by Ashley
Only a couple short days after publishing this post about our outrageous electricity bill, our family was stricken with an evil illness bug that has yet to fully eradicate our home!
First, Child 1 is ill (throw-up type of sickness).
Three days later, Child 2 is ill (throw-up type of sickness).
Two days later, hubs and I become ill (thankfully neither of us actually vomited, but just a general run-down, achy type of exhaustion).
One day later, now Child 1 has pink eye.
One day later, now Child 2 has pink eye.
Two days later, now I’m pretty sure allergy season is kicking in and my seasonal allergies are driving me crazy.
Sooo, yeah. Lots of illness. It’s been quite the struggle trying to balance child-care (obviously cannot attend preschool while vomiting and/or having pink-eye) and work.
And the other big implication is that I’ve been doing a LOT of laundry. Obviously my allergies cannot be passed by contact, but all of the other illnesses I mentioned CAN. And therefore, I’ve been on a house-cleaning rampage: laundering every towel, pillow case, sheet, blanket, etc. that has come in contact with anyone who has been ill. It’s ridiculous. I think on a single day I managed to do nearly 10 loads of laundry (the majority of which were bedding or towels).
Aside from this little snafu, we’ve actually been doing pretty well trying to keep our electricity usage under control.
I’ve yet to turn on the A/C even a single time since writing about our electric bill. Even though here in Tucson we’re seeing highs already in the mid-80s, I’ve just been living with the warmth, opening doors and windows to let in the cool morning air, and spending time outdoors in the sunshine (where, magically, mid-80s feels glorious! How’s that work? Indoors a mid-80s temp feels sweltering but outside it feels like heaven!?)
I’m going to see how long I can last without turning on the A/C at all. We definitely warm up here much faster than the rest of the country (some of which, I realize, is still below freezing as I’m bragging about our gorgeous weather). So I’ll be happy if I can make it until mid-March. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, excuse me posts are a little less frequent. I have lots of topic ideas I need to actually sit down and write, but time is limited given all the catch-up I’m playing at work since I had to spend so much time in doctor’s offices and at home with sick kids last week. You can all relate, right?
In that regard, is this some type of cosmic come-back? I was bragging just the other day about how long it had been since anyone in the family had been sick. I made it the entire Fall semester without missing work a single day for my own or my children’s health issues. But this semester has been one set-back after another! Ugh! Here’s hoping it quickly passes (and that my allergies don’t flare up just as other illnesses subside. Sigh).
Happy Moan-day! Har har har!
Hi, I’m Ashley! Arizonan on paper, Texan at heart. Lover of running, blogging, and all things cheeeeese. Freshly 40, married mother of two, working in academia. Trying to finally (finally!) pay off that ridiculous 6-digit student loan debt!
We may be getting freezing rain, ice, and snow ending tomorrow evening. I can’t image 80 degrees until at least July. Hope your family feels better soon. Nothing worse then vomiting children. Pink eye is not to far behind. Cheryl
Yes. Vomiting children is no bueno! Hubs and I made a deal back in the day that I’d handle poop-related issues (diapering, toilet training, wiping, etc.) and he’d handle vomit-related issues. Well, that works all fine and dandy when he’s actually home but of course the kids time their vomit for when their Dad is at work! (just jest, of course they’re not purposely timing their vomiting). I think he’s only had to clean up ONE (out of countless) messes! Ugh!
On the other hand, it’s amazing how the Mom thing just kicks into gear and I get it done much better than I would’ve expected. Not like I enjoy it, but I definitely thought cleaning human vomit would make ME vomit, for sure. Hasn’t turned out that way. I just get it done. (haha, sorry this is so graphic!)
Hope everyone feels better soon! When I was growing up, my family went through a similar thing. First my dad threw up, then my brother, then my mom and me over the period of a week. I think if you ask any one of us, we all remember that time when we were all sick!
Ugh! That’s so awful! Worst thing ever when it just passes around like that! I was actually kind of shocked that it even passed from one child to the other because I was like a Ninja with laundry. I IMMEDIATELY got everything washed, kept the kids separated, and meticulously ensured there was no cross-contamination (so to speak). Somehow it still passed. Sigh. The kids do seem to be on the recovery end of things. I do think we’ve all come down with colds, but that’s much more manageable than flu/pink eye (and you can still go to preschool with a cold, thank goodness!)
Hope you are all getting better. So sorry to hear about the progressive illness.
Watch out for your water bill with all those loads of laundry. My water bill jumped a good bit when I had company who did several unexpected loads of laundry. And if you ran the dishwasher extra amounts to sanitize everything, your water bill can take a leap. I ran mine twice a day when I had a new born baby to sterilize everything, then quickly rethought the idea when the water bill doubled!
Enjoy your nice weather!