where i've been

Update: My dad is home and resting and recovering. Thanks to everyone for your kind notes, emails, messages and tweets. People are awesome. Okay, not all of them. Just you.

I'm sorry.

I haven't been making lists.

When I'm not at work, I spend a lot of time on Pinterest.

I have a Smash book on my desk I haven't opened since the first initial flurry of writing and pasting when I got it.

Facebook hasn't been able to hold my attention, but Twitter has received the majority of my thoughts.

I don't call anyone.

I laughed yesterday and it hurt.

I skipped yoga on Monday to work and regretted it instantly. Then and now.

My father is sick. Very sick. He's been sick for eleven years but this time feels different. I don't know how and I don't know why but it does. Staying in the hospital makes it worse, so after a bit more time with an IV, they're sending him home today. I'm flying out this weekend.

I'm sorry I haven't been here. I haven't really been anywhere lately.

30Days: 7

I've been neglectful of my lists, so seeing today's prompt was fitting.

30Days: 2

Taking it old school today.

30Days: 1

I'm participating in 30 Days of Lists! Here's the first: goals for the month.

scratch

I'm still itchy.

Friday will be three weeks with these hives, which have definite flare-ups. They're flaring now. They've returned on my chest, on my back, my knees and elbows, my forearms, my thighs.

My legs are bruised and scraped. Covered with tiny bumps. I found a welt the size of a dime on my knee.

I take a tiny tiny pill every four hours to "stop the itching." I take an allergy pill every day. I slather my legs and arms with icy cold aloe vera gel and vitamin E gel. I take a vitamin E tablet along with my itchy pill and my allergy pill.

Hot baths lessen the itch temporarily. Ice packs lessen the itch temporarily. Clothes make it worse. Being outside makes it worse. Thinking about it makes it worse. Not thinking about it means it takes a little bit before I realize I've scratched myself bloody again.

hookin' up

It's been way too long since I linked up to Jennifer's Highs and Lows party. 
So, I'm doing this with my week ending yesterday.
HIGHS

• We had a crazy party in our tiny house with a bazillion people and NOTHING WAS BROKEN. The best part was introducing all of our friends from this part of our life to all of our friends from that part of our life -- and to have them come to us and say we have great friends. To see everyone laughing and talking and eating and dodging the approximately 200 children running around... this is the best part about becoming a grown-up. 

• There was another visit from the tooth fairy this week. Emma lost a tooth while I was in New Orleans, and this week another tooth was hanging on by a thread. I was able to convince Emma that I could remove the tooth painlessly and she wouldn't have to worry about it. There was much hand wringing and fretting but she agreed and two seconds later I handed her the tooth. Her look of disbelief followed by relief and then exhilaration was awesome.

• I slept until 9 yesterday morning. Guilt free. 

LOWS

• This !@#$% rash. I had to reschedule a massage (I know, I know, cry me a river) because of it and I've felt like a leper every time I go out in public. It does seem to be lessening and I may (MAY) have located the cause. 

• While sleeping until 9 is certainly awesomesauce, the reason behind it is not. Fred and Emma are in Massachusetts all week, and I won't be joining them until Thursday night. This is the first time Emma has left me and I spent much of last week alternately ignoring then fighting against various emotions. It certainly won't be the last time she jets off without me, but it's the first and I don't like it. Not in box or with a fox. 

don't blame me if this makes YOU itchy too

Yesterday morning I sat down to tell you something important, a discovery I made about myself and my emotional health and it was a breakthrough! Until I, uh, made another discovery about myself. This one was not great.

It seems that during the night I had developed a rash. A rather unsightly, itchy rash all over my arms, chest and neck. I was not amused. I took some benadryl and called into work. I spent the day alternately sleeping, babbling incoherently at Fred, and scratching. By this point, no one is amused.

I managed to score an appointment this morning at urgent care, so after taking Fred and Emma to the airport, I learned that I am suffering from an allergic reaction of unknown origin and here, take this pill which will stop the itching but also make you both paranoid AND lethargic.

I am not taking that pill again.

So here I am, facing a week without a husband or a daughter, a week free to fill with frivolity and nonsense, trapped by a need to wear long-sleeve shirts and a thick coating of calamine lotion. It seems frivolity will have to take a backseat to sensibility, AGAIN. DAMN YOU, SENSIBILITY.