Happy Holidays, dear readers. It's been a while. I've been busy and, as is my wont at this time of year, I got the flu. I started coming down with it the last day of class. That Thursday and the following day, I thought I'd just slept on myself wrong for a couple of nights (although I'm not sure what that would mean). By Saturday, travel day, I knew I was getting sick. So, unfortunately, I was a big snuffleupagus for the first few days of vacation. Yesterday was the first day that I felt I was operating at >50%.
We spent the week before Christmas at Kevin's brother's wife's parents' (capisce?) vacation pad. Present were Kevin's brother, Chris; Chris's wife, Kirsten; their two kids, 3yo Ashley and 2 mo Sydney; Kevin and Chris's parents, Jack and Fern; Jack and Fern's cat, Riley. Pictures here. Somehow I managed not to get a picture of Sydney. For shame!
So, yeah, I seem to have this tendency to get a cold or flu at certain times: the end of the semester, when heading off to vacation, when a paper's due, etc. Wrt the end of the semester, it feels like what happens is that I keep my focus on school throughout the semester and just keep pushing with that as my main focus until the end of the semester, when I just stop pushing. I feel a kind of a psychological shift, almost as if I give myself permission to stop pushing and to relax wrt what I'm doing, what I want to do, when I want/need to do it by, etc. OTOH, I suppose it's good if I it keeps me healthy when I most need to be healthy. OTOH, it kinda stinks to get the flu on vacation and holidays. I had the flu last Christmas, too; I'm really not trying to get out of holiday cooking.
I understand that stress can make a person more vulnerable to getting a cold or the flu, or other illnesses. And by stress, I include good things, e.g., going on vacation, as well as negative things, e.g., a job loss. I don't think I live a particularly stressful life, although I do think I have these definite changes in focus/priorities; downshifts when there's less going on/I don't want to get so much stuff done and upshifts when there's more going on/I want to get certain things done. Seems like those downshifts often coincide with my colds/flus. So I'd like to see what I can do about avoiding that in the future. I would really have preferred not being sick on vacation; I feel like such a party pooper. This link talks about general techniques for avoiding stress-related illnesses:
Certain techniques, like journaling, yoga and even laughter have all been found to increase immunity.
I do find that blogging regularly makes me feel more balanced. After posting, I often feel, 'I've been thinking about that for a while. Putting some words on the screen made me think about it in different ways. I'm glad I got that off my chest.' There are things I don't write about here, or at least post about here (sometimes I write w/o posting it), usually for reasons of privacy, identification, anonymity, etc. I had a pseudonymous blog there for a while, but found I wanted to share other stuff w/family and friends, so I started this one. I've been thinking about starting up a second, anonymous blog where I can let it all hang out. I suppose I could just keep a diary, but I'm kinda hooked on this blogging thing. I think I might just do that other blog.
Let's move on to Kevin's Christmas dinner. We had a nice, quiet dinner, just the two of us. I enjoy larger holiday gatherings, too, as long as I like and feel comfy with most, if not all, of the people. One nudge out of 30 is easier to deal with than one nudge out of 5. Dinner was salad, beef tenderloin, bernaise sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, green beans with pecans, and a warm brownie with ice cream, chocolate syrup and whipped cream. The visuals:
Salad (how healthy of us):
The tenderloin after it came out of the oven.
Dinner is served:
Mmmmm:
Kevin had bought some hot cocoa mix that you use with whole milk, but I begged him to have mercy on me and let's have that chocolate goodness another time.
The chef:
The sous-chef:
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