Sickness in the House-and Five Friday Things

My twenty something son is what I call a "recovering asthmatic". He had severe asthma from infancy on, and mainly slowly grew out of the problem as he entered high school. However, all that illness has led him with certain propensities. As such, pretty much every time he gets a cold or bronchitis, the end result is pneumonia. Pretty much always. To the point that he has been known to walk into an emergency room or urgent care and state flatly "I have pneumonia in my left lung". Which as some of my medically trained readers know, tends to start things off on the wrong foot with the triage types who figure it's their job to ask about symptoms and give a diagnosis.

Yesterday, at his request, I drove said kid to urgent care. A proactive measure since he felt sicker than a dog and I could see him coughing so hard he swerved and hit something.  He only had a bad cold, cough, sniffles and general crap, thank heavens. He also had strep throat, which he began treating yesterday. This morning I woke up with a throat so sore it hurts to swallow and hied myself to the local walk in place-where they informed me my throat was bright red but I had none of the white stuff that signified the contagion-yet. So I am also now on antibiotics, sitting in my comfy chair and in the spirit of kindness, just informed my Saturday dinner group that, no, I will not make it. While I always take my meds as directed until gone, I am sure praying that some of these symptoms go away in the next 48 hours! Yes, feeling a little sorry for myself, am I. On the other hand, it was supposed to snow tomorrow, after being warm this week, so I don't have to come up with an excuse about not going out in the cold or driving on the icy streets.

In other news of the week:

1.  On the knitting/crafting front, one shawl is finished except for blocking and weaving in the ends. I'm figuring that super fast going bulky blanket will be done by Thanksgiving.  I also decided if I have time I will work on a quick knit kimono style top for my daughter who works spends a large part of her working and schooling hours in Texas air conditioning-you know, the cold has to be in direct proportion to the heat outside? I can work on this during my non-driving part of our 13 hour ride and finish it at her house if I want. I picked two winter projects to being working on just for me after that. A sweater and a coat sweater. Because well, I like to do creative stuff for me-and my living space.

Still needs to be pressed and some shaping

close up of the texture!

A fairly simple sweater coat pattern........One that I will add pizzzaz to by using the yarn below. Or something VERY similar. Free pattern as found here on ravelry. The Einstein Coat.

As found on the blog Mama in a Stitch, I'll probably do this in a Neutral for daughter and then in a second color if she likes.

2.  My gals group met at a new wine bar on Tuesday-a lovely place with fireplaces and couch seating as well as regular lunch tables. I had a beef and cheddar sandwich, and yes, their chocolate cake for dessert. No wine though. Thursday happy hour was spent discussing the finer points of classes vs self education, be it painting or learning about history or anything else (I'm moving more to the classes theory in some areas, because much as I talk about sitting down and painting to an online class, that commitment escapes me on occasion.  Me and commitments, man..........

3. My exercising and healthy habits have been totally shot this week. I've done  no more than 20 minutes of walking a day and my eating has not been the best and now I'm sitting here  under my late husband's prayer shawl cowering with the heat on even though it's in the fifties outside. Must.Get.Back.On.Track. As Scarlett would say, tomorrow is another day-so I'll get moving then.

4. I spent yesterday evening at my brother's house, eating Chinese and going through my mom's genealogy stuff a box at a time. We went through three huge binders of family records, charts and source documents. As someone who is just beginning to explore this from my ancestry.com perspective, the amount of information she has and digging she did (all in the pre-Internet era) is amazing. Never mind the fact that the book I was looking at last night was family from the pre-sixteen hundreds in some cases!

5. I've been slowly accumulating a pile of new slow cooker recipes, and will start back on my frugal slow cooker cooking journey this week. Almost all fall under the frugal heading (except for those requiring seafood or short ribs), and many are for stuff I would normally throw in the oven. Italian Pot Roast for example. Black bean soup. And yes, even blueberry lemon cobbler. I looove my slow cooker and it is mainly so easy to clean (although I have on occasion thought about even cheating and getting those slow cooker liners. 

You gotta love a recipe from a blog called Boozeandbacon.com!

This weekend, after many days of fifties weather, we again have 36 hours of snow and freezing drizzle (followed by six days of high fifties weather again-hello, Colorado). Since I will have been on enough antibiotics to make me safe, it'll be cookie time. The next new recipe to test are those orange/cranberry cookies. Add a couple book downloads and multiple crafting projects to choose from, and I am pretty much settled in for the count!