Well, I knew going into this week that it would be busy with work and something each night. Late Tuesday - early Wednesday I started to get the signs of a cold and that meant taking Advil Cold/Sinus. Thursday at work I was really dragging and had my grief counselor appointment at 4:00 pm which I wanted to go to - but I wondered about walking down to Valley Junction's Christmas Open House. Even though the weather was decent I didn't know if I'd feel like it once I got home. While waiting for my grief counselor I checked emails and my girlfriend, Karen, that I was going to walk "downtown" with emailed me saying she was starting to get a cold herself - so that made the decision for me - once I got home from my session I stayed home. Friday at the end of the day I was dragging again so called Freedom for Youth Ministries, told them I wasn't feeling well and that they probably didn't want me down there giving off germs, so I'll reschedule my orientation. Last night I felt crappy and started taking Alka Seltzer Plus along with Advil Cold/Sinus.
A big shout out to Duane for stopping over Wednesday night to work on the snow blower (drain old gas and oil, put new gas and oil in) and make sure I could start and run the blower without any problem. So I'm good to go for snow - I just don't want any snow.
It's been a challenge the past couple of days with the dogs. Milly has once again started having issues going up and down the stairs to the bedroom - which is not fun to deal with at 5:15 in the morning. Plus she is now terrified of the laminate kitchen floor and walking across it to the door to go down the stairs to go outside to go potty. Thursday morning I had no time to try to talk her across the floor - I grabbed her by her collar and drug her across the floor - thinking as I'm doing this that I've scarred her for life and she'll never step foot in the kitchen again but I don't have time for this now and I'll deal with it later. And then there's Butler, my feeble footed old guy. Twice this week he's decided to poop either in the kitchen or the back porch, slips and falls............on his poop..........lovely. So I have smushed poop to clean up and also a greyhound's behind. What a life :)
Today I woke up with a list of errands to run and places to go - took some Alka Seltzer Plus and Advil C/S and hit the road around 8:30 am and got home a little after 12:00 pm. The wildest spot was getting out of Michael's Crafts parking lot - that place was crazy.
This week I had a couple of "Mike moments". Monday night while driving to my Christ Life class one of the businesses I passed had their trees decorated with beautiful, multi-colored Christmas lights and it got to me. Mike and I love the multi-colored strings of lights and these trees looked so beautiful. I got misty-eyed wishing Mike was there with me to see them and realizing this was my first Christmas without him. Then today outside of Michael's where they have bins of things - they had a huge bin of those wooden puzzles Mike loved to put together and the motorcycle puzzle was on the top of the bin. We had taken a couple of these wooden puzzles to Mike's Celebration Service and his motorcycle puzzle was one of them. I was hoofing it to Gordman's next door when I passed the bin of puzzles and literally stopped dead in my tracks to stare at the bin. My first thought was, "wow, here's a whole bin of the puzzles that Mike loved to do, out in the open, and we used to have to really search to find these puzzles for him." Then, "crap, here's a whole bin of the puzzles Mike liked to do and his motorcycle puzzle is on top of the pile." I didn't get teary-eyed but it did literally stop me for a moment or two. I did some things at home and then crashed for 2-3 hours with a nap - I woke up feeling fairly decent.
So the highlight of my Saturday night is watching old UFC fights leading up to the big Pay Per View fights tonight - which I won't pay to see. I think tomorrow I'll work on my "What I'm Thankful For" blog.
