what's up weekly. (Thanksgiving, a lonnnng Covid saga and some Christmas prep.)

Whew, it's been a full two weeks since I last filled you in.  A very not-full two weeks as well, but also... very full.  So plan on settling in and reading for a while.  (Or don't; it's your loss.)

We took the week of Thanksgiving off from school, so we spent the first half of the week trying to get the house straightened up and some food prepped for later in the week.  I had the kids deep clean their rooms, I cleaned bathrooms and did laundry, and I made sure to have on hand the groceries we'd need for Thanksgiving.  I had been dealing with a mild cold - a cough, fever and fatigue - but we were still able to get quite a bit done.

But when it came time for food prep, I had so little energy and so many helpers that I was able to pass off basically all the prep work to the kids.  I had a team of potato peelers, and then once everything was cooked down in the pressure cooker, I had a little Lolo-shaped potato masher.   (I love making potatoes ahead - so easy and good!  I just cook them in the pressure cooker with broth and seasonings, flavor with tons of butter, and stick in an aluminum pan in the fridge to await their quick warm-up in the oven before dinner.)

My little Potato Taters.

Making cranberry sauce while the dry bread cubes await their time to shine.

They're not exactly tidy about it, but sweeping up potato peels later is much easier than peeling six pounds of potatoes myself.

I showed Atticus how to cut and cook the ingredients for homemade stuffing, and then set him to it.  He did an amazing job, and at Thanksgiving dinner, Penelope kept exclaiming, "This stuffing is EXQUISITE! It is just FANTASTIC!" (Again, we make it ahead, slightly undercook it so it doesn't dry out, then store it in a take-and-toss pan to heat up before dinner a few days later.)

I had purchased frozen pie shells, and Penelope made pumpkin pie filling and pecan pie filling from scratch.  She also made her famous cranberry sauce.

Laurelai made her signature (beautiful) green salad the afternoon before our meal, and Atticus helped me set the table.  We skipped making rolls, so the only thing I had to do on my own was throw the turkey in the oven and make the gravy at the end.  It ended up being the tastiest, most beautiful meal I think we've ever served, and the kids did almost all the legwork themselves.  I was so proud of them!

Isn't Lolo's salad stunning?  Every year.  Here's a salad game changer: serve it on a platter rather than in a bowl.  All the ingredients are on display, and stuff doesn't sink to the bottom or congregate in weird chunks.  Just evenly distributed prettiness for all to see.

Penelope's pies, along with the homemade whipped cream the girls made.

It was a good thing I could depend on them for so much, because my cold was getting worse and I was pretty strung out.  I spent much of the day sleeping, popping Tylenol and trying to breathe.  I did rouse myself long enough to help get things prepped for the table, but the fatigue was no joke and I had to do everything, including slicing the turkey, sitting on the kitchen floor.

Looks a little less appetizing here, doesn't it?

By Saturday, though, my breathing had become extremely labored and painful and I was taking four to five naps per day.  I was barely able to get out of bed, and things were not improving but getting worse.  So I got in touch with a Christian doctor in our area who is very knowledgeable about treating Covid.  I hadn't taken a test or anything, so we started not knowing exactly what I was dealing with - we suspected Covid or pneumonia.  (A home Covid test later came back positive.)  We tried a few natural treatments first, and while those did help take the edge off, I still wasn't improving much. 

 I really feel like my best features, and many of my best chins, are on display here.

So Monday she prescribed some steroids, an antibiotic and an anticoagulent, to treat the Covid and the small lung clots she suspected, and I have felt a MILLION times better since starting those.  (My doctor is willing and able to prescribe both HCQ and Ivermectin, but I was too far into my illness for those to be effective treatments.  They work best early on.)  I am still not out of the woods, and I still sleep a lot, but I can breathe and talk and actually get out of bed.  I am a full two weeks into this, and I'm hoping to fully kick it soon - I have been worried about not having enough energy or lung capacity to labor well, but I do think I am past needing to worry about that.

I am going to take a second to clarify here, for those that may be wondering: my thoughts on Covid and the vaccine haven't changed.  

I am still very glad I have not been vaccinated (it wouldn't have done anything for me anyway, other than expose me and the baby to vaccine risks.  According to the data, it wouldn't even have prevented me from getting Covid or suffering with it.  And now I have antibodies, which are a better protection than the vaccine in the long run anyway).  

I still think Covid is dangerous for a small group of people, but a large majority can recover fine at home.  I still think that hospitals and hospital protocols, like venting patients and denying them safe, proven medical treatments, are killing more patients than Covid itself.  If these patients were under the care of a professionally free and knowledgeable doctor in a professionally free and Hippocratic medical system, there is no reason that our death rate would be so high.  

And while there were definitely scary moments in there for me (it was probably the sickest I've ever been), I don't think the global hysteria is proportional to the actual illness.  

So there's that, if you were tempted to start slinging "Ha-ha-has" around.  (And if you were, please understand that you were tempted to be happy someone was sick.  That's a pretty low place to find yourself.  Could be time for a little soul-searching, I don't know.) 

Okay, now that that's out of the way.

Because I've been out of commission, Todd has basically been our rock.  (We're pretty sure he already had Covid over the summer, so he seems to be immune.)  I couldn't even begin to name all of the ways he has kept our house running, our kids fed, my med schedules organized, and everyone thriving.  He has been such a steady source of comfort and routine for all of us.  He has spent a lot of the time with the kids, and even made them special breakfasts a few times (pancakes, waffles, sausage, ON A PRETTY PLATTER - GOOD breakfasts).  He even took them by himself to pick out our Christmas tree on Black Friday.

They found the perfect one.  He has been dubbed, "Bonifer."

He also took them for a walk on Saturday, when the weather was in the sixties and gorgeous.

Rocco got beaned by a stray rock.  Also, his eyes are suddenly getting much darker for some reason.  This isn't just a trick of the camera - his eyes and hair are changing color.

On Sunday, I did manage to rouse myself enough to get the lights on the tree so the kids could decorate.

This week has been kept low-key so that we can kind of move forward where we can, but I can also have a lot of margin for rest and recovery.  Todd took Monday and Tuesday off of work to help me.  The kids have done their independent school work in the mornings, but we've taken the rest of the day off each day because I don't have the energy or the breath to spare for read alouds.  I've made a little headway on a few things that fell behind - I got our sheets washed, our laundry caught up, and a grocery pickup placed for tomorrow.  I also try to get one or two Christmas items pulled out at a time when I'm feeling decent, so things are going up slowly but surely.  

Todd does amazing chalkboard drawings for holidays and new months.

We kicked off our Advent celebrations with a viewing of Muppets Christmas Carol.

This is where I've lived for the last two weeks, so it's looking pretty destroyed, but it contains all the things I need to survive: cooler full of meds, doppler for checking on the baby, electric heat pack, nebulizer, blood pressure cuff, pulse oximeter, bath robe, pillows for all my naps.  You know.  All The Things.

And the kids kept the house full of joy, as usual:

Juni was dressed so cute, but she wouldn't smile.  The magic trick to getting a big smile out of her is to tell her to do her Donald Trump impression.  Up go the thumbs, and the smile just kind of happens alongside the thumbs.  It can't be helped.

And THAT was what we were filling our time with around here for the last couple of weeks.  Whew!