Everything Hurts

Today we got a Christmas tree the easy way. (There was no chopping down involved. No tromping through the snow.) I got a lot sicker today, which seems kind of inexplicable. I used to think of myself as a really healthy person. The cold or flu that would down everybody else for a week would pass through me in 3 days. Now it's the opposite, and I consistently get sicker than anyone else for longer and always end up with bronchitis. I was up between 2:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. what with the coughing and all, and later this afternoon I just crashed. I slept in the living room while the kids went crazy and Jake got dinner ready and only woke up to the sound of an ornament crashing and breaking on the floor right in front of me. (It was an egg. A real egg that had been hollowed out and painted.)

Milo was super psyched about the tree and decorating it and everything. Nora was kind of in the dumps today, so she was less jazzed about everything but still enjoyed opening up each ornament and hanging it on the tree.

I think the preschool teachers were a little confused about what holiday we celebrate because Nora had mentioned that we didn't have a Christmas tree, and Milo said that for the holiday he got "dry bread". I still have no idea what "dry bread" means or what he was referring to. (I wanted to wait until after their birthday to get a tree to try to separate birthday from Christmas somewhat.)

The kids' preschool teachers are older women, one seems like maybe she's in her 50's (she has grown-up kids) and the other is maybe in her 30s. But they also have an afternoon teacher who comes in who is clearly pretty young and doesn't seem like she has her own family yet. Nora loves all three of them. So on Friday I finally screwed up the courage to ask the afternoon teacher if she ever did any babysitting, and she said yes, all the time, and she'd love to watch Milo & Nora. So that is a good thing.

Things I used to do when I felt like ass: Sleep, watch t.v., lie around in bed, drink 7-up or ginger ale with crushed ice cubes.

Things I now do when I feel like ass: Laundry, making lunch, grocery shopping, hauling a Christmas tree into the house, grading, etc.

I kind of wonder if this is why I cannot get healthy this year. But these things have to get done.

I thought of something good to write about. This year I got a new winter coat. My old one was kind of falling apart so it was time for something new and I'm talking about the extreme winter coat, the one you haul out on the coldest days. Must be long, must be down. So I bought the Land's End Chevron Coat and oh my gosh I cannot say enough good things about this coat! This coat has totally changed everything. It is seriously the warmest coat I have ever had. It goes all the way down to my knees, has fleece cuffs and a fleece neck, and this awesome big hood that fits over my hat and acts as a wind break for my face.

So the first time I wore it was when our weather changed quite abruptly to Very Cold (tm). And I live in a place where we have a lot of Very Cold days, for many months, so you need to have the gear for it. Anyway, I was walking to work that morning and it was about 4 degrees out. Jake was going on and on about how cold it was going to be. I walked outside and I thought, hmm, I guess they were wrong, it's totally not cold at all! Then I pulled my hand out to put on my glove and I realized oh, it is cold. I just feel super warm because I have this amazing crazy warm coat! And it's not like I didn't have down coats before, I did, but this one is like an order of magnitude warmer. It is so warm that if I have it zipped up and it's warmer than about 20 degrees, I get hot.

So anyway, I feel very happy about my warm, snuggly coat and its ability to keep me more comfortable in the winter. It really goes to show that something as simple as a properly warm coat just makes a ton of difference in your quality of life.