Fire in the lungs and in the hearth

I've got this nasty cold. It's going around, I guess. You know the kind, where you wake up in the middle of the night, feeling the compulsion to swallow constantly, your throat burning all the while. The kind of cough that shakes your ribcage until you run out of breath and all you're left with is a wheeze. Even munching on leftover Halloween candy isn't helping. Imagine that.

Meanwhile the kids are suffering. Which means that I'm serving lackluster meals and snacks and I'm pretty sure no one's hair has been brushed in a while. They are all dressed in day clothes, though, so that's something. The house is a mess and I've got dead plants hanging up outside the house, recent victims of the frost we just had. Will I take them down and throw them out? Probably not for a couple days. I didn't even answer the doorbell when it rang today. The kids were all concerned, saying, "Mommy? Aren't you going to see who it is?"

"Eh," I said, making a shooing motion in the air. "It's probably just someone selling something. If it's important they'll come back." David and Sofia exchange looks as if to say, what's wrong with her?

But in all this there is one thing I managed to do. I got a fire going in the wood stove. I didn't have any newspaper or much in the way of kindling to get it started, but somehow I did it. It's all I've got to show for the day. That and this lame blog post.

cough. wheeze. bleah.