I am finally not sick anymore! I truly thought my head might split open. I had even envisioned how that might look when it happened, but I am finally not sick anymore!

This past week has been an insane emotional roller coaster for me. I think that is what pushed the sickness. My body had had enough of my fretting. Have you ever had expectations of an event only to have all your expectations fall through? That was how I felt about last week. My first mishap was my emotional meltdown spawned by absolute grief and missing my Mommy. I had been keeping myself so busy that I felt my sadness bombarded me. It was very painful to realize I would wake up on Thursday and my mom would not be there for Thanksgiving. This is my second holiday season without her, but as a lady at my job pointed out, last year was a blur. This was the year that I had time to think about that fact that she was gone, and it was very painful.

My actual Thanksgiving day was not so much a mishap as much as a disappointment. Apparently I was late, again. That is really getting old. I am not "late" because I mean to be or even by accident. I was actually ready to go at one p.m. When I talked to my sister, neither of us could remember what time she said to have people come over, so I said I would be there around 2:30 or three. I did get there around three, and I thought I was on time. However, S's mom was already there with his family, and they had already had the appetizers set up and the food was coming out of the oven. I was really just upset from that point on. I had really had my hopes set on going to my sister's house and hanging out for an hour or two before the food was actually ready. That was thrown out the door as soon as I got there. We started eating about 20 minutes after I got there. That in itself was sort of stressful because there were just as many little ones as there were adults, and someone had to help get them food. I only got food for two little ones, but after that, my sister had the baby and ate in her room. The kids were in the kitchen with two of the other adults, and some of us were in the living room. I didn't eat much because I wasn't very hungry. When I was done, I went to crochet in my sister's room with her, and after about 3o minutes with her, my Grandma was ready to leave. I was responsible for taking her home, and my younger brother had asked me to take his girlfriend home about 15 minutes farther than where I was already going. He asked me last minute, and that just pushed whatever buttons I had left because he knows I can't stand when he does that. I left my sister's house around 5:30 or 6 and spent the next hour running people home and to the gas station. I really laid into my brother for doing that again, and he apologized and gave me gas money. Apparently, during that hour that I was running people around, I missed the time when my family was actually sitting and talking with each other. That just made me even more angry.

I had said before Thanksgiving that I was not going to be running on someone else's schedule throughout the day, and that is exactly what I did. That night, my throbbing headache came back, and I spent the next two days on the couch. I also missed two days of work, which was fantastic because Big T missed two days last week and the plant closed down all week for Thanksgiving this week. My co-workers were great, though. They offered to work my shift for me because they could see how awful I felt and didn't want to get sick. It's the time for flu fears.

In good news, though, I am making much headway on my sister's oldest daughter's socks. I have also learned how to use looms to make hats, and I managed to make it to Joann Fabrics on Black Friday to get my some 45 yards of flannel to make pajamas for my family. I am finally feeling like myself again. We are going to get our tree up soon, and the semester is almost over. There are finals next week, and I could not be more thrilled to be done with it. I am taking a small break next semester, taking only two classes, and I hope to have a wonderful Christmas season from here on out. However, I will probably not have such high hopes this time. I will also make sure I am on time so I don't miss out on too much.