10:51 a.m.

Miraculous recovery! One day of misery, and I feel normal again. Could it be the six cups of water I’ve faithfully drank for each of the past two days? Could it be the four or five doses of echinacea/goldenseal extract I took throughout yesterday? Could it be the colour lamp I dozed under for one out of every three hours thoughout the night? Could it be all that sleep yesterday? I don’t know; I’m just happy to feel human, to feel like going to town today, to feel like being alive is a good thing.

I cancelled my morning appointment with the doc, and postponed it till next week. It was just to get the results of the mammogram, and if it’s pressing she’d surely call me and say so. I was starting to feel rushed. I’d spent the first hour of the morning answering an email, and the second hour on the phone with my sister, and would have had to hurry through bathing, eating, dressing. Who needs it? This is why I live the life I do: because I don’t want to have to rush around unless it’s absolutely essential. The appointment can wait.

Instead, I’m going to relax in lavender-scented bathwater. Then I’m going to take Barney out for lunch, and deposit a couple thousand dollars into my bank account. Then if I’m up to it I’ll go buy groceries. And if I don’t feel like it, I’ll go tomorrow instead, when Don can come along. He loves a trip to the Co-op store, where he can cruise the aisles for people he knows. Unlike Barney, who is interested in the food on the shelves and likes to push the cart, and couldn’t care less who we see.

Farmbeau wanted me to stop on the way back from the doc’s office and take pictures, to send to his cousin in Sweden, of the building he has just constructed. I hope he won’t be disappointed if I don’t get there today, but after the doc visit a week from now. He will be expecting me today and may be a little put out if I don’t show up. He asked me twice to stop in there, so it must be important to him. The first time, I said Why would I do that? Stand there in the cold and watch you work? I can do that right here in our own yard. It was this morning he said he’d like me to come and take a picture. So I guess that was the reason.

He came in about 7:00 last night. I was laying on the couch, reading, resting. He takes off his big boots in the porch, then comes down the stairs and takes off insulated overalls, jacket, and lays them along the side of the wide steps or hangs them over a door. I watch him appreciatively as he removes his outer workclothes. His body is so solid and vital, his movements so graceful, purposeful, strong. My eyes feast; my heart warms; I love the man.

I wish I had his energy and ambition, his urge to accomplish, his drive to work. Even a little bit of it. I seem content to just ‘be’ and hesitant to tackle anything requiring staying power and elbow grease.

It’s the way we were raised. He had to work hard as a child and as a teenager; I got to play. It’s what we expect to give to life, and life to give to us.

It’s our natures. He is a Virgo; I am an Aquarius. His spirit is of the earth; mine is of the air. He moves physical things around; I fly on dreams and thoughts.

10:13 a.m.

Barney is cold this morning, so he has bundled up to do his schoolwork at the kitchen table. Slippers, tuque, several warm shirts.

There’s that dark, tiny kitchen ... which we will live with for yet another year. I thought we might very well build the new one this fall, so didn’t invest time doing anything to this one. After all, if we build a new one, this old one’s going to be our bedroom. The scratched-up, ancient cupboards will be ripped out; the wallboard and crap will be replaced by new gyprock at the very least; nothing will stay but the lino, which I plan to cover with a large area rug presently stored in Ma and Pa’s basement.

But now, I’m looking at living in the room for another year, and thinking Hm. One year, fine, but two ... I really ought to at least paint it to brighten it up. It’s not possible that the paint could make it uglier than it already is. Is it?

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Here’s hoping that a couple scrambled eggs will relax my neck, and 15 drops of echinacea extract will give my white blood cells an edge against the sinus cold that attacked early last night. I had to go back to bed this morning after seeing Don out the door, but am now feeling well enough to be up and dressed, at least.

Just as I was saying “almost mended!” too, from the cough thing. Okay, maybe it’s my own fault, for I swapped deep spit the previous afternoon with a man suffering a nasty cold. Should have known better, but figured I’d already been exposed to them for several days so should have some immunity built up against that particular virus.

I’m dead tired of being sickly. Something must be done. It’s not as if I haven’t been dosing with echinacea extract over the past weeks. Okay, not regularly, but frequently. And it’s not as if I haven’t been eating oranges and drinking juice, or getting enough sleep. It’s not as if I’ve been stressed out.

What else can I do? Make sure to drink enough water. Cut my caffeine intake back from two cups a day to one, or none. Quit the frigging smoking. Eat more greens. Take the rosehip Vitamin C daily.

If I start feeling better today I’ll make up a pitcher of the Master Cleanser and binge on that until the lemons are gone. Can’t hurt.

I am disheartened though. I want to feel myself again, dammit.

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4:24 p.m.

How bad is that, when all you have to talk about is your ill health? Gad! I’ve slept most of the day, and thought several times about making an entry here, and put it off because the only thing on my mind is how crappy I feel.

I know, it could be worse.
Excuse me while I sneeze and blow my nose for the zillionth time.