Snow and sickness

Well, I've been reading everyone's blogs about all the snow and loving all the pictures that are being posted and thinking how glorious it will be to have a "White Christmas", all the while, singing Christmas carols out loud and envisioning sugar plums dancing in my head. It really is beautiful and up until today I was really enjoying it. That is until I spent an HOUR (of my 1 hour lunch) break trying to get my car out of my work parking lot. Before I go cursing the snow I should turn my finger around and point it directly at me for being one of those naive west coast drivers who thinks she doesn't need chains in a foot of snow for her Honda Accord. "Meh, my front wheel drive will take care of things". My first (besides no chains) was parking in a place that was slightly downhill, which meant I would have to back out going uphill. Duh...how dumb am I? I immediately started spinning out and tried to get myself out for about 15 minutes. I then wandered back into my building and whined until someone came and helped me. Merri, our HR Director came out and went over to her huge monster of a truck and got out her chains, shovel and just about anything else that we could think of. She's into hunting and things of that nature so she's not afraid to get dirty. Unlike me...I'm become quite dainty in my older age. :) So we put the chains under my front wheels and tried several other ideas and they all failed us. We came so close on several attempts, but alas a couple of strapping young lads (okay, not so young, but they were men non the less) came over and gave me a big shove and that did the trick. My supervisor Carol was also out there digging me out and bless her heart, it was 1:00 (when I was suppose to be coming back from my lunch) when we got done, and she still let me go and take a full hour for my break. What an ordeal!!

Did I go and buy chains you might be asking yourself? No.

Following a weekend of illness on my part (flu, chills, bathroom visits, etc) we had to bring Anna to the doctor this morning. The last few days she has been getting worse and worse...she sounds like an old man, her voice is so raspy. She's had a low grade fever and a terrible cough for a few days, so we packed her into the dr. today and sure enough she was on her way to her first ear infection. This is terrible, but I can't remember what the dr. said is causing the raspiness...she checked her out and said no pneumonia and once she even mentioned that, it was all I could focus on. I didn't even know it would be a consideration! Scary. Anyways, we have some antibiotic that will clear it up and the cough will just clear up in about a week. Fun stuff, these colds. We thought it was going to be croup because our friend's daughter just got that last week and Anna is in daycare with her, but I guess her cough wasn't "seal-like" enough. :) I just feel bad for her that she has an ear infection...I can tell it's bothering her because when we try to lay her down for bedtime or even naps she just isn't having it. Several occassions we've had to rock her to sleep holding her because she's so exhausted but just won't lay down. It breaks my heart. I know, it won't be the last time.

Okay, I'm up way past my bedtime, but I just thought I'd update you all on our exciting day. We are looking forward to Christmas in a couple of days but are behind in our preperations due to the snow and being sick. Eeekk! Who's going to come and wrap my presents?!?