Reasons to love a miserable Monday

I almost let a Monday slip by without giving you any reasons to love it! And truth be told... it's been a crummy Monday, a crummy past few days with the cough and pneumo-broncho-black lung of death. I swear... I've come THISCLOSE to calling 9-1-1 about a half dozen times because I just can't breathe. I've had this granulomatic lung issue with the scar tissue and all that nonsense for some time now... I've had bronchitis and pneumonia more times than I deserved in the past few years and I've never had such a hard time breathing. Really unpleasant.

But... if we've gotta find reasons to love Monday... and that's always my goal... then I would say if I've gotta be sick like this, I'm so grateful that it's happened in a "season" of life where I'm not missing out on any work or making anyone else sick or letting anyone down or that sort of thing. I didn't have to wake anyone up for school *tear* and nobody is here but me and the cats so I'm not bugging anybody or having to do anything for anyone and I can just sort of be miserable all by myself. Poor Ryan and Sara and Austin have the same junk and they're unable to travel back to Pennsylvania today like they planned because of it. I'm telling you... this is no normal chest cold. It's truly the black lung of death.

So there's that. Misery may love company but for me, I'm glad to be miserable by myself. I had creamed corn for dinner last night and nobody complained. Nobody complained when I had rice for breakfast today either. Or when I had rice for lunch. Have I mentioned that this pneumo-bronchial-tuberculitis has robbed my appetite? I'm just eating enough to give the nyquil and mucinex a little company in my tummy. Maybe I'll drop a few pounds and get back down to morbidly obese instead of grossly incredibly morbidly obese (or whatever category I'm currently in).

I've run out of three of the five blood pressure meds and I don't have the strength to go to the pharmacy to get them refilled. Nor have I been able to sober up from the nyquil long enough to drive... although tomorrow, Lord willing, I'll meet Ryan and Sara in Commerce so they can drop off Austin. Maybe I should phrase that "I'm meeting Austin in Commerce"... but, you get the point.

Right now the plan is for me and my mom to go to Nashville this weekend to see my new great-nephew but we will definitely have to be much, much better by that point, especially since I know this stuff is contagious. After Nashville... next week... I'm meeting Mr. Prospective Employer and discussing the possibility of going to work part time, moving our stuff into storage and moving into mom and dad's house. I'll be THAT person, you know, the one who lives in their parents' basement. Only, my parents don't have a basement, just a converted garage which will be just fine. I have high asperations of accumulating a decent amount of savings, paying off my ever growing medical bills and being in a much better financial situation in a short period of time. I've got to build enough savings so that when I'm not able to work at all, that I'll be able to sustain my expenses until disability is approved.

Have we talked about this before? Probably. It's the nyquil high. Eventually my parents will retire to the mountains and sell the two houses in Riverdale and I can find a nice little cheap place until I'm ready to throw in the towel. I would very much like to be able to work another ten years and I think if I can work part-time, I should be able to. Eventually I believe I'll end up back up here in the mountains, one way or another, either in my own little cabin in the woods or in the basement of my parents' little cabin in the woods. Being sick this weekend has reinforced my reluctance to live alone. I have this fear of something happening to me and nobody knowing about it until I become "that thing you smell". I'm just not crazy about the idea of living by myself.

Austin has been gone since graduation so I don't really know how his perspective has changed since the drama with married friend's mama the other day. I just remember having this real sense of panic myself at the time that school was ending (remember, I graduated a quarter early) and feeling like I had to establish a family because I thought that I was no longer able to be a part of my family. Not that I did it intentionally (and not because my parents were kicking me out) but I was more confident about having a baby and getting married than I would have ever been about going away to college. I mean, I didn't even know how to drive. And I'm sure that Austin has some of that same sense of panic, especially with his reluctance to accept change, especially since his mom is one big ball of uncertainty at the moment, not intentionally, of course, but the truth is I'm not exactly giving him a sense of stability. If nothing else I want him to understand that he has a soft place to land and that wherever I am, he can be too, if he wants. I don't feel like I've given him the life skills he needs yet to navigate this big, bad world on his own.

By the way, if you catch this chest crud, a nice warm damp compress helps a lot. I just keep heating a damp towel in the microwave and putting it on my chest. That, plus half a jar of vaporub. I stink to high heaven and I look a mess but it helps. Wet tshirt contest - not in a good way, trust me. Trouble likes the smell of vaporub but Stubby hates it so much that he sits back like Buddha and uses his front paws to try to knock the jar out of my hand. Cracks me up! Cat bonding continues...

Anyways... it's almost time for The Five. I don't know if I've come up with many reasons to love Monday... but I tried. Hope you found a few... love and hugs, y'all!