Artemas went to pick up Jacob the Moron and won’t be back until who knows when.

I could smoke a doobie & lie around nekkid if I wanted to.

But I have a sudden sore throat/sinus thing going on. I think I’m getting sick. I might make myself a rum hot toddy & go to bed instead.

My husband & wife tattoo appointments for this afternoon rescheduled til next Wednesday.

Probably just as well. I feel like crap.

Somebody shoot me.

That is all.

I still feel lousy.

Forgot to pick Allen up from work. It was 9PM by the time I got him.

I ate a really healthy dinner of Fritos with ranch dip. However the kids had Bacon Alfredo, which I packaged up for lunch tomorrow with a bunch of mixed veggies on top.

I’m peeling. Again.

I took a couple nyquil-type pills.

Now enjoying a vodka grape juice, lying on my bed like a slug in a thin white skinny-strap top. And that’s as SST as I get today.

Since about 6:30 this mornng.

Instead of making her lethargic, it hyperanimates her. She talks about every thought racing through her extra-warm little brain. She gets into EVERYTHING.

Veronica used to do the same thing. I remember sitting up with her half the night at the kitchen table, so that she wouldn’t keep my X or the other kids awake, while she would very thoroughly color an ENTIRE coloring book and tell me every thought she ever had.

I was 10 years younger then. This morning’s conversation:

Betsy: “Mommy, can I have some grape juice? I don’t think I need to use the potty. I might just lay here with you. Oh look, it’s getting light outside. I have a funny dream, wanna hear it? Mommy, can I have some water? I want some covers over me, do you? I still don’t think I need to use the potty. Don’t you have to go to work soon? Do you think Jay will call you tonight? Are you doing a tattoo today? When I get bigger, can I have a tattoo?”

Me: “In a minute, I’m not awake right now. Are you sure? Don’t wet my bed. Yes, I know. Betsy, I”m SLEEPY. I don’t feel very well. I’ll get you some water, just STOP talking. No, I don’t want covers. Are you sure? No, not for 2 hours at least. Who knows. Yes, I’m doing a couple. I don’t care… just go BACK TO SLEEP!”

Betsy: zzzzzz

Like I was at 4 o’clock.

I think I’m coming down with a sinus something, because my head feels hot inside and like I can’t clear my sinuses/throat.

I have to do matching husband/wife tattoos tomorrow, huge Fox racing emblems with a smaller emblem inside them and other unspeakable embellishments. I don’t want to do them.

I think it would not hurt me to go to bed before 1AM tonight.

And I’m out of beer.

then I came home.  I wouldn’t even have done the one, but I didn’t want to put the lady off.  When I didn’t have anyone to witness my divorce papers, she did it on the spur of the moment (in the Walmart parking lot) & even rounded up a friend for the 2nd witness.  Gotta appreciate a person like that.

The girls are doing homeschool and looking through the family picture box in my room, which isn’t helping me rest very much but it’s nice family time.

I’m lying in bed trying not to die.

My x’s brother John did die this morning.  I had to tell him I was so sorry, but didn’t know if the girls and I will make the trip.  It’s 13.5 hours one way, and I don’t have another driver.  The boys are already there with him.  

I should go though.  Even though Richard is my x, John was my brother too for 27 years.  The family already probably thinks I hate them because of the divorce.  I should go as an act of respect and goodwill.  No funeral details yet.

I hate being the grown-up, the responsible one, the one who has to do the right thing, even when I don’t want to.

Right now though, I’m in enough pain that I don’t want to think about it.

I wish I were the kind who when I get my period (or a kidney stone, or a cold), gets to put on thick socks and soft pants and curl up on the couch with a quilt, a book, and a cup of hot cocoa.

Before I had kids I had terrible cramps and actually did this sometimes.  Not often… but once I got married, that went out the window.  Especially once I had kids; I didn’t get cramps anymore so my x expected me to be capable, all the time.

I don’t know if not giving in to pampering myself at all (even if I probably really need it) just became a bad habit or what.  

A friend of mine says that doesn’t really happen.  The woman who can do that is a myth.  I really have no idea if he’s right or if I just have an idea in my head that is stupid & out of touch with reality. So I want to know!

Ladies, do you give yourself time off, pull the comforter up over you and put the world on hold if you need to?

Men, do your wives need a day off, pampering, and do you understand and “allow” that?

