The Good News is - It's Not Covid!

 So John has been coming home from work the last week or so with a runny nose and coughs most all night long.  Naturally, I caught it from him.  Mine came on really fast and included a horrible ear ache and sore throat.  It started last Thursday night and by Saturday morning - at 5:00 a.m. (those of you who know me know that 5:00 a.m. is NOT in my normal day) I got up, got dressed and told John I needed to go to Urgent Care cause I thought I had an ear infection.  Since it's the weekend, there are no doctors available and I did not want to go thru the rest of the weekend in that kind of pain. And, on Monday morning I have a mammogram scheduled, followed by a day-long class of machine embroidery.  I honestly did not want to miss those.  So we drove the 40 miles into town to go to the nearest Urgent Care.  After some discussion and ear looking-at, and throat swabbing, and temperature-taking, the Nurse Practitioner decided to test for Covid-19.  Many of my symptoms were indicative of the Plague and she wanted to rule that out.  Let me tell you, that is NOT a pleasant test - imagine a tiny little bottle brush shoved down your nasal passage as far as it will go and then being pulled out while scraping your nose from the inside.  NOT pleasant at all.  Fortunately, she was quick and the only residual effect I had was a much more runny nose for a few minutes. They called last night and said the test came out negative.  It appears I ONLY have an ear infection - for which I am taking antibiotics and pro-biotics for the next 10 days.  And today, upon waking, I've decided I will probably survive.  I slept better last night, and most of the pain is minimal.  

With the postal system at it's lowest level of efficiency in a very many years, I have decided that I need to mail the Far-Away Christmas Parcels early...much earlier than I normally do.  So today is gift-wrapping and packaging-up so the boxes can go out tomorrow.  John is cleaning the turkey and making the cranberry relish today...I will tear the bread for the dressing and might make one of the three pies I'd committed to.  Of course, I might as well make all 3 and be done with that chore.  I'm so glad we got that extra regrigerator for the garage last year - I can store all the Thanksgiving dinner items in there without taking away the space for our normal operations here inside the house.  And it will make the day go without so much stress if I can get things done in advance.  

Our annual Knotwell Girls Cookie Day is this coming Friday.  I love that day.  We only make Sugar Cookies with sprinkles on them.  We use the recipe that was handed down from one the the girls' grandmothers.  It's a basic sugar cookie recipe and they make them really thin and cook them longer than I prefer (their mother always cooked them longer and make them almost burned on the bottom so that's the way they like them - Me?  Not so much) John like them the way his sisters do, too.  So I always save some of the dough and make them the way I want them - slightly thicker and palely done - like real sugar cookies!  They NEVER frost them, only sprinkles put on before they go into the over.  That's the way they've always done it and that's the way they will continue to do it...fine with me, we get tons of sugar cookies from just one day of cooking.  Each girl brings a batch of dough which makes about 5 dozen cookies.  And there will be 6 of us this year....that's a lot of cookies!

Shiloh turned one year old this past Thursday.  We took him to the vet for his one year check-up and they are quite pleased with his growth and development.  He went to the groomer on Wednesday.  And on Tursday, I got a text from the lady who we bought him from wishing him a Happy Birthday...wasn't that a nice thing to do! 

Ive finished two stockings since last I posted.  Neither of these are going to anyone special.  They are meant to be part of a hanging swag for the fireplace - so far I only have 5 done and want about 15 more...will work on thse as I have time.  I surely do like making these.  Without bragging, I probably have over 50 kits just waiting to be made.  All of them different, all of them depicting something that resonates with me in some way.  

Thanks so much for stopping by.  More later!