We’ve been noticing how our energy level rises with the warm weather and drops with the colder weather. If the weather outdoors is a barometer for our energy and health (or is it vice versa?) then when these temperatures took a dive from the high 60s into the  deep negative zone (was it really -30 out?!), so did our health! Britton and I were both out with fever, sneezing, coughing, stuffiness, and gunk for most of this week…and we’re still trying to come out of it. The cold brought us a cold!

We usually don’t get sick, but this stuff laid us out. We took two days off work (Britton still worked from home on one of them, the workaholic). The dry, dry air from the furnace only made it worse, and our little room humidifier pooped out on us. So we were dry and staticky and feeling yucky. But, I would rather have that than no furnace at all, like the animals outside…

Speaking of which, Britton built the chickens their own “furnace” with the heat lamp, a blanket covering and extra straw in their coop inside the greenhouse. And it worked! It never went below 0 in the coop! And during the day when the sun was up, it was in the 50s when everywhere else it hadn’t hit the postive numbers.

Even though we were all stuffed up and stuffed in the house, it was nice spending some time together with Britton, dozing in and out of sleep, taking long hot showers, hanging out in our robes all day, playing with the pets, making chicken and barley soup, watching old movies and daytime TV that we NEVER see. (For those of you who don’t see daytime TV, you are missing out on some of the weirdest shows out there -soap operas; infomercials; old syndicated shows; and lots of commercials urging you to sue people, to go to a vocational school, and, of course, to buy cold medicine!)

So, while it was kind of fun (minus all the tissues, hacking and lack of energy) to stay home together and hang out in this other world we never see, I’m ready to be out and about again. I am ready for spring, summer, and Puerto Rico. I am ready to be done with this COLD and be on the rise.