I miss my laptop.

That is all.

There are probably millions of people out there who believe in the practice of running to the doctor for every sniffle, cough, or bout of diahhrea.

I am one of those people.

Granted, MOST of the time there is actually something wrong with me that can be described as an infection and you can’t buy antibiotics at the drug store. If you could I would skip the $25 copay and just diagnose myself. It’s always one of three things: sinus infection, upper respiratory infection or a urinary tract infection. Okay, so the symptoms of the last one aren’t the same as the first two but those are basically the only illnesses I ever get. I used to get strep throat once a year but I’ve been downgraded to upper respiratory infection which actually sounds worse.

Every morning after I eat breakfast I take a prenatal multi-vitamin (no, I’m not pregnant but prenatals are the BEST vitamins) and a vitamin C supplement. I wash my hands, use hand sanitizer, and I even cover my mouth with my elbow when I cough or sneeze. You’re welcome.

And yet I somehow still get sick.

My husband, however, never gets sick. He takes vitamins too and yes, he washes his hands but he isn’t a germophobe like me. He doesn’t have half-taken prescriptions in the medicine cabinet like I do. In fact, the man hasn’t been to the doctor since he pinched his sciatic nerve two years ago and had to be carried down three flights of stairs by EMT in this weird little chair since he was too tall for the gurney.

Anyway, he never gets sick. And you know why? His body creates its own antibodies like it’s supposed to and hasn’t built up an intolerance to it.

HOWEVER, my never-sick hubby? Is fucking sick. And man, is he being a pain in the ass.

Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say? Men are such babies when they’re sick. Blah blah blah.

In my case? Total bullshit. Jacob has a stomach bug (like what I had in November that killed me for a week) and he’s taking it easy but he still helped me around the house and watched Avery so I could go to the gym. The only time an adult gets to be demanding and lazy is when he’s sick and he’s fucking blowing it. Stay in bed, I encouraged him. I’ll bring you something to drink. I head to the kitchen and he hops up and unloads the dishwasher. Really? Go sit down (after you finish unloading). LET ME TAKE CARE OF YOU!

He has only been whiny once and that was because we were out of ibuprofen and I forgot to pick some up on my way home from running other errands. I eventually got some the next day and he managed to survive until then.

I’m not sure why he’s not being a big baby. Maybe my husband has evolved. From what I read on other women’s blogs and on Twitter it sounds like my husband is superior in many ways.

And you know why?

Because he’s a fucking robot, duh.

No, not really. He’s just amazing and he works so hard for his family that I wonder if he knows how to shut off and just BE. At least while he’s sick he can rest. That is, if he’ll let himself do it.

*Obviously this is incorrect.

I know that none of you will be heart broken by the following:

I am going to take a break from this blog for a week. I have other projects that need my attention and I stress over trying to write good content and it’s exhausting. I want to be funny and poetic and fucking brilliant and rather than try and fail I’m just not going to do it at all.

But just for a week.

I will still be posting my daily photo and frequently updating my 5k training/weight loss blog. I will also be working with Melissa over at her masterpiece You Won’t Go Blind where I am an editor as well as a contributor (and I will contribute this week!). I also need to focus on finding a job which includes perfecting my resume and applying for positions. Looking for a job is a full time job in itself.

In addition to the writing I’ll be doing elsewhere I will also be tackling some work that needs to be done around the house.

See you next week. Love you.

When one lives in north Texas (or anywhere, really) it is impossible to predict the weather. Today may be a fabulously sunny and brisk winter day but tomorrow? Who the fuck knows! It’s weather Russian roulette and everyone loses.

Since this winter has been unusually warm I have been trying to spend as much time outdoors as possible. I know that the dreary grayness of REAL winter is coming and I don’t want to take the sunshine for granted.

We live in a subdivision that has many playgrounds and lucky for us the nicest and least spider-infested one is at the end of our block. I get on our coats and we walk past less than ten homes before we’re at the park. It’s nice. I feel lucky. Never in my dreams did I imagine that this is what I’d want when I grew up. The American Dream wasn’t in the cards for me. I was going to be alone forever hopping from city to city, never curing my wanderlust and making sure that my mother was always right about one thing- I can’t finish anything I start.

So I’m walking, holding my tiny daughter’s blue nailpolished hand as I keep her from running into the street and she sees the playground. Forget keeping her next to me. She takes off for the stairs, climbs, goes down the slide, back to the stairs, and repeat. She’s laughing and making sure that I am watching her. Another mom and toddler pair walk up and her kid, a little boy not much older than Avery, finds Avery and then run around each other for awhile. She picks up mulch and throws it into the air like confetti. He mimics her. I smile at his mother apologetically, sorry that my kid is a bad influence.

I start to get bored so I pull out my phone and send a few tweets and text messages. Just as I’m sending a text to my husband my kid walks up to me, shows me her hands, and says “Mommy, mess?” She had been playing with what looked like a clod of dirt and was showing it to the boy so now her hands were muddy.

Wait a fucking minute.

That isn’t mud. I smell her hand. It’s shit. I panic.

I check her diaper. Clean. Where the hell did she find poop? The mother of the little boy checks his diaper. Nope. Clean. She walks over to where the kids were playing to investigate and finds a huge pile of dog shit buried under a layer of mulch.

She hands me a baby wipe so that I could clean Avery’s hands and we both decide to head to our respective homes. As we walked away I told her that I would email our HOA to complain about the dog shit and how fucking ridiculous it is and OMG PICK UP AFTER YOUR GODDAMN DOG.

The more I thought about it the more angry I got. What if Avery had eaten the poop? What if the dog had worms or some other funky diseases in its poop and she ingests it?

More importantly, WHAT IF SHE HAD EATEN THE POOP AND KISSED ME ON THE MOUTH?