on sunday morning we had planned to hit the road with our firstborn. the littlest was to spend a few days at grandma's house while we traveled and had some one on one time with j-man, camper and kayaks and bikes in tow. it was going to be our last hoo-rah before winter hit! a fall vacation!
but fate had other plans for us that did not involve a vacation.
saturday night at exactly midnight we woke up to a familiar scene: jace barking wildly from his bedroom with a harsh, raspy cough that sounded like death on our doorstep. he couldn't stop coughing and he couldn't breathe and we calmed him down as best we could. that's what happens with croup, i learned the first time we encountered it: the harder they fight it the harder it is to breathe. once we calmed him and brought out the diffuser filled with a strong peppermint oil to help him breathe, he laid back down he was sleeping and wheezing all at the same time, his breathing a raspy fight.
the croup is a virus, an inflammation of the larynx, so there isn't anything a doctor can do for it. kids up to six years old get it and i'm having the distinct motherly feeling that when you've had it once, it is easier and more frequent to contract again next time.
so you probably know the rest of the story: vacation cancelled.
wahhhhh.
although i would have expected myself to be in bed crying with disappointment, this week has actually turned out lovely in its own way. i'm not a homebody and i don't do well with having to stay in my house for long periods of time, but staying home for the last two full days and nights to make sure j gets back to health has been sort of...rewarding? refreshing? recouping? all of the above?
yesterday i turned into a feen in the kitchen. it started with my realizing i had another FULL DAY of being cooped up inside, because although j was slightly better, he still had a coughing fit every time he laughed too hard and i reallllyyy wanted him to get better quickly! so i declared it, we were on lock down again! so what to do at home all day....what to do.... dan is very good at finding things to do, and he ended up working in the garden, which was what sparked my inkling at all that, hey! we have a bucket full of jalapenos and i love me some jalapeno jelly spread on a thick slice of bread! i want that right now, jalapeno jelly! and so i set off to find a recipe, print a recipe, take a drive to the grocery store for apple cider vinegar and liquid pectin, and that was that.
all in all i made six jars of jalapeno jelly. but then i owed my dad some of my famous chocolate chip cookies for babysitting the boys on saturday while i went on a trail run, so the next thing i knew there were three dozen cookies cooling on the table. and let's keep going because i'm on a roll and there are bushels of tomatoes on my kitchen counter! my sweetest neighbor introduced me to mrs. wages. mrs. wages, i'd like you to meet meghan, who doesn't often cook and who has never canned and who has approximately one billion fresh garden tomatoes that she is drowing in. help a sister out, will you?
and SHE DID. mrs. wages and i made five pints of pasta sauce for the freezer and five pints of salsa for the freezer and we are so proud of ourselves.
and all of this while watching first you've got mail and second while you were sleeping and i'll be damned if it didn't make me just this tiny little itty bit excited for the holidays.
BUT NOW! now it is tuesday morning and i have got to run because we are finallllyyy getting a tiny vacation out of our vacation week! jace is feeling like a million bucks (one that coughs occasionally but all in all is in very, very good spirits) and so we have a date with the mountains and our kayaks! to my home and my chocolate chip cookies and my frozen sauces and my sandra bullock movies, i say to you: hasta la vista suckers!! (i don't mean to sound ungrateful, really, thank you for keeping me company the last couple of days, you're all just wonderful.)
hashtag the mountains are calling.
happy tuesday friends! (is it really tuesday!?)
xoxo
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