The Quiet Game

This is the kind of week we've had around here :-) Everyone is sick (including Big Spike--he probably ate another dryer sheet). I walked into the bedroom this afternoon and came upon this scene. Big Spike is also on the bed--he's just under the covers, and Lily was asleep in her kitty bed. Everyone is pooped! I stayed home from work last Saturday (a week ago today) because I was getting a sore throat. On Sunday my sore throat had gotten worse, and then my right ear started to swell up. By Sunday night, my ear was HUGE, red, hot, and hurt a lot. Greg thought I had mumps or meningitis, so in a panic we went to the Prompt Care doctor. The doctor said I had "Cellulitis of the Ear." I said, "What is THAT???" She said it's just an infection of the skin. It probably originated from a little scratch I had on my ear. So she gave me some antibiotics, and Greg and I spent the rest of the evening looking for a 24-hour pharmacy.

My sore throat turned into a cold on Monday, but at least the antibiotics started working and my ear started shrinking. I stayed home from work again on Tuesday, but felt a bit better on Wednesday. Wednesday was a good day--I thought I was on the mend. So I went to work again on Thursday. But Thursday was a bad day. (Although something really good happened on Thursday--I saw my little friend Sterling Stowell from Charleston, whose class came to visit the Lincoln Home!) It seems that since I started working at the Lincoln Home, I lose my voice at least once a year. I could feel my voice going on Thursday afternoon. I told Jason Collins, who was in charge, that I was losing my voice, but he said we didn't have enough people working to be able to let me leave. So instead of going home, I had to give five back-to-back tours! On my last tour, I literally couldn't talk. I felt really bad for the people on my tour. I basically had to talk in a loud whisper. Seven different people suggested that I should try some tea with "honey and whiskey" in it when I got home. I just smiled and whispered, "Okay, thank you for the suggestion." Needless to say, I did not go to work on Friday or today--still no voice.

And now Greg is sick too :-( We're quite a pair. Last night Greg wanted me to ride down to St. Louis with him because he had to pick up Mrs. Evers. Unfortunately Mrs. Evers passed away in Texas and had to fly to St. Louis. She and I played the quiet game on the way home. I think it was a tie! So it's been pretty quiet around the house today, except for the occasional coughing/sneezing fit. We should probably put a quarantine sign outside so that no little kiddies come trick-or-treating here and get our germs!

Voyager

I have a confession to make: I've become a little bit nerdy. (I guess I've always been a little nerdy about things like history, but I have entered a new world of nerdiness.) I always thought that "Star Trek" was only for nerds, but Greg got me hooked on one of the Star Trek sagas: Voyager. It is SOOOOO good! The show ran for seven seasons, and for the past few months I have been watching it on DVD. "Voyager" has been my key to unwinding after a long day of dealing with grumpy visitors at the Lincoln Home. But the other day I finished the series. I was sad it was over and started going through Voyager withdrawals. So I found some novels written after the series and have been reading them all weekend (but I've had a good excuse to spend all my time reading--I've been home with a nasty sore throat for the last couple of days). I'm contemplating watching some of the other "Star Trek" series, but I don't think anyone can compare to Captain Janeway and her crew. I highly recommend "Voyager" to anyone who needs a fun and exciting diversion from real life :-)

Two Years!

Yesterday Greg and I celebrated our big #2 Anniversary! I can't believe it has been two years since we got married. To celebrate, we left bright and early to drive up to Nauvoo. What better place to spend one's wedding anniversary than at the temple? It was so nice to be there. One of the temple missionaries told us that we looked familiar. He asked where we were from, and when we said Springfield, he said, "Oh, we were just there a couple of weeks ago." I asked if they went to the Lincoln Home. He said, "That's where I saw you!" :-) After going to the temple and enjoying the nice fall weather in Nauvoo, we drove over to Peoria to check out some sports card shops. Then we drove back to Springfield and had a yummy dinner at the site of our first date: T.G.I. Friday's. Then we came home and watched football--sounds like a good day to me!

Today I got to see a heart beating on a sonogram--but it wasn't anything exciting--it was my own heart. It looked weird. Since it is breast cancer awareness month, and since, unfortunately, there is a history of said cancer in the family, our doctor wanted me to go have a sonogram. Most girls have sonograms to look at their babies--but my two sonograms have been to look at my internal organs. Luckily, unlike the result of my last sonogram (gallbladder), the result of this sonogram will not involve surgery!

