Broken Yours Yet?

I didn't make any resolutions this year. I don't think I made any last year. I'm trying to make each day an improvement and to put myself under the kind of pressure as required by one day of atonement would be a debilitating mistake. It's better, in my mind, to make smaller goals that can be accomplished and that work toward a larger change than it is to pin all your self worth and motivation on to a single looming quest at the beginning of the year.

So no I didn't quit smoking.

I didn't resolve to lose more weight (though for some inexplicable reason I've lost ten pounds in a month), I didn't resolve to draw more, drink less, clean/sober/shape up, be nicer to people, be more aggressive/understanding, have more self worth and better self esteem. Nothing like that. To me 2009 will be, as sports teams like to say after a miserable season, a year of rebuilding. We have a good team and we need to give them time to play together and develop those skills.

The BGF is rumbling along as well as can be. Work is unbearable and rare for some, mind numbing but at least steady for others. Like every one else, every where else, the belts are tightening though I don't know what they'll squeeze out. The whole house has officially been sick as well. It was either Strep or a really bad case of almost Strep. G-man got it first right before NYE, and then gave it to his sister. I did my best not to get it but ended up getting it right as Ms. A and Ms. LA came back from Louisiana. Ms. LA was sick for a while. Ms. LA's sister is staying with us until UT opens again for school. We both got it and now Ms. A's got it.

The difference between when mom gets sick and anyone else gets sick is an order of magnitude. There are three (four now) adults in our house so that at any one point, the kids are being looked to, played with, scolded, feed, washed, etc. Between the lot of us, you'd think those not feeling well could take some time to rest. It doesn't happen like that. Even before the advent of the BGF, when Ms. A was sick, she didn't get down time no matter what I did to help. The only thing I could have done better was to have taken the kids to another city for three days. I don't get sick that often but when I do I'm a worthless slug and Ms. A pulls double duty. When she's sick, for whatever reason, she can't get a break to recover.

So this time, even though I was with a sore throat, I felt fine. Good enough that I didn't feel the need to couch and watch Price Is Right for a few days. I had to take off work because I was likely contageous, and one night I had a hard time sleeping, but it's nothing like when Ms. gets sick. She's out of commission for days but still feels the need to clean or do laundry. She and Ms. LA are both home today and I hope Ms. LA is there to tell her to sit down and shut up and get better. I can't while I'm at work.

Carry on.