Starting Fresh

A new beginning.  A fresh start.  An untouched page on a brand new calendar.  Exciting, isn't it?  The endless possibilities for the year are just waiting for me to grab them.

I'm not a resolution maker.  I never have been.  However, I love the start of a new year.  Something about filling in the desk calendar, turning those pages writing in the notes and reminders I already have for the coming months just seems to build the anticipation for what's to come.

Fortunately, the new desk calendar came early this year.  Because I was not aware of the New Year holiday.  Even today, when we're seven days into the year, I'm still having to look at the calendar to determine what date to write.

The blur of the holidays ended and in my endless planning and organizing, I made mental notes to scrap and toss several preparations that after the fact, seemed to be time sucking joy stealers.  It was a lovely holiday, but I was also glad to close the chapter because I was just so stinking tired.  Perhaps it was a hint of what was approaching.

The flu.

I've managed to escape any illnesses for a few years now.  I've had the occasional cold, or my ever present migraines have popped up, but actually being down and out is a distant memory.

Well, no more.  By New Year's Eve, I was wrapped in blankets wondering what my name was.  New Year's Day became the day that disappeared, because I have no recollection of it.  I actually called in sick to work which does not happen often in my world, especially with one of our busiest times of the year happening.  I actually considered that maybe I'd get alot of reading done while trapped in a house with a box of Kleenex and then the fever hit, crushing any thoughts of any kind from my brain.

It's a bastard of a virus.

A week into the new year and I'm human again.  Just in time for our fantastically wild sale and restocking of our store.  And lucky me, I find out exactly how much energy that flu zapped from my body when I try to do the normal things.  The typical hauling and moving things around leaves me feeling like I tried to stop a train on it's tracks.  No amount of sleep seems like quite enough, and the usual fits of giggles and laughter make me hack up a lung.

I am a fantastically bitchy and petulant sick person.  Not only does it make me occasionally feel like gouging someone's eyes out, but I also ignore my body and give it a big ol' fuck you and try to make it do what it's normally capable of doing.  And then suffer for it.

So I come home exhausted, to the sick husband.  The sick daughter (who started this little in home epidemic) has left for college again.  The teenage son is the miracle boy who doesn't even have the slightest sniffle.  The house becomes messier.  The Christmas decorations, including a monster tree, still sit.  Mocking me.  Taunting my lack of progress.  Reminding me that 2015 has started with me not having my shit together.

And as the flu makes it's exit, the polar vortex arrives.  Negative temperatures.  Wind chills diving it even further into temperatures that are just inhuman.  Bitter cold becomes a normal conversational phrase.  The drive to work slows down as the roads cover.  Layers upon layers of clothing just to shovel snow while freezing the snot in your nose becomes one of the early morning joys I enjoy.  School cancels.  Work does not.

Piss off 2015.  Just piss off and die.

So, having purged that, there is the bright side.   The little peek of sunshine blinding off the fields of snow.  The rays of happiness that give warmth to the days.

A full propane tank, since the furnace runs non stop to stay ahead of the -30 just outside the windows.

A nose that has stopped peeling, because I've stopped (mostly) blowing.

A mattress heater.  Preheated ovens are fantastic, but a preheated bed is beyond anything you've ever imagined.

Snow shovels.  Shoveling snow while the sun rises will wake you up more than any cup of espresso.

Restocking the store.  All the pretty things.  The bright colors of spring.  Starting fresh and new.

A husband home sick.  So if the pipes freeze, he gets to deal with it.  I've had more than my share of frozen pipes, and it's his turn.

Remote start.  The best part of winter.  Along with the heated seats.  It may be so cold that it feels like my glasses have frozen to my face, but once I'm in the vehicle, it's almost as good as the preheated bed.

Weather so atrocious that you can do nothing but read books.  And more books.  And more books.

So, ending on a high note, there are positives.  I have to search high and low for them right now, but they are there, waiting to be embraced.  I suppose I also should admit that I've been inspired by a fellow blogger who has set a goal to write more.  I had considered tossing this blog, especially when thinking of all the reading I could do instead.  However, there is something therapeutic in writing, and of course, it limbers up the fingers that are half frozen as I drink my cup of quickly cooled espresso this morning.  Perhaps we can motivate each other.

Embrace the new year.  Look for the positives.  It's a resolution worth making.