Sick-tober

The days following our trip to Alaska were not really all that delightful and in fact, Eleanor was the only one who made it out of October unscathed. She did sneeze once which had my nerves on edge for quite awhile because I wasn't sure we could handle one more thing. First I got the mighty cold and spent three days home from work more or less. On the first day I only went downstairs once and I only did that to say I did. I came right back to bed after about 15 minutes downstairs and I was exhausted from the climb. Joe caught it at the exact moment when I could survive without his help, which was an odd little blessing. It hit him hard, but luckily not as hard as it hit me. For some reason colds always hit me harder than anyone else and like to make the trip south into my lungs all too easily.

On one Saturday while we were sick, we decided that we had to get out of the house. Cabin fever was setting in and we had the itch to get out. We knew we wouldn't last long, so we just picked a few places we wanted to go downtown and decided to meander until we didn't have the energy to continue. We also thought it best not to go somewhere with friends and expose the whole world to our plague. For the most part, we kept our hands to ourselves. On our way downtown we drove past an old antique/crap store that we've driven by many times and I've always wanted to go in. Joe was interested too so we parked and went in. We cruised around and at one point both saw a table we admired. I said, "That's a nice table." Joe said, "Yeah." We kept walking but I found 3 leaves packaged together that said table leaves 5 $165 (There were two other leaves that were loose). I mentioned that it seemed to inexpensive for a table and leaves and wondered if they were selling the leaves separately, but that made no sense. We both thought it would be an amazing price for a table. We kept walking and looking and then left. We have a table; we didn't need a table.

On our way to our next stop I called my mom because I had a quick question to ask her that was not related to the table and yet I found myself talking about the table. After we had left Joe and I had both said again that the table had been very nice. I told my mom that I didn't know why I was talking about the table and in her infinite wisdom she pointed out that 1. our table only seats four, 2. we won't live in our house forever, 3. that is an excellent price for the table, 4. we will need a bigger table someday, 5. that I was probably talking about the table because um...I wanted it, and 6. that she would help us store a table if necessary.

It turned out Joe really wanted to the table too and we could see it as a member of the rest of our lives. I called my antiquing grandma for advice. She gave good advice and my favorite piece was "give it a good shake." So with that settled we turned around to see if that table price was too good to be true. Now, I should say that the table needs to be refinished and that it had no chairs, but $165 seemed like a steal. I asked the woman who owned the shop if the table and 5 leaves were indeed $165. I pointed to the price tag fully expecting her to say that I was missing a digit or misreading the number and she did. She said, "oh no, that's $145." Ok. We'll take it. So soon, two sickies were removing the legs from a table and loading it into their Subaru. It wasn't exactly the calm day we were looking for, but we felt like we struck gold. Here is the table in it's before pictures. It's currently in the garage in the midst of being refinished.



So, once you have a table, you need chairs. After we looked at every antique store in the area, (still sick, we don't know when to quit) we hadn't found the perfect chairs but did find a set of 6 with another table for only $200, which is amazing for chairs. Again they need work, but working on something just makes it more your own. We decided they would be fine for the moment because the table seats 12 when it's expanded and they could be our backup-scatter-around-the-house set for the future and they were still pretty good. Plus if we decide that we don't want them later, we can sell them, probably for a bit more because we will have spiffed them up. The extra table is going that route anyway. We're pretty excited about the chairs because they have cloth covered seats, which initially sounds like a bad idea, but when you consider that you can change them out whenever you want, they are fabulous! We can choose wild and ridiculous fabrics, or cover them with themes for parties! Once we're done with this whole refinishing project, we'll post before and after photos.

So, back to sick-tober. The whole time we were sick, we were pretty trepidatious. We had a half marathon coming up on the 24th. We weren't running and we weren't really able to taper because of that. We had fit in a short long run at Kyle and Abbey's 8-miles, but there really wasn't anything after that. Luckily we'd done 12 miles the week before. But I won't spoil the half marathon story. Joe get's to tell that one.

Wisely or not we did run, and unfortunately we didn't sleep as well as we could the two nights before. That wasn't such a bad thing for the half, but it did catch up with us afterward. We picked up our second table on our way home from the half marathon, exhausted of course, unloaded the car and had a wonderful pizza dinner...oh so good. American Dream Pizza with more sauce, less cheese, artichoke hearts, bacon, and basil. Yum Yum. We even ate it in bed and watched a movie. We had just turned out the lights to sleep sleep sleep when Luke climbed into the cat box, spent 5 minutes, and produced nothing. Ah yes, bladder issue number 3 for the last two years and issue number 2 for the last two months. Awesome. So we hauled our sorry selves out of bed, loaded the new sicky into the cat carrier and swung by our emergency vet's to see Dr. V, who we've seen so frequently now that he may as well be our regular vet. Dr. V is an amazing Dr. who is totally up on the research and likes to explain things. However, at 1 in the morning after a half marathon, I was so ready for the cliffs notes. Which were, not blocked yet, give drugs, watch closely. At 2:00am we were back in bed. Two days later, we came home after work and after having checked on Luke at lunch and Luke welcomed us with excellent energy. We thought all was going fine until (warning this may be more information that all of you want so feel free to skip ahead) there were little pink clumps in the box and he was looking glassy eyed, leaning back and dribbling bloody pee. So just like that we had him back in the carrier and were on our way to the emergency vet where he spent 2 nights and lots of money. He's home now, but we're going back to the vet today to make sure there's no linger infection. Oh, and he's started to sneeze in the last few days. Again, awesome.

Our wonderful cat on his first day home. He was so happy to be back that he hardly stopped purring.

All of that was pretty rough on us. We were both stressed and worried. We were behind on almost all tasks, and as we were trying to catch up we weren't getting much sleep or exercise. We still had lingering cold symptoms and our bodies and minds were threatening breakdown again. But I think we made it through. Truthfully, I'm just beginning to think that today. Let's hope we continue on the up and up.

But as you can see, Sick-tober had its silver lining. We got a table, ran a half marathon, I had an awesome birthday, and we finished off the month getting pumpkins with Virginia and carving them with Ben and Gail.


Here's to Wellvember!