I somehow managed to come down with a killer cold the afternoon before Thanksgiving (very soon after reaching my parents' house). On the bright side, that prevented me from overeating. My head was so stuffy that I couldn't taste much of anything, so I wasn't really tempted by anything. My mom had even just made chocolate candy, and I didn't eat a bit of it the whole time I was there. I pretty much spent the holiday lying on the sofa and watching football with my dad. I made it through an entire Cowboys game for the first time in years and watched parts of a few other games where I wasn't entirely sure who was playing. In the state I was in, I wasn't really following the games. My parents how have HD, so I was appreciating football on the "oooh, pretty picture" level.
I started to feel moderately human and coherent by Saturday, so I was able to drive back home, and now it seems to have mostly run its course, aside from a lingering cough and a lot of tiredness (which probably has something to do with the cold making it difficult to sleep). As often as I've been sick this fall, I'm wondering if I have a bit of first-year teacher syndrome. Apparently, people who haven't been around kids much who start teaching school, especially with younger children, get sick a lot their first year because they don't have any immunity to all the bugs kids pass around. I'm only around the kindergardeners once a week, but that may be enough to keep me coughing and wheezing.
I need to get back to normal quickly because the Christmas season is going to hit with a vengeance, and quickly. This coming weekend will be the crazy one, which I hope will mean the rest of the season is easy. Saturday morning, I've got a choir rehearsal and then there's a community service project going on at the church that I'll do some work on while I'm there. Meanwhile, the next town over is having a holiday festival on the old downtown square, with the festival doubling as the grand opening of the new rail station, so I may swing over there while I'm out and about to check out the new station and see if I can feel festive from looking at an old town square all decked out for the holidays. That night, I'm going to a party. Then Sunday morning, my children's choir is singing in the early service and then I'm singing with the adult choir in the late service. We're doing our community Christmas concert that evening, so there's another rehearsal that afternoon before the concert. I hope I get my voice back by then, and I suspect the following Monday will be a veg-out day.
Otherwise, I just have events on both of the subsequent Saturdays. I'm not sure when I'm going to get around to decorating my house. I'm not really in a holiday mood yet. I did watch my first bad Lifetime holiday movie of the year on Sunday when I was huddled on the sofa with a pot of tea (the movie was mostly interesting because the actor who plays Nathan the numb but sensitive detective from Haven was the romantic hero, but he had spectacularly unfortunate hair. Like, I couldn't even look at the screen when he was on and not wearing a hat). There are years when I contemplate skipping the holidays, aside from external events. Like, I'd still do the choir stuff and go to parties and buy gifts and visit my parents for Christmas, but I wouldn't bother decorating my house, listening to Christmas music at home or watching Christmas movies. Taking a year off might make it more special later. But then I like doing all that stuff and would probably miss it. When I'm feeling better and have been exposed to a bit of the usual seasonal things, then maybe I'll be more in the mood.
I am going to try to stay in the writing groove. My grand plan is to find balance, to spend the days when I have no other plans doing serious writing, even into the night, but then take some other days off. The plan is kind of for today to be a writing binge day, since I don't feel much like doing anything else.
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