The Great Pumpkin Patch

Today Greg and I did one of our favorite fall activities: visited the Great Pumpkin Patch in Arthur, Illinois. Mom and I first discovered the Pumpkin Patch back in 2007 while I was going to school at EIU, and now it has become a regular fall outing. It was the perfect fall day today! Today as I was eating my traditional pumpkin ice cream cone, we were remembering that last year when we went to the Pumpkin Patch it was freezing outside. But today it was sunny and 85 degrees.

I loved this little pumpkin house.








Here we are in front of Noah's Arc--filled with pumpkins and squash instead of animals. We loaded up on pumpkin butter and pumpkin bread, so we should be prepared for my yearly pumpkin fix. (Greg has already had to make me some pumpkin ice cream because my pumpkin fix started earlier than usual this year.)



And, of course, no trip to Arthur would be complete without swinging over to Flesor's Candy Kitchen in Tuscola--home of the BEST REUBEN IN THE WORLD! This is my favorite lunch: a chocolate Coke, and Flesor's special Reuben featuring warm, red cabbage instead of sauerkraut. Mmmmmmm. It was a yummy, yummy day. Today's advetures provided a much-needed break from Lincoln Home craziness. I'm pretty sure that place gets crazier every day. One of the rangers has started eating acorns off of the ground (maybe that would be okay if they were out in the woods, but I've seen the Springfield homeless people do some weird things with acorns). And the other day I almost started an international conflict with China. It was such a busy day, full of school buses, public tours, etc., and we had a group of 38 Chinese people show up wanting to go inside the house. Of course it was my luck to be stuck at the Visitor Center when they came. Their group leader and I talked in circles for about 15 minutes while I tried to explain why they couldn't go inside the house without a reservation. Finally I thought he understood, but then he went outside and asked several more rangers if they could see the house. Those rangers said no, so he came back in and talked in circles with me for another 20 minutes! Finally they left, but they said they would be back on Sunday (sorry to the rangers who worked on Sunday!). On Saturday afternoon I was working on some things in my office when I got a call from Kyle at the Visitor Center. He was mumbling about something, and then all of a sudden he said, very clearly, "Emergency!" right as the phone cut out. The phone literally died. I then looked outside and saw a fire truck at the Visitor Center. So I ran outside and learned that the Visitor Center had to be evacuated because the power had gone out, the boiler in the boiler room had overheated and started spewing smoke, and the Visitor Center had filled with carbon dioxide. And of course all of this happened at the busiest time of day. We moved our Visitor Center operations (handing out tickets and Jr. Ranger books) outside, and people kept coming up and asking us if they could go into the Visitor Center to use the bathrooms. We would say, "No, there are poisonous levels of carbon dioxide in there." Then they would seriously say, "So . . . I can't go in?" NO, YOU CAN'T GO IN! Silly people. This past week I also had some fun dinners. On Friday I met up with my grad. school buddy Laurie who was down in Springfield (from Chicago) for an archives seminar at the state capitol. It was so great to see her! She thought my Lincoln Home stories were funny (and disturbing). On Saturday Greg and I went to this really posh restaurant in Springfield called Augie's Front Burner with our friends Matt and Melissa. Greg had won a gift certificate for Augie's at a golf tournament earlier this year, so our $150 dinner was free! So it's been a fun and interesting week. I just have a little over a month left at the Lincoln Home before I get canned (they are, as usual, "out of money"), so I'll try to rack up as many interesting stories as I can before I leave. Next Monday is Greg's and my big #2 wedding anniversary, and yesterday was Mom and Dad's big #37 anniversary!!

Take Me Out to the Ball Game

This past Wednesday was the perfect day for baseball. Greg and I took the day off of work and went down to St. Louis to meet Sarah, Joel, Eliza, and Leo for their first-ever Cardinals game! I had originally contemplated calling in sick to work--because I am sick of work--but I decided to just use some annual leave. It turns out that was a good decision because my supervisor Barbara went down to the game that day too :-)


Leo loved his first baseball game. He was all decked-out in his Cardinals onesie and enjoyed watching all of the action.










Eliza especially loved Fredbird Field--the play area for energetic kids. When we were sitting in our seats before the game, she sat there quietly for a minute and then said, "Is it over yet?" :-) But she did enjoy watching "the guys," as she called the baseball players, and she was hoping they would hit a ball over our way so that she could hit it back.





Back at Fredbird Field, I tried snapping a picture of her on top of the Cardinals hat--but she was already leaping off to run the bases.








The Cardinals ended up winning. What a great game! After the game we had a delicious dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. And of course no trip to St. Louie would be complete without a stop at Ted Drewes for some frozen custard. Thank you, Agates, for such a fun day!