January 14, 2013

Recovery Weekend

It's nice to feel like a real person again, after a whole week of coughing, sniffling, and wincing every time someone close to me emitted anything louder than a whisper. I'm almost happy to be awake so early this morning, because I'm just so darn relieved to be getting back into something that resembles my normal schedule, before holidays and holiday-induced eating and holiday-induced lack of motivation and the-cold-that-was-here-to-stay. Getting to the gym this morning was -- dare I say it? -- refreshing. We'll see how long that lasts.
This weekend was a wonderfully normal one, the kind where you sit back at the end and think, "well, that was... nice." Just boring enough to make you appreciate the exciting weekends even more. Sometimes you need a little mundane and familiar, right?
My weekend actually snuck all the way into Thursday, since that morning I woke up, dragged myself into the shower, took one look at myself in the mirror, and though, "Self, it's just not going to happen today." I called into work and settled in for a blissful 4.5 hour nap. It was the best I had slept all week, but in the end proved ineffective -- I woke up feeling even worse. I laid low for the rest of the day, escaping the house only to take the puppy for a walk before hunkering down on the couch again. I might have eaten pie for dinner and gone to bed over an hour early. Not a bad way to end a sick day.
Friday was a roller-coaster of a day, back and forth between feeling the worst I'd been all week to wondering if I was finally getting better. I woke up feeling a tiny bit improved, and promptly decided to push my luck by going to the gym. I stuck to the low-key neighborhood gym (as opposed to the big one that I love but knew would be full of people) and took it super easy, but even my slow elliptical shuffle was enough to set me wheezing rather quickly. A big, delicious breakfast at work for a coworker's birthday helped for a while, but the morning dragged on and by lunchtime I really wanted to crawl under my desk. I tried to lift the mood by hanging up some wedding pictures, but even that provided only a temporary, adrenaline-fueled respite, followed by a long, terrible afternoon. I felt so awful by the time I got home that I barely acknowledged that my sweet husband had spent the entire day cleaning before crashing into bed. Unfortunately we had to run out that evening, but picking up dinner on the way home and enjoying it from bed seemed to revive me -- I went to sleep that night finally feeling optimistic.
On Saturday morning, the clouds parted. I slept late and woke up feeling so much better that I was actually thrilled to get out of bed. Dan headed into work and I had the whole day, so I took my time and relished the fact that I had no reason to rush. I hit the gym for a long, slow workout, showered, stopped for a bagel and coffee (and a delicious "would you like to add a cookie for 99 cents?" lapse in responsibility), and headed home to read, clean, and cook all afternoon. I whipped up some taco soup in the crockpot, and Dan and I spent the evening on the couch, catching up on the fantastic second season of Downton Abbey (I am determined to watch at least part of season three when it actually airs).
It felt like spring here on Sunday, so we packed up the puppy for his first dog park experience. We made a wonderful discovery about 10 minutes from home -- a huge park with tons of space to run around, lots of trees and sticks to chew, and plenty of canine friends on a warm Sunday afternoon. The best part, though, was the fact that this park's boundaries are three parts fence, one part huge lake. Teddy wasn't so sure about the water at first...

... but dad took care of that pretty quickly. After an extensive game of hide-and-please-don't-come-any-closer with the big dogs, the three of us went for a hike in the hills around the lake. Teddy did so well on and off leash, and we took home one muddy, exhausted little ball of fur. We rounded out the evening with dinner with Dan's brother and his girlfriend, a fro-yo stop, and two more episodes of Downton before an early bedtime.
All in all, a boring, quiet, and wonderfully germ-free weekend. Perfect.

   Love,

    Meg

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