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!
