February 4-February 10, 2019

So I spent 3 days sick in bed and emerged on Tuesday. I was feeling a bit better and quickly started washing all the bed linen and blanket throws. I did not want to share this with Tom and Allison, or my mom. Turns out, my Mom got sick all on her own with a very bad cough. I had her stay home from the Senior Center that week, and did not take her out the following weekend. Instead we caught a movie at the little theater in her apartment complex. We saw the Ray Charles movie. I have seen it before and really like it. Mom seemed to especially enjoy the music, but it was surprisingly long. We sat there for 3 hours and she missed dinner service. Fortunately her food was still in the heating tray, so I served her in the dining room. Afterwards I had her open her Valentine gift. I picked up some flowers, chocolates and a new flowered shirt. I also put up some Valentine decorations in her room.

Since I missed two days of work and don't have any sick time yet, I decided to make it up at the end of the week and worked Weds thru Saturday. Which worked out well since I was scheduled to work that weekend anyway. But Saturday was a very long day since I was the only OT on the schedule.

And it turns out my boss was sick all week as well as a few other therapists. So it wasn't just me and I was not playing hookie from a night of Super Bowl partying. I did have to juggle my work week on the first day back however. Mom had a dentist appointment on Weds morning. So I went in to work for an hour in the morning and then went and picked up Mom for her dentist appointment. We picked up lunch to go and then I dropped her back off to her place before heading back to work. A very busy schedule for my first day back from being off sick.

Meanwhile, Allison and Tom were doing their best to avoid me and my flu/cold?.  Fortunately there was plenty of food for them both since I had been busy shopping and cooking the week before. They decided to catch the $5 movie on Tuesday night. Allison took Tom to see the Spiderman movie, Into the Spider Verse. I had already seen it so I was not missing out. They did not have the $5 movie, but took $5 off on the more expensive movie experience complete with surround sound and vibrating seats(not that they wanted to see a movie like that, but they had no choice). And they charge more for these movie experiences. On Saturday night, the two drove up to Hershey, PA to catch a Hershey Bears Hockey game. They left early and stopped into Candy Land(Tom was doing some early Valentine shopping!). They also stopped into an outlet store and Allison picked up a pair of dressy, kakhi pants and a blue blazer for work before heading to the game. The Bears won in overtime and Allison and Tom report it was a very exciting and fun game. Maybe I will be able to catch a game with those two sometime. 

Allison also finally was able to volunteer on her Friday off with the Northrop STEM group at a local Baltimore school. The team of about a dozen female mentors met with a group of girls from an inner city school to introduce the students to a science and engineering project. They taught the girls about the binary computer language by making matching beaded bracelets. Allison said she was having more fun than the students! Tom used to host STEM educational presentations sponsored by Northrop at  Allison and Scott's parochial school when they were young with presentations like making spaghetti and gum drop towers and bridges, paper airplane races and egg drop containers. Allison is happy to carry on the tradition!

While she was visiting the school, I had to get off work early on Friday to take Cookie to her yearly vet appointment. Mainly Cookie is doing well at 9 years old, but she has been fighting an ear infection all last year. We are trying another medication that is inserted in her ear and they will reassess in a month. She was also due to her yearly shots, but we are splitting them up. She will get a few more when she returns in a month. Cookie is just happy to visit with all the other dogs at the vet clinic!

I have also been enjoying watching the birds discover our window feeder over the kitchen sink. It is fun to see the birds fly up while washing the dishes. They are always fascinated to watch what I am doing too!

This week we celebrate Eric Seitz's Birthday(father of Claire Seitz)! Wonder if Eric brought home a big birthday cake for himself. Happy Birthday Eric!