Escape Weekends, Birthdays and Terrible Head Colds...

What is it about finishing a big deadline or task that invariably has your body crashing afterwards? Nick has been fighting allergies or a cold since going back to school and now I’ve come down with an absolutely horrid head cold... as a birthday present I’d rather NOT have had. Maybe once you get past 40, the warranty begins to run out a bit!

Our family had a glorious weekend of badly needed escape and family time up at Camp Tawasi this past weekend with about 35 other people from our church. It was time to get messy, walk on the beach, sit and chat, play with our kids and just enjoy a recharging weekend in the midst of all the back to school chaos. This is the 4th year that we’ve been and it has become a much-anticipated part of our fall rituals. We even got to try out Bethany’s Dragon Kite... but it spent most of the time diving to earth instead of soaring, which is kind of how this dragon feels right now!

I begin to understand the attraction of doping oneself up on cold medicine... but being hypo-thyroid, I really can’t take most of the drugs out there that would offer relief. Instead, I am honking away into piles of soggy tissue, putting vaseline on my nose so that it won’t feel so chapped, drinking warm liquids, sucking on cough drops and feeling pretty sorry for myself.

But amid all the germs, there were wonderful birthday memories as well. Of 41 cupcakes set on fire up at camp as they sang to me on Sunday morning, calls from family and friends, e-mail greetings from special people, an unexpected bouquet of flowers and some great hugs!! Now if I could just invent a bottomless box of kleenex!!!!!