I received a call from my brother right before I started to get ready saying they needed to cancel because they were taking their son to the ER.  He had decided to jump off the couch and landed headfirst on the coffee table and he split his eyebrow open.  After several hours and eleven outer stitches (and an unknown number of stitches to repair the inner layers), they got to take him home.  I got to have dinner with them the following night and I helped watch him during the week and he didn't seem phased by the head wound at all - his energy levels were the same and he still climbed/jumped off of stuff even though he kept telling everyone that he was going to be more careful.  It definitely could have ended up being way worse so we are blessed that it wasn't...

Another adventure that we had was we put up my parent's Christmas tree.  Mom, Dad and I started to decorate it while my nephew was napping but we didn't finish before he woke up so of course he wanted to help.  He is three and a half and his decorating style consisted of finding one branch that "worked" for him (mostly meaning that he could reach it and hang an ornament from it) and then hang multiple ornaments from that one branch.  He also didn't want to make it easy for himself - he enjoyed having to stand on his toes in order to hang his ornaments on the tree.  It really is a Christmas miracle that the tree didn't come tumbling down with him "helping."  Oh well...  It's all about family and the memories this time of year...

Because I was traveling for work and then had to travel on three different airplanes to get here (after getting only a few hours of sleep), I have, of course, come down with some sort of bug that just doesn't want to let go.  I have tried a couple different medications and think I may have found a combination that is making me start to feel at least some better.  I have almost completely lost my voice and there are times that I am only able to squeak words out (which of course my Dad thinks is hilarious).  Singing in church today was interesting.  I am normally a soprano but today I was singing everything an octave lower and Dad and I were joking that I was singing bass down with him - I figured it would be better than squeaking though singing the hymns.  Hopefully I will have my soprano singing voice back by Christmas Eve since we will be attending the midnight Christmas service (actually it's the 11 o'clock service that ends at midnight) and I adore singing the soprano part of all of the traditional Christmas hymns.  We'll see if another Christmas miracle will be headed my way or not.

I am hoping that with being sick now, I will have it done and out of the way for the season.  This is approximately the time of year in which I usually get sick and lose my voice but last year it is also about the time I was sick multiple times with massive ear infections, sore throat, coughing up all sorts of wonderfully colored junk so I'm hoping what I have currently is not a precursor to that "fun."  I got my flu shot and am sick with whatever wonderful germs I have been blessed with so I'm definitely hoping that this will be it for this season.  I know that only time will tell but with working for as many years as I have with SO many different children, I figure I should be able to be exposed to the plague and not catch it (NOT that I want to be exposed to the plague...).

I know that there are a great many other things that I could be dealing with right now health wise so I guess I should be grateful that this cold or whatever I'm fighting off is all I'm facing.  I learned this past week that one of the daughters of my landlords just discovered that she has breast cancer so she will be dealing with that.  I saw the news via the church's email and I emailed my landlords right away for more details.  She wrote back with what they are looking into treatment wise (surgery, chemotherapy and possibly more) and that she (my landlady) will be flying cross country to be with their daughter after the first of the year.  She is currently helping out with watching my doggies and even though she is dealing with this news from her daughter, she took the time to tell me that my doggies are being the perfect little gentleman for her.  I was touched by that and am definitely blessed that she and her husband have rented their apartment to me - it has been a blessing from the start and continues to be one with all the help they have offered me and my doggies throughout the years I've lived there so far.

Well my dear readers, I am going to bring this to a close for this evening so I can get some sleep and let the medication that I took just a little bit ago fight these germs off so I can be better for all of the family fun and frivolity this week may have in store (knowing my family, anything could happen!).  I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas and a joyous holiday season!  Thank you for joining me yet again!  =)