A holiday weekend, football, The Crud, and Texas tornadoes

I am back to the land of the living. But let's start at the beginning...my last post was 9/3. Here are some highlights since then...

Labor Day weekend: I thoroughly enjoyed a wonderful holiday weekend with family in Oklahoma, complete with excellent food, wine, beer, football, pooltime, and a painful sunburn. The drive up there was hellish as the entire world seemed to be on the highway. And no one seemed to want to go faster than 60 mph. What normally takes 2.5-3 hours took FOUR hours. Lucky for me, Mom had a home-cooked meal just waiting for me when I pulled up. It was awesome!! Mom and I did some shopping on Saturday before the football games and it was a blast. She is really getting into crafts and sewing and is making me a quilt and all kinds of neat stuff (more on that later). We went to a fabric store and I had no idea it could be so much fun! So many fabulous fabrics, so little time, and so little talent with which to utilize them...(that would be me, not Mom).

Football: My Sooners looked shakey during their first game, allowing too many penalties and barely scraping by for a win. This had me VERY nervous all week for last Saturday's game against FSU. OU's season opener-performance was less than stellar and FSU was obviously expecting a win. Thankfully, the Sooners pulled out a can of whoop-ass and laid it down...the smack down that is. Final score? 47-17. Wahoo!!!! We've moved up a few notches in the rankings and are a team to be reckoned with this season, baby! This Saturday we're up against Air Force which should be an easy win. I will be flying back to Oklahoma to go to an Oklahoma State game with an old coworker, Jane. It's the one time of year I turn into a Cowboy fan! :)

The Crud: Aptly named for how it makes me feel. It seems I come down with this ailment at least 2-3 times a year, usually when I travel, and almost always in September. The Crud consists of a sore throat, ear infection, sinus infection, fever, aches, chills, coughing, drowsiness, grouchiness, and basically me feeling sorry for myself and missing my Mommy and Daddy. God forbid I have to take care of myself, right??!! :)

I started feeling bad on Sunday before the drive back to Dallas from OKC. By Monday (an office holiday thankfully) I was miserable. Thinking it was just a sinus infection that would go away, I prepared to go into the office Tuesday. No dice. Tuesday was probably the worst, with a fever that just made me feel rotten. My whole body hurt, and the sunburn from the weekend was making me even more miserable. [It was a BAD sunburn because I fell asleep outside and then proceeded to wake up and chat with Mom while in the sun. At one point Dad was like, "Little Girl, you really need to get out of the sun because your back is getting red." Cut to my face, arms, shoulders, back, and legs being burned and almost purple. The ONE time I forget sunscreen, people!!] Okay, back to being sick...I was so cold from the fever/chills and tried to take a warm shower, but the hot water was literally stinging the sunburn. Poor, pathetic little me. Wednesday morning I get up and head to work, determined to show the boss my dedication. I don't even sound like myself, and my cough is causing heads to turn it's so full of the crud. Colleagues are shielding themselves from me, telling me to go home. The boss himself says I should go to a doctor. "But I don't have one yet since I moved here..." to which he responds, "There is a clinic near here and you need to go." (Note: Dear Mother had already urged me numerous times to go to the clinic but I didn't listen to her...big mistake). Turns out the clinic is right across from where I live, AND you can make an appointment online, AND they call you when it's time to come in. I leave work and head to the clinic during a virtual downpour. Sure, we needed rain, but 5-8 inches in one day was overkill. I was soaked by the time I got there. So it turns out I have an upper respiratory infection that could be viral or bacterial ("50/50 chance" the doctor tells me, which was of absolutey no help at all). I pay my $50 (yes, even with insurance it was $50--damn emergency clinics), take my Rx for antibiotics and head to Walgreen's when all I really want to do is shower and go to bed. I get further soaked running into the store and have to wait 10 minutes for it to be filled. So I did what any young, sick, single person does and stocked up on Ramen (at $0.39 a pop), as well as juice, cough syrup, and a decongestant. Thursday I get up and head into work again, only to practically fall asleep at my desk and continually wipe my sore, runny nose. I make it through an early afternoon meeting, coughing into my  kleenex, trying to avert the paranoid glares of coworkers, and then head back home. I finally worked a full day on Friday and started to feel back to normal. I continued to hack and cough all weekend, barely getting any of the long list of chores done. I did however get my sense of taste and smell back somewhat. I think The Crud is finally going away. I had to cancel all 3 personal training sessions last week and Mike even called to make sure I was doing okay. This week's sessions will be tough for sure.

Texas tornadoes: When I moved here from Oklahoma, I figured I was leaving most of the bad weather behind me. But not only did we receive buku amounts of rain last week (up to 10 inches in some areas), apparently 3 tornadoes touched down. One of those was too close to my neck of the woods.

To say the very least, it was a strange week indeed. But it's Monday, time to start fresh and hit the ground running!!