• The x took the kids to church. I went back to bed.
• They came home with Dunkin Donuts. I had a chocolate-filled one.  I’m gonna weigh 200# if I don’t start burning some calories.
• I still feel sore-throaty, stuffy, and lethargic.  I’m lying around and bossing everybody else what to do.  It’s the rules.
• I think I’m nearly loopy on cold meds.
• I finished knitting the hat I’m working on. The pattern called for 3 or 4 pattern repeats.  I did 4.  Decreased over 7 rows (2”), and the hat was too short.  Had to pick out the last 7 rows and put it back on needles.
• It’s handspun yarn, which I didn’t have any more of.  So I had to get out of bed and find the fiber and spin another 20 yards or so.
• Artemas is making me homemade french fries.
• I have orange juice.

I had a lousy day today.

Started out coughing like Doc Holliday.

Took cold meds so I could get through work.  Supposed to be 12-hour time-release.  They made me disoriented and shaky for the first 2-3 hours and wore off about 10 hours (which was, of course, before I was home).

I did 3 tattoos today, not one of which I was entirely happy with.  That alone is depressing.

The kids and I started wrapping presents when I got home, and for the first time in about 10 years, ran out of wrapping paper.  You gotta be kidding me.

Five more sleeps until Christmas.  I am not done knitting.

I got a sinking feeling on the way home tonight that somehow I’ve failed my kids for Christmas.  Like the gifts won’t be what they need or won’t be enough or there’s just not enough we’ve gotten done as a family.  This is the first time since before B was born that I’ve been working full-time going into Christmas.  And this will be the first year EVER that I won’t have my kids with me on Christmas.

Growing up, Christmas was a difficult time.  My birth family ALWAYS* fights over something at Christmas (* by always I really mean ALWAYS), and I also suspect (though my memory is cloudy at best about it, having shut out more than half my childhood) that there was a LOT of abuse that happened to me at Christmas time, when of course the other adults are all distracted by, well, everything.

I’ve spent my adult life and motherhood career (at 26 Christmases and counting, it IS a career) trying to make this a cheerful, fun, meaningful, non-materialistic, spiritual time for my family.  Every year I feel that once again, somehow, I’ve failed.

Maybe that IS my Christmas tradition.

Because I left work early today to come to Des’ house.

My kids were going with their dad tonight, and he’s keeping them overnight, because he can’t over the weekend, because two of the girls are going on a youth retreat.

Artemas isn’t going to his dad’s, but he has Jacob the Moron over.  By going to Des’ house I at least missed hours of the two of them sitting on the couch playing xbox.

Des’ two kids were sick and throwing up yesterday.  Today she was also sick and very weak.  Tony had to go to work at 2.

I remember never being able to lie down and be sick, because R didn’t help me the way Tony helps Des.  I know what it’s like to have sick younguns and be too weak to really take care of them.

So Miss A let me leave work and drive up here, where I did the dishes and made chicken and dumplings and watched Grandson play some Wii and talked to Des, such time as she’s felt like talking.  She was very weak when I got here.  Got to feeling better for a little minute, and now is feeling very bad again.

After Tony gets home, I’ll go home.

But for now I’m gonna go in the kitchen and make homemade caramel sauce and serve it over little tiny bowls of ice cream.

I’ve just been swamped.

Wed. I spent the evening w Des and her kids bc she was sick.

Thurs. I only did two tattoos, but was late leaving the shop. Got home at 11 PM.

Friday I tattooed for 11 hours, 5 people.  Also Friday I battled bouts of what was either trying to be the stomach flu or it was a previous-day chili dog trying to kill me.

Friday night I stayed up late (4 AM) talking to a friend, which was an emotionally draining time.

Saturday I shopped and slept mostly.  Barely even ate. Ended up staying up til 3 AM again, talking via Kik to a friend who was working night shift.

Today we had church, paid a couple bills, and had early dinner with my x and all the kids at the Chinese buffet. 

Which is either trying to kill me also, or else Friday’s stomach flu is rearing its ugly head.

This evening I cleaned out a corner of my bedroom so that my closet wall can be moved forward 3 feet.  Also put a shelf table in my bathroom with baskets for underthings.  That is more convenient since I dress in there anyway, and frees up some drawer space.

When my x moved out a year and a half ago, I cleaned out a LOT of stuff.  Mostly his but some of mine.  Now I’m getting to go through stuff and purge again. MY stuff.  It feels good to get rid of accumulated crap.  Makes my place feel more peaceful.

And ya never know what empty spaces might invite to fill them.

I have a fever of 100.1.

at 102 at about 11 o’clock last night.

It broke at about 12:30, at which time I realized I was hungry, because I’d only had 2 hot dogs (NOT in buns) since breakfast.  So I ate half a piece of chicken & 3 onion rings and a biscuit, took more ibuprofen and went to bed.

So far today, so good.

I’m a little weak from not having had enough to eat yesterday but otherwise alright.

Don’t know what it was causing the fever but it was miserable.