Jan 28

Jan 28 STILL UNWELL

‘I don’t care what you say, I’m not going to school today’, came the faint words from my son’s room this morning as I knocked on his door.

‘What?, I didn’t hear you’, I responded, as I really did not hear what he said.

‘I feel really sick and threw up two times last night’, he replied.

Well, that was that. He definitely was not going to school today.

Again, he slept almost the entire day. I worked for a while and then, shortly before noon, the power went out. But it wasn’t a complete outage. The fairy lights in the hallway were dimmed. Something I’ve never before seen. Also, the clock on the oven and stove was on, but the stove did not turn on. I was about to make a small cake, as my daughter was coming over for the night.

I called the leasing office to report the outage and almost immediately received a text stating that the entire complex has no power and they had no knowledge of when it would be restored. I texted my daughter to see if her school had power. They did not. At least partially. We received an email from the principal stating that they ‘have lost power in portions of the building’ and that school will resume normally.

I thought I would use the time of no power to start another hat. I cast on the stitches and then messed up on the second setup round, which prompted me to unravel what I had done. I will start again tomorrow. I had completed the fourth hat and that was my goal for the day.

When the power resumed about half an hour later, I checked my work emails to see if anything needed to be done. Not at the time.

The lemon cake was next. I measured out and mixed together the ingredients, making a few changes to my original lemon poppyseed cake, and placed the 5-inch baking pan into the now-functioning oven.

About an hour before my daughter showed up, I heard my son stirring about in his room. It appeared he was feeling a bit better, but he knew he needed to move the piles of Lego pieces from his floor to make room for the mattress for his sister.

When she arrived, we ate split pea soup and homemade naan bread. The bread being made from a simple mixture of self-raising flour and yoghurt. My son went to his room, as he was still unwell, and my daughter and I sat at the table talking about her plans to find a college in Edinburgh. She agreed to go, but only if I can move with her. With a little over a year left until she graduates, I need to find a way to make that happen. Otherwise, she will have to find a school here in the States.

In the evening, I sauteed some beef stir fry pieces with onions and mixed them with a salad kit with chipotle ranch dressing for dinner. By then, my son was awake again and ready to eat dinner. And lemon cake. Before bedtime, we watched three episodes of ‘Friends’.

As for the future, one never knows what lies ahead. We can only take things a day at a time as we work towards our goals.