Thoughts of a lady trapped in her own home

This has been a January that might live on in infamy, but I do think there is a happy ending somewhere along the line.

It started out with a week of the kids having a cold.  Cold's are manageable, even Eloise is a trooper and still sleeps pretty good, even when she's sick.  

Meanwhile, I'm trying to loose weight.  So I pray for help.  "Please help me to not be so starving all the time and help me control my portions."  I have prayed for help before in this area and I got I HUGE canker sore in my mouth that made it hard for me to eat at all....should have learned my lesson.

The next Tuesday I was excited that I hadn't gotten it and the kids were pretty much recovered, until I felt that tickle in my throat.  NOOOOOOOOO!  You know the tickle.  I started drinking water like it was nobody's business, drank activate C, went to bed early.  Anything to avoid getting sick!  We were hoping to go see our new nephew Ty and we can't go until we're healthy.

Well, I got it (or what I thought was my kid's disease).  Things kept progressing and getting worse and on Thursday night I knew that I had gotten something different.  I was tutoring and I got the chills so bad, luckily my student left and I went and buried myself in a pile of blankets, shaking uncontrollably.  Finally the shivering stopped and my head started on fire, it felt like my eyes would explode.  104.5 was a higher number than I expected and I started taking the drugs trying to get it down.  800mg of ibuprofen and 1000mg of tylenol, alternated got it down in 12 short hours to a lovely 102.

Lets just let it suffice to say that I felt awful for a few days and my appetite all but disappeared.  All I could eat was smoothies and water.  I was SO incredibly grateful that it was the weekend and Zac was there to take care of the kids and house!  I did go to the Doctor and of course it was the influenza virus (you know the one you get the flu shot to avoid? Dang, should have gotten my flu shot!).  Luckily, my kids got flu shots so their chances of getting it were small.

Not small enough though.  Eloise started getting sick AGAIN on Sunday, but her's seems to be a lessened version.  Her fever was low and short lived and her cough doesn't seem too bad.

So between being sick myself and taking care of a sick baby my prayer was answered in a round about way.  After all that light eating, my stomach has shrunk!  I can't eat as much in a sitting and I'm in the habit of drinking more water.  Although, I still think it will be a while before I pray for help with weight loss again.  :)

So between 3 different bouts of sickness I have have left the house 3 times in about 2 weeks.  Once to go grocery shopping, once to go to the doctor, and once to get Teagan from preschool.  I was going CRAZY CRAZY!  I wanted to leave so bad, but now that I was better the kids were too sick.  Yesterday I told Zac my craziness and he stayed with the kids while I went out and had a PARTY!

First stop, Wells Fargo.  Deposited a check and talked to adults!

Next, the mall, to return clothes at Old Navy and The Children's Place for my kids.

Next, Walmart (could this night get any more exciting?!?!)

As I was going to the checkout line I had the feeling that I should go to the speedy checkout line, didn't know why, but I changed lines and walked over there, only to find myself behind a young lady who was trying to buy her goods and couldn't get her debit card to work.  I've been there and it's embarrassing so I was trying to not look at her and I was acting like I didn't notice that it was taking a long time.  Finally, they put her order on hold and I heard her say "I'm so sorry, we just got new cards and I don't know what my husband put for the pin."  Apparently, if you guess too many times they shut your card down so this poor woman was going to have her husband come and pay for her stuff.  I have been in that position before and it's AWFUL.  I saw her bag, it had two bags of off brand hamburger buns in it and I got a huge smile on my face.  I asked the clerk if it was just the buns (it was) and had her put it with my stuff.

The lady was so happy and grateful, the clerk was so excited, and I was so excited.  I couldn't wipe the smile off of my face the whole way home.  It just feels so darn good to do something for someone that they can't do for themselves.  That was exactly what I needed.  I needed some high quality adult human interaction, and it only cost $2!!!!  If all good deeds were that simple and inexpensive I think we would all do a lot more of them!

In all of this madness I kind of had an epiphany last night on the way home from Walmart.  Prayer is the real deal.  If you pray for help with something, or anything and it is reasonable, Heavenly Father will help you.  Sometimes the help is in unexpected ways (like getting the flu or a bad canker to aid weight loss), but it still counts.  I'm sure that girl was praying her mind out to help her figure out her pin and hoping that her husband would pick up his phone and I (someone who desperately needed to do service for someone) happened to be behind her in line.  There is a master plan and Heavenly Father is upstairs monitoring every aspect of it helping us all be at the right place at the right time.

I'm so happy to be a part of this world, it really is fantastic.