I'm not quite dead...
Wow. It's been a long time since I got to write. I spent the past two days in bed with the nastiest cold I can remember having in years. I remember feeling kind of icky at bedtime Sunday night, and then not getting any sleep because I kept having to blow my nose; then by morning I was so nauseous and dizzy and miserable that I started sobbing shortly after getting out of the shower. Forest dried me off, and put me back in bed, and decided for me that I was too sick to go to work. He brought me Vernor's and some "DROWSY" antihistamines, and I don't remember much after that. At 7 PM I dragged myself to my bell choir concert (because it was too late to get a substitute) and growled at everyone, rang the shortest concert ever, and left by 7:45. By 9 I was back in bed. Tuesday morning was a repeat of the same; I had been awake on and off all night while my brain turned into goo and crawled out my nose. Forest went to work. I stayed home. I was too sick to play Final Fantasy. Hell, I was to sick to *read*. That sucks. Still, the time went by very quickly, since I was apparently in some sort of fog. I can hardly recall anything that took place between Sunday and now, and Forest assures me that I wasn't terribly lucid.
I know, it sounds pathetic; but it really was an awful cold, and I'm incredibly glad I feel a bit better today. I still sound like Darth Vader on the phone, but I'm sure it will clear up in time. (If it doesn't, I'll have fewer telemarketers!)
Forest took excellent care of me. He brought me antihistamines and Vernor's and flowers, and snuggled me even though I was tossing and turning and blowing my nose every 30 seconds all night. He cheerfully got Kirstin up and off to school both mornings. What a sweety.
Other than horrible illness, there hasn't been a lot going on. Friday night I drove to Cass City and played the concert there, which actually went pretty well. The snow on the roads wasn't a lot of fun, though, so I ended up getting home fairly late. Forest and I slept in for a while on Saturday, thankfully!
I spent most of Saturday cleaning up my house, which was a nice thing while it lasted. Saturday afternoon my mom stopped by, and I showed her all the stuff for our wedding. She really liked my dress (thank goodness) and flowers and invitations. I'm glad she was pleased. Ohh, speaking of pleased, I am very VERY happy with the way my invitations turned out, and the speed with which they were finished! I composed them online at einvite.com, and ordered them on November 14. The invitations were delivered Friday the 17th, at 9 AM! That's incredibly quick service for professional printers. They are beautiful, and just as they appeared on the Net. Wow. I love doing things with modern technology. What's funny is that I went to all the trouble to order them early, because I need to mail them in April, and had heard a hundred horror stories about print jobs gone astray, and paper stock on backorder. It turns out I didn't need to worry at all.
After chilling with mom on Saturday, I went out with Karen for a while. We generally shopped, ate dinner at Olga's (where we could harass the waiter) and took Forest for a Cookie Monster at Cheddar's after work. I had a good time, and it was nice to catch up with Karen. I was even able to apply some of my lesser-used skills, and help her to find a breakout mounting for the diamond she just got; it feels good to be useful.
We talked about gifts for a while, and I realized that I don't know how to approach the whole idea of wedding presents. According to every published source I can find, it's rude to include gift registry information in your wedding invitation envelope. On the other hand, every wedding invitation I've received in the past few years (quite a few) has contained a small inserted card with registry information, and I didn't think it was rude at all. As a matter of fact, I consider it a courtesy of the bride and groom to tell me where I can find them a nice gift.
It's also a little wierd because it's my second wedding, and Forest's first. I'm sure there's some twisted wedding-etiquette protocol for all of this, but I prefer to keep it simple, so I guess I'll just put the registry information in small print on the bottom of the "reception information" insert that I'm going to be printing. After all, these are my family and friends we're talking about. I'm sure they know that I'd be glad to have them come to my wedding, even if they couldn't afford a gift. Presents aren't the point.
Speaking of presents, the week on an island in the Caribbean is starting to sound like it might actually happen. I swallowed my pride, and asked my dad if he might help out with the expenses. He enthusiastically agreed. I'm glad I asked. It's hard for me to ask dad for anything, because I've always tried so hard (too hard) to be independent, and for a few years I ended up getting desperate and having to ask him for help. He never made that an unpleasant experience; but I always felt guilty about it. I know; parents are supposed to help out with the expenses of a wedding... but after I've abandoned so many of the 'traditional' parts of our culture, I feel hypocritical about picking and choosing which ones I want to stick with.
I'm really sad that I missed taekwondo last night. I need about 6 more weeks to prepare for the test, which is only 3 weeks away. I'm really going to have to practice hard to catch up. Happily, my knee is feeling a lot better (especially since I spent the last two days lying down) and shouldn't prevent my kicking things much longer.
On Sunday Forest and I went Christmas shopping together. We actually had a pretty good time, despite the fact that we were both pretty tired, he was kicking this cold, and I was coming down with it. We ended up doing a pretty good job, and have a good start on Kirstin and Forest's siblings. I'm glad we did this before Thanksgiving; we enjoyed some quiet time together in the nice warm mall.
It has been snowing like MAD here. You would think it was late January. This is definitely a good year to be thinking of going far, far away to a warm place